Still in the rental...

Well, we are still in rental #2 and just extended for a few more days with the intent of being out on Friday.  Sigh.  It's been a busy two weeks.  Hard to believe it's only been 2.5 weeks since we closed given how much we got done.

Remember that little washing machine blow up?  Well, it led us to more closely inspect the closet that backed up to it and we found tons of mold in there as well as sweating AC supply lines (the lines hadn't been used for years and the rats had eaten the insulation so our new AC was pumping moisture into the wall between the laundry room and guest bedroom).   We also discovered mold in the walls behind the toilet in the guest bath (so now we know why they shut off the water and didn't use it) so we had to rip out that drywall too.  The good news - the mold seems limited only to the areas where there was water damage and had not spread to other areas of the house, and our contractor was there to be able to help us repair and deal with it in short order.  The bad news - it's eaten a ton out of our budget so replacing all the broken windows is suddenly not doable.  At least the house will be healthy and clean for us...  The workers and I were all getting sick from the mold and I can report that today we're all feeling much better and the house smells infinitely better.

Thankfully my dad was also here to help get some work done - he converted the hall closet into a much-needed panty, rebuilt the disintegrating kitchen island cabinet and plumbing, took down the crumbling laundry room cabinets, helped cut out all the random utility holes in the rooms (many had two cable outlets and other random panels!), fixed our side garage door, and most importantly - he ripped out the over-sink cabinets and lofted the ceiling in the kitchen turning it from a dark, low, cave into a bright open space!  Since we absolutely can't afford to touch the kitchen this cosmetic fix helps it feel nicer but also improved the lighting of the area making it more livable.  He was also able to sort out some electrical problems for the appliances but then discovered some issues in the kitchen wiring we haven't been able to fix yet.  We upgraded everything to GFI to bring it all up to code, but something in there is tripping the circuits so most of the outlets don't work.  Sigh.  We're trying to call in another electrician this week to sort it out.  We really enjoyed his visit and I was so thankfully Clementine got to spend some quality time with him.  It was all too short though!

When Dad was removing the kitchen ceiling, insulation and a literal rain of rat poop dropped on him (ick!) so he kindly bagged it all up and took it out to the curb.  Apparently the rats had a nice little den up there to keep them warm in the winter.... oh my.  We're having the rest of the insulation sucked out this week and the attic sprayed down then we'll blow in new insulation this weekend.  Just in time before the summer heat really kicks in. 

We had to order a new washer and dryer as the hand me down one fell through and with the holiday weekend sale we decided to bite the bullet now (they arrive tomorrