It's not a house, it is our home

PICTURES FINALLY PICTURES

2008-09-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

CODI'S ROOM
THIS WAS THE ROOM THAT USED TO HAVE DOG SHIT ON THE BEDS, AND BLOOD ON THE WALLS. IT HAD KICKED IN WALLS AND DOORS.

BRANDONS ROOM (THIS PHOTO TURNED OUT WONKY)

ISN'T HIS LITTLE CLOSET CUTE
HE HAS HIS OWN LITTLE READING AREA IN THERE

I HAVE A LINEN CLOSET!

THE BOYS BATHROOM NEW VANITY, NO MORE PINK!!!!

MASTER BEDROOM

MASTER BATHROOM. THIS IS THE ONE THAT WAS ROTTING. THE SHOWER IS NEW, THE LITTLE SHELVES WILL GET CURTAINS OVER THEM AND THE REST IS ALL NEW NEW NEW!
NEW VANITY AND MIRROR
LEAVING THE BATHROOM

NEW LIVING ROOM. THESE FLOORS USED TO BE SORT OF A GRAY COLOR FROM BEING TREATED SO SHITTY
CUTE LITTLE ENTRY...THE FLOORS USED TO BE COVERED IN NASTY DIRT AND HAIR AND GROSSNESS

KITCHEN REDOUX. NEW COUNTERS, APPLIANCES, SOME NEW CABINETS AND NEW FLOORS.

THE DINING AREA. IT WAS SO GROSS Y'ALL
WHERE I SIT AND DRINK MY COFFEE IN THE AM
TABLE THE GROSSHEADS LEFT BEHIND
PROP YOUR FEET UP AND WATCH A SHOW
CLEAN LAUNDRY ROOM!!!
WITH CLEANING SUPPLIES
DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM WITH NEW SHOWER
MIRROR WENT UP TONIGHT
STILL TO COME, THE PANTRY, ROBS GAME ROOM AND THE OUTSIDE.
ALSO THE VIDEO MONTAGE WITH BEFORE AND AFTER!
NONE OF THE SHELVES OR DECORATIONS ARE UP EITHER. STAY TUNED FOR THAT!

A tiny preview

2008-09-14T19:27:00.001-07:00

Codi's room and closet

All the rooms are painted. We've stained the floors in one room. All that's left is touch ups, floors, and small things. Small things like attaching toilet paper rolls and drawer handles.

Can't wait!

Making major progress

2008-08-29T09:14:00.001-07:00

LAUNDRY ROOM PAINTED AND FLOORED

DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM PAINTED, VANITY, TOILET AND SHOWER IN
DOWNSTAIRS BATH SHOWER AND VANITY
KTICHEN, ALL APPLIANCES IN, MY DAD IS PUTTING IN LIGHTING. FLOORING AND PAINT ARE DONE TOO!
CLOSE UP OF FRIDGE AND PAINT
CLOSE UP OF NEW FIBER FLOORS
NEW CABINETS AND PAINT
THIS IS THE KITCHEN PAINT COLOR, ONLY ITS MORE LIGHT GOLD IN REAL LIFE
BOYS BATHROOM WITH NEW WHITE TOILET, AND TUB. NEW VANITY AND FIBER FLOORS. THE TILE STILL LOOKS MIGHTY PINK, I'M HOPING WHEN THE WALLS ARE PAINTED IT WILL LOOK LESS WEIRD. I READ ABOUT PRIMING PAINT FOR TILES BUT I KNOW MY MOM WOULD NEVER LET ME PAINT THE TILES A MORE NEUTRAL COLOR BECAUSE THEY ARE ANTIQUES OR SOME SHIT. ISN'T THEIR FIBER FLOOR NEATO?
BRAND NEW MASTER SHOWER WITH NEW SHELVES ON THE SIDE
NEW VANITY, AND PAINTED WALLS
MASTER BATH FLOORING
MORE OF THE SHOWER AND SHELVES, I AM PAINTING THE SHELVES TO MATCH THE VANITY
ALL THE JUNK THAT STILL NEEDS TO BE INSTALLED, MORE LIGHTING, AND TOWEL RACKS, TOILET PAPER THINGS ECT.
MAIN HOUSE COLOR.
At this point all that is left to do is paint the main house walls and sand and stain the floors. We can not paint or sand until after the party because the floors take 4-5 days. We have to paint after the floors because sanding kicks up a ton of dust meaning I would have to wash the walls twice.

I want to take a minute to talk about my dad. Watching all this stuff has made me think he's a damn genius. He can wire lights, and do plumbing, and floors and paint and it blows me away. However yesterday when the alarm people came I really understood how much different he thinks then the rest of the world. The alarm guy was telling me that because of wires they had to locate key pads, sirens, and such in really wonky stupid ass places. I explicitly said NO. I may be an idiot girl but even I knew there is more then one way to skin a cat. This asshole alarm guy actually had the nerve to argue with me. Finally my dad sensing my frustration stepped in. My dad who spends his days running thermostat and zoning wires in houses. Who knows that there is almost always a way to please the customer finally showed the guy like THREE different ways to accomplish what I want. At one point one of the guys flat out told me it was impossible to access the back side of a certain wall and my dad stood there completely dumbfounded because the backside of the wall was the goddamn garage wall. I don't know how much more accessible it could be. Or later when I said I didn't want a fucking alarm siren located in my living room. I told them I wanted it in this little cubby near the kitchen. They were adamant that it COULD NOT BE DONE. I stared at it for a second and said, "umm isn't there a closet right behind it, and below that isn't it crawl space?" Can't you just run the wires like that. The guy started getting mad at me kind of telling me he just couldn't wire it that way. Again, my dad senses that I am about 14 seconds from going atomic bitch on these guys and walks over and shows them THREE MORE ways to make my wish happen. They actually tried to argue with him not realizing, he has run all the duct work and thermostat wires int hat house, obviously he knows every inch of that place. I walked away from that install visibly upset. What bothered me most is that in the end, it seemed the alarm guys didn't want to do any more work then necessary. Total this alarm has cost me close to $3,700.00. For that much money I honestly think they could have been a little nicer, a little more willing, and a little less lazy about shit. I'm very happy my dad was there. Had he not been I think those guys would have taken advantage of me being just a young girl and forced me to have things in a way I wouldn't have been happy.

Today's progress

2008-08-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

Brandon eating outside on the patio

Playing in his new tree fort

I call this one Studly plumbers of Reno

Peeling up the second layer of old linoleum

How many men does it take to pull up a floor

Putting in our new guest shower

Look Codi this is your new house

Yeah whatever dad I just want to chew on your screwdriver

My cousin Benny installing my shiny new GIANT water heater

The shower

This would be the carpet man. He think's he's pretty rad.

WE ALMOST HAVE CARPET

I was working very hard

The beginning of the new shelving unit

Building my new island

One of the builders showing me his big umm....tape measurer

Torching shit

My shiny new butcher block island

New cabinets almost finished

WE HAVE CARPET IN THE MAN ROOM

And glorious walls in the bathroom

Walls wonderful walls

THE BEER PONG TABLE!!!

Front of my pretty island

Movin and a shakin

2008-08-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

LOOK WE HAVE TOILETS. THERE IS A SHOWER BEHIND THEM

THE DISHWASHER IS "IN" THE HOUSE

NEW MASTER SHOWER PAN

PRETTY NEW LIGHTING FOR THE DINING ROOM

AHEM. MY FATHER AND HUSBAND WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT THEY TOTALLY REALIZED THE KITCHEN HOOD WAS INSTALLED TO BLOCK THE DOOR. THEY ONLY LEFT IT THAT WAY TO SEE IF WE WOULD ALL NOTICE. THEY HAVE SINCE REMOVED IT AND BOUGHT A NEW ONE

MY DAD AND BRANDON RIPPING UP THE SECOND LAYER OF OLD LINOLEUM

SHINY NEW SINK ON SHINY NEW COUNTERS

EXTRA SHINY NEW CONVECTION OVEN

MY PRETTY NEW FIVE BURNER GAS RANGE. OOOO BABY

LOOK LOOK THERE IS HALF A WALL IN THE DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM NOW. AND ALSO..PLUMBING!!!!!

