One Friday in January we received a knock on the door and found a deputy standing outside the house we have happily rented for 6+ years with a notice that we had five days to vacate. We were completely shocked. It turned out that the owner of the property we had been renting had been foreclosed on and the property we were living was one of those that the bank had taken possession of, back in AUGUST! Our "former" landlord had been pocketing our rent since August and the foreclosure bank had no idea. When they learned of these circumstances, they were surprisingly understanding, yet they still wanted us to move out, but they were giving us until April. I changed jobs during this year, so that meant we could look at a wider geographical range. Needless to say, we didn't want to look at all, but again this wasn't something we really had a choice with as buying the property on which we had been living was not an option. They were still trying to get pre-bubble bursting prices!?
So we had to do house hunting in a hurry. It felt like we had to go through a year's worth of reflection, evaluation, prioritizing, legwork, and research in just a few months. It was insanity at its finest, but we found a house that we were interested in. For us, what it came down to was the question of if we wanted to pay more for a house that was truly move-in ready, but had little room for improvement and equity, or if we wanted more of a fixer upper, that cost less up front, needed work up front, and had lots of head room for equity. We chose the later. The house we picked was a pit, I mean an absolute dump. It is filthy dirty with nicotine and tar stains dripping down the walls, a tiny bathroom that is just disgusting and barely has a trickle of water running through it due to the original 1947 plumbing, original fuse box and wiring, and soaking wet insulation in the attic. The shrubs haven't been trimmed for two years, so what were cute 3 foot tall manicured shrubs are now 7 foot tall monstrosities.
We closed on this house one week ago after quite a few hiccups and delays. This was a house that was under a reverse mortgage, so it was rather complicated to get everything in line, and no one was in as much of a hurry as we were. But in the end, is is done so now the question has been where do we go from here.
We began by demolishing the attic with the wet insulation. What an unbelievably hot, dirty, and itchy job. I am so glad that it is done at this point. It was kind of fun, though, truth be told. I got to burn loads of calories, and my husband and I had a great time working together. From here we begin cleaning the walls. I had tried several things: baking soda, vinegar nothing was touching it. A lady working in the paint department of our local Lowe's recommended something called Greased Lightning to us. Her husband used to smoke, and she used it herself after he stopped smoking in the house. We tried it last night after we had finished the insulation. It worked like magic! Hardly any nicotine staining was left on the walls and it smelled nice and fresh, not a heavy chemically smell, though it will drip down the walls so it was suggested to us that we start at the bottom and work our way to the top. We will try it out tomorrow or the next day. I can't wait to see how it goes.
On to the next step in the adventure.
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