A Month of Hard Labor
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The old homestead
We finally made it to Colorado and now the real work began. As I mentioned in my last blog, this was not a pleasure trip. We still own a house in Aurora and we decided to sell it. The house, a rental for the past 20 year, holds lots of memories. We raised our family there, celebrated successes and failures, lots of holidays, birthdays, family outings and sometimes sad times. But living in Las Vegas makes it difficult to manage, even with a property management company, so the time has come for another family to make memories there.
Our goal was to get the house ready for sale, find an agent and get the sales ball rolling. Having been a rental for so long, we realized things wouldn't be quite the same as when we lived there, but over the years we've put lots of dollars into the house to keep it up. We've visited off and on throughout the years and sometimes grimaced at changes made by tenants, but usually the property was maintained. We were not quite prepared for what we found.
Trash was everywhere... inside, outside, in the cellar, in the garage, in the garden shed, in the yard, in every room... everyplace we looked. The once lovely, grassy yard was thigh-high with weeds and thistle, both front yard and back. A lonely fridge sat in the side yard along with several overflowing garbage cans that had never been collected. Our previous renters obviously didn't feel that same sense of responsibility and pride that we felt in the house and it showed.
Our first job was to assess what needed to be done and set up a task list to get the house into saleable condition. Midst scheduling interviews with possible real estate agents, we began the onerous task of lugging indoor trash and refuse to the garage. Everything from dirty laundry to a box of doorknobs to well-used, broken baby furniture to old doors, Xmas decorations, couches, mattresses, a burned-out BBQ grill, used motor oil, car parts and old rugs were toted to the garage. It took the junk man two loads of inside and outside rubbish to get it all. Mind you, this was not an eviction. The tenants were at the end of their lease and they even asked and received an extra week to move their stuff. They just didn't bother to take all of it and there was definitely nothing worth salvaging.
Once the trash was consolidated in the garage, we began a room by room evaluation. Carpets were pet urine-stained and red Kool-Aid stained and dog-clawed. Melted candle wax and cigarette burns adorned the bathroom vanity. One bedroom door was obviously the recipient of a swift, but well placed kick which left it with a hole and off its hinges. Closet doors were missing. I could go on and on. Mostly, it was dirty... disgustingly so.
The tenants had obviously not liked the fridge that came with the place, hence the fridge sitting in the side yard. They had moved in an oversized fridge which clearly didn't fit in the allotted space. They tore out the cabinets above and beside the fridge area, removed the door frame trim and forced the fridge into place. It stuck out so much that the door barely opened. Worse, none of the shelves could be removed, hence it could not be easily cleaned. In fact, based on what we saw and the smell it emitted, it was never cleaned. Ick!
We dug in to the house refurb with a vengeance. We were up each morning at 6am and didn't quit till after 6pm, at which time we made our list of required supplies and headed out to Home Depot or Lowes to buy what we needed, so we could start in again bright and early the next morning. We cleaned, we spackled, we painted, we repaired. We replaced doors, removed broken shower doors, replaced broken window panes, scrubbed, replaced plumbing fixtures and missing light fixtures, scrubbed some more, painted some more and then evaluated once again. We called in specialists where needed... carpet cleaners (no hope for some of the carpeting), drywallers to repair holes in the walls, an arborist to remove a couple dead trees. Mostly we were able to do the work ourselves, but oh, the days were long and our bones ached at day’s end.
We were camped out in a bedroom that we'd thoroughly cleaned as soon as we arrived. Our camping cots served as beds, plastic totes were makeshift nightstands. After the carpet was cleaned in the family room, we laid down a tarp then set up two camp chairs and camp table as our 'lounge' area. After scouring the cooktop and double ovens, we cooked some evenings, but at the end of a long, arduous day, it was easier to get a rotisserie chicken and salad or a pizza or take-out Chinese, than begin preparing a meal. Not to mention that I didn't want to have to scour the cooktop and ovens again.
A parade of neighbors stopped by, each with their tales of sins committed by the previous tenants... barking dogs, unkempt yard, a tree that needed cutting, a fence that needed mending. We were embarrassed, apologized profusely and when we could, we worked to make things right. David worked with a neighbor to repair the offending fence section. The yard was cleaned up, dead trees were cut and removed and there were no barking dogs.
After several interviews, we finally decided on an real estate agency to manage the sale. Now, the hard part... when would we be ready to put the house on the market? After two weeks of non-stop activity, we had the inside nearly complete, but the outside was still a wreck. I nearly had a heart attack when David announced we'd be ready for the market in another week. The deck was falling apart and once put back together, would need power washing and painting. The deck railing was falling down. The yard was still wild. The brick patio was so covered in weeds and debris, we couldn't see any bricks. The front yard needed attention. Dog doo and miscellaneous debris and trash lay like bombs midst all the tall weeds. A week? Really? 'Sure', he said.
And so it was, that we dug back in, finished it all in another week (within minutes of the deadline) and checked into a hotel for a couple of nights when the showings began. We're clearly not used to working the long hours nor the physical labor, but somehow we managed and actually lost a few pounds along the way. Despite my whinging, it was gratifying to see the house inside and out when we were done. Oh, it still needed some TLC, but it was clean and neat. It looked like a place I could raise a family.
Needless to say, the tenant's deposit came nowhere near covering the cost of repairs, but more importantly, who disrespects their home or other people's property that much? Go figure. And yes, we received an offer on the house and it will close some time in October. It's a bittersweet parting with our old home, but then it's only the house that will be gone, not the memories.
And now, back to Las Vegas… the slow way.