STILL REMOVING FLOORS

BRAND NEW FART FAN LIGHT COMBOS (FART FAN IS A TECHNICAL TERM)

MASTER SHOWER RELOCATED TO NEW WALL

NICELY GROOMED BACK YARD!

I BEGING PACKING AND MOVING TOMORROW. WE HOPE TO BE FULLY MOVED IN BY NEXT FRIDAY IN TIME FOR THE HUGE PARTY ON THE 30TH. IF YOU KNOW ME IN REAL LIFE, I AM HAVING A MOVING PARTY ALL WEEK. YOUR ALL INVITED. I WILL PAY YOU WITH PIZZA AND BEER!

TOMORROW THE PLUMBERS PLAN TO FINISH ALL THE DRAINS AND THE FLOOR GUY WILL INSTALL CARPET. SATURDAY MY DAD AND HUSBAND WILL BE SANDING THE HARDWOOD PREPPING IT FOR VARNISH AND STAIN AND WHAT EVER OTHER SHIT YOU PUT ON HARD WOOD. WE HOPE TO HAVE NEW KITCHEN FLOORS AND BATHROOM FLOORS THIS WEEK!

Mold, rot and a cherry on top

2008-07-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I walked into the house to see this. That would be the master bathroom floor laying in the master bedroom. Lets look closer

This would be where the water went all the way around the bathroom and under the master bedroom hardwood floors. They are now warped and damaged.

If you look to the bottom left you can see the water damage better

But wait, step inside.

Then you can see the mold. The builder buddy was pulling up the old floors and came across this

Lots and lots of black mold.

This is a close up of the flooring he had pulled out. Both sides of the wood were covered in mold

This was the piece that went around the toilet

MOLD!!!!!

Today I walked in to find out that under the bathtub/shower were WARPED FLOORS! They removed the tub and found this. Look close, in the middle left of the picture you can see the wood was so warped all of its layers were seperating

The entire section to the right of the pipes had to be removed (pictures of that tomorrow). The builder told me that had we not caught this the bathtub would have actually fallen through the wood. NEAT! If you look down those holes you can see directly into the downstairs bathroom.

Close up of the massive water damaged floor under the tub. Every day we find more shit to repair!

One more close up just so I can stress THERE WAS A FUCKING LEAK. IT MADE THE FLOORS WARP AND FALL APART. BATHTUB WOULD HAVE SUNK IN. MOTHERFUCKER RENTERS!

Almost looking down into the guest bathroom

The master bathroom totally gutted, you can see through into my secret hiding space (aka my attic)

It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's.......

2008-07-22T14:38:00.001-07:00

SUPER BUILDERS

3 trucks worth!

Under the sink is all ripped out. This is the future home of a garbage disposal, just to the left, those cabinets are the future home of a shiny stainless steal dishwasher

How many builders does it take to change a light bulb?

My dad ripped out my old cook top. That is the future home of a shiny new gas stove. I will get pictures of the giant trench they dug to run me a gas line

I walked upstairs to find the pink sink and floor laying in the hallway

The pink bathroom is no more. I've also been advised that they will be repainting the pink tub white. I didn't even know they could do that. I guess there are special bathtub repainting shops.

Walking into the master bathroom I discovered the cabinets laying in a pile.

By by purple sink and ugly cabinets

We have been advised to list these old funny colored things on Craigs List in San Francisco

They are also pulling out the rotten bathtub in the master bathroom and putting in a shiny new Shower. In the downstairs bathroom they will be moving the water heater and putting in a shiny new shower. In the boys bathroom they will be ripping the weird doors off the bathtub, repainting it and fixing it all up into a shiny new tub.

Bob the Builder

2008-07-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Insurance had us bring in a builder to give an estimate on repairs. Things are worse then I thought. Water damage has moved from bathroom to master bedroom hard wood floors. I really hope insurance approves this because the house is increasingly becoming more then we can handle.

Someone mentioned that my one month goal seemed to short in a comment. That goal was back when I thought we only needed to paint, install appliances, and put down some new kitchen floors.

Everyone keeps bugging me to pack. I'm not packing. I have family coming in the weekend of the 2nd for Brandons birthday. They are staying with me. I refuse to have my house in disarray when they come here. Also, unless we get the builder approved I don't feel like we will be moving in anytime in 2008. I have another party coming up the last day in August. I already sent out invites with the new address. The builder tells me he can do it in time. My mom says, "ehh, if not we just have the party anyway...only at a big empty house."

Yeah, because that's not weighing on my nerves!

The parents went to lowes. They picked out a new gas cook top. My dad is cutting in a gas line for me so I can have a gas stove instead of electric. I'll take some pictures of the massive disaster today at work and post some updates!

Holy Shit

2008-07-17T10:38:00.001-07:00

I came across these pictures the other day. They were taken while the renters still lived there to show us the cabinet color. We gave them 24 hours notice that we were coming in so they could get cleaned up and stuff. This was at 8:30 in the morning. Look at all the shit on their counters left from the night before.

Crusted food on the stove, look at all the bottles and mess on their counters. If you look close you can see the table they used as an island that the bottom of the picture. They left their ketchup out. Ewww. Also on that table was a plate with caked on stale nasty food, and cigarette butts galore. I can't believe they wouldn't have cleaned better knowing we were coming over.

This is under the house. You can see the water leaks, and water damage.

There should not be water under the house (left of picture)

More water leaking under the house

My dad was framing in the refrigerator cove. That nail gun is so powerful it was shooting little sparks out with each shot. That thing scared the living shit out of me!

The remaining junk they left behind. I've decided I'm keeping the cute little table though.

So. You want to take a shower huh? Hmm appears to be some stuff in there. I wonder why?

OOOOOO because there is a giant hole in my shower. Umm interesting huh. Yes, seems the water leak was determined to be behind the shower. The insurance company brought in plumbers who had to cut a hole in my shower. At the end of the day the insurance company has told us to bring in a builder friend of ours to help out. Looks like I will be getting a brand new bathroom, along with the boys, and most likely the down stairs.

A close up of the neat little hole in my shower

Water leaking down the wall

I've determined that we will not be moving in by the end of the month. Sooo I am now shooting for the end of August. I hope that works out since I used the new address on my husbands birthday invites. I'm excited by the prospect of a new bathroom that is not so, umm, PURPLE!

The crazy thing is that it seemed like fate that we had to move in, and the renters lease was up. I mean can you imagine how much worse this would have been had we let them renew their lease and continue living there KNOWING there was a leak and not telling us? I'm really glad the insurance company is offering to help out too. I hope we are able to get the builder in soon because this is turning into a lot more work then my dad and husband can handle on their own.

Which one of these things doesn't belong

2008-07-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

I walked in and found this.

Hmmm what is that pile of wood? Odd. Let me go inside and see.

Ooooo I see, my stairs are missing.

Does anyone else wonder why half the wall had to come off to pull off the stairs?

Odd, my toilet is gone too. I found it sitting in the driveway.

Dad and Rob framing out the new refrigerator space. They had to do this because "someone" just had to have a bigger refrigerator. No clue who that could be though.

My most favorite part of this house remodel is watching my dad and Rob hang out. They have never had much in common so it's nice seeing them hang out and talk. My dad has been teaching Rob all kinds of stuff. Last night when we were about to leave my dad sat there giving Rob instructions for the next night. (pictured above) He prattled on and on about measuring this and cutting that and my eyes rolled back in my head, but Rob just listened and tried to retain. I thought it was so cute. Rob gets off earlier so he will be there before my dad, I can't wait to see if he remembers everything my dad told him.

Not sure what they did

2008-07-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

I wasn't there last night. All I know is instead of working on the house my husband and dad made a trip to Home Depot. I'm not sure if I've ever told you this but my dad IS NOT ALLOWED TO GO TO HOME DEPOT UNSUPERVISED or he comes home with A LOT OF STUFF!

From what I've been told there are talks of fixing and redoing bathrooms (not originally planned), and since it was only my husband and dad there it seems there was some secret talks about a pool table.

The things my dad says when my mom and I aren't there!!!!!

I'm pretty sure pool table was never in the original remodeling plans? I could be wrong, but, I'm pretty sure it wasn't!

Demolition Derby

2008-07-09T10:37:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my spare bathroom. This would be where we found the mold as a result from the "secret" leak the renters didn't feel like mentioning. Here is all the insulation pulled from the walls.

This would be mold covering the insulation

The backside of the walls

The inside of the walls with mold and rot

More of the wall and house frame

How my spare bathroom looks now

Sadly my walls now live in the trash

Insurance came right over. Since mold was involved they treated it as an emergency. Luckily it looks like we will be able to get some money to help with repairing that bathroom. Hopefully it is enough there was a considerable amount of damaged.

**Not pictured, the giant humongous spooky spider that was inches above my head while I was taking photos. I guess they tried to kill him last night but he was to quick.

Saying goodbye also known as BRING ON THE SLEDGEHAMMER!

2008-07-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

Todays theme was REMOVAL!

Before I arrived my dad and husband removed the freezer, washer and dryer (I have pics of removal on another camera). Here is what I found.

The extra clean floor.

Under the dryer and freezer

Excuse me while I puke....Under the washer
Say goodbye to the 1970's stove. They are making room for my shiny new convection oven
Ucky stove GONZO!
Moved the fridge and found this...lots of glue and holes random ass holes too
Plus cable wire. Because...cable wire definitely belongs behind the fridge right?
My shiny new fridge is far to tall and wide for this odd little fridge cubby (built for some kind of fashion statement) so FRIDGE CUBBY BE GONE!
Rob was like let me at this bitch
Seriously his eyes were glittering with excitement over the damn sledgehammer...you should have seen it when they brought out the big one whew boy!
My mom finally got pissed and started beating it up from the outside
Then my dad said, "hey guys let me get my Sawzall into this shit"
And he cut that cubby right out
Fridge cubby gone! Next up, sheetrock, taping, texturing, and a bunch of other shit that made my eyes roll up in my head! Oh right we have to cap off the cable, cap off the random ass little plug we found hiding above the fridge. Really, it didn't do anything it was just a GFI, pretty fucking funny the random shit we found from the original owners!

Finally though some progress!

Floors

2008-07-07T10:58:00.001-07:00

I had my floor guy come over today. We planned to rip out the rotting linoleum and put in new linoleum. He informed me that whoever put in the last linoleum actually ripped up the old floors and instead of removing the glue just put new glue over old glue and has now ruined the floors. So! Now, since those two layers of glue and flooring aren't going to be removable I now have to purchase pricier laminate floors such as Pergo and have those laid on top of the old floor probably doubling if not tripling my cost. What will I find next?

Will the puke ever stop

2008-07-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Quick update, while walking around the garage I just found a third puke target. Looks like this time they must have been leaning on the house to get stabilized and yarfed all down the side of the house. I'm actually impressed, this one took talent, I mean I don't even really know how you puke down the side of a house!

On the second day of Christmas my piece of shit ex renters gave to me

2008-07-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

Vomit and mold and a partridge in a pear tree.

First I want to address the issue of the security deposit that you all keep asking about. ABSOLUTELY NOT THEY WILL NOT GET BACK A DIME!
Now. By law my mom has 30 days to make necessary repairs and then provide the renters with a list of said repairs and a letter explaining how much, if any they will get back from their deposit. Then, if the amount is more then what we collected from them (I believe $1,000.00) we have the option to take them to court to collect the remaining balance of our repairs. Up until yesterday we were of the thinking that taking them to court would be futile since they are on social security, not working, and blow the rest of their money on liquor and cleaning products.

However last night as we entered the house to really start ripping shit out and logging repairs we found some things that may force us to take them to court. The night actually started good. Things were moving and shaking, changes were happening and we were having a good time.

We arrived to see that the gardener had gotten the back yard cleaned up pretty good for his first day on the job. He even cleaned out the big apple tree for Brandons fort.

Looking up in the fort
He fit in it perfect, I was really excited for him to play in it
Ugly 1970's wall paper BE GONE! Honestly the wall paper came out like nothing. My mom actually had that almost all pulled out in the kitchen in about 5 minutes. We showed up in time to finish the kitchen and help with the bathroom.
Here is what the kitchen looks like with out yellow flower wallpaper

And then...They moved to the downstairs bathroom. They were peeling paper out like a champ and all the sudden I hear, "OH MY FUCKING GOD, SHANNON COME GET A PICTURE OF THIS"
This would be a wall full of mold we discovered.
Rob peeled a little more back only to see
More mold. Now here is the obnoxious part. In the last letter written to us by the renter she wrote, "I noticed the bathroom shower leaking but didn't want to tell you and be a bother" and then some bullshit about her being a nice tenant. The part that bugs me the most about this is my parents own 3 other homes on this street. They take great care of them, and for only rentals houses they spend an insane amount of money up keeping them. If her tenant had ever called and mentioned a leak there would have been a plumber there faster then you could blink, I know because our other normal tenants who report things have all been totally happy at the speed things have been fixed. These are old homes, we expect stuff to happen that need repair, but we also expect our fucking tenant to tell us. Whats worse is if you go outside the wall behind this bathroom is covered in white stuff obviously showing a leak but no one told us. I'm not sure, but I think there is some kind of disclosure law where the renters had to tell us about this. Either way this is mold, it's going to cost a lot of money and we are really fucking mad, because this is going to cost far more then their stupid fucking deposit. I'm just glad we have it in writing that they knew it and chose not to tell us.
At this point I got banished from the room since I was wearing Codi in the Moby. I headed upstairs to show Codi his room. My mom had mentioned something about his room that I might want to look at. So, I looked out his window, and discovered that the dumb fuck kid who lived in this room had popped his screen out and puked out onto the roof. This would be the same kid who upon inspection of the house had dried dog shit on his bed!
Norma, our friend and helper cussed a way lot yesterday.
I spent the majority of the time walking around with Codi taking pictures
I was allowed in to snap one quick photo after all the wall paper had come down. You can see the mold ended up going all the way down the wall.
I had a couple Salt City candles next door at work so I packed them over, as the smell of ROT was beginning to fuck with my head. Today I have packed up about 7 more candles and plan to smell up every room when we are there.
My mom finally said lets get the carpet and mattress out right now because they smell the worst. They lifted up the older sons mattress to move it and this is the back of it. This kid was sleeping on this.
This would be the under side of the ONE YEAR OLD CARPET!!!!
That would be one year of dog piss.

This is a second area of the carpet
In this photo my husband was trying to pretend like he wasn't on the verge of puking his guts out touching this carpet
More dog piss, liquor, and probably bodily fluids
This would be the one year old padding. ONE YEAR PEOPLE! When we pulled out the entire carpet in my house last year to lay down pergo there were no spots like this NONE AND IT WAS 8 FUCKING YEARS OLD!
At the end of the day, Rob was getting high from the mold toxins and making silly faces at me!

At this point I would like to mention, the lady renter in her last letter basically said she knew there would be no deposit refund. Her reasoning is that we wouldn't allow her a couple extra days after her lease was up to "clean up" the house. She said that in the past her landlords had given her a couple extra days to clean and she got back "all or at least some" of her deposit back. She stated that they intended to repair the screens and fix the walls, and dirt and blah blah blah. All I'm saying is, a couple days wouldn't take the fucking mold off my walls, patch a 30+ year old door with a hole in it, replace the flooring and so on. She said that she struck a deal up with her new land lord to move in a few days early with out the place being cleaned first. So she will be moving into a dirty home, but she doesn't have to pay a full deposit. I bet it feels just like home to her!

My second visit last night

2008-07-02T07:34:00.000-07:00

If you walk out the back door try not to step in the vomit!

Well if I get hungry I can just eat some corn right?

I even got an art show, I call it "crayola on front window"
(Aside from the tub being violet) This is what they took showers in daily
When you set foot in the door this is what you are greeted with, look close to see the nasty dirt and shit
I can't imagine living in a house knowing their were giant spiders just chillin on my walls I so woulda dust busted those webs!
I can't imagine why they would have left their trash can behind, its so shiny and clean and new looking
This would be the inside of their pantry
I honestly don't understand how laundry rooms can get so fucking dirty!
They win the prize for best dusting
To show you how the carpet looked before they moved in
If you look close you can see weeds as tall as the clothes line thingy
Do you know what this is? This is the fucking exhaust for their stove. Oh my fuck I can't even imagine cooking anywhere near that thing
A close up of the tasty bugs and crap that were just inches from their food
That would be their kitchen sink...where they did their dishes
I want to barf looking at this, the inside of their silverware drawer
Some more of their drawers
Close up
Free trash come by my house!
They left me plenty of trash, dog shit, and weeds
Where they stubbed out their cigarettes on the front porch

Needless to say I spent the entire rest of the night with the heebie jeebies, convinced something was one me, on the kids, on the car seat, and just everywhere in general. I made both boys take a bath and even then I swear I could smell the rot!

The aftermath

2008-07-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

Someday I'll explain this all better. However for now I'll give you the short version. My husband and I are moving. We still have our home, but have finally decided to move into one of the homes my family owns. I wanted to do this a year ago, but I still had it in my head I wanted to live in a new home, plus I had some frustrations with the kitchen and what not. My parents last renters moved out a year ago. They were old, but they left the house in pretty good condition. My family spent hours updating the house with new paint, new carpet, new refrigerator, stoves and so on. The yard was awesome with an herb garden and even a pumpkin patch. Everything was beautiful. Then to top it all off, the airport authority came in and replaced every single window and door. Brand new triple pain windows, awesome screens, glass front doors replacing the old rickity screen doors. The house was awesome.

THEN. They had new renters move in. I will post before pictures tonight, but for now, here is what we just walked into on the day after their lease was up. We have one month to completely redo this house, wish us luck.

Piles of trash left behind

Broken furniture left behind

They stole our welcome mat, and have obviously never sweeped their porch

Brand new screen door destroyed by their dogs, the brand new sliding glass doors are scratched from the dogs claws

Their bin full of butts left just for us

Their trash just for beer bottles left behind for me to recycle

That is how often they have dusted

This would be how their kitchen floor looked, at all times, we entered the house during their time living there, it was always this gross (we are taking down the wall paper hush)

Clearly they have never mopped the kitchen, we are now being forced to remove the kitchen floors

This is what their stove looks like

A brief glance at the laundry room floor

The brand new carpet

More of the brand new carpet, this room smelled so bad I had to swallow down vomit from the stench of rot

Second brand new screen destroyed by dogs

They left me some trash

Well isn't that sweet, that would be the wall in Codis future room

The door in Codis room

What the fuck is this, also Codis room

I will be taking more photos tonight with my camera, these were taken on my work one. I will post before and after for compare contrast. I did not take photos yet of the stuff rotting in the fridge and pantry. The house is scary, the brand new ceiling lights are yellow, the walls are yellow, the curtains are gross. We have to wash and scour and dry clean and repaint, and redo the floors. I'm sad, and depressed and I can't help but feeling like this is my fault for not just moving a year ago. Stay tuned for better pictures tonight.

Edited to add: I just went around back of the house and found where the kids would open the sliding door when they were drunk and puke outside onto the patio. There is months of dried puke all over the place. I also found where the little girls had been coloring all over the windows with crayons. Finally I want to add, the people living there were a husband and wife with two boys around 17 years old, plus countless random druggie friends they were all on social security and disability for phantom illnesses. Too sick to work but not to sick to be in a band and sit around drinking. One room was use for nothing but drinking, smoking and playing games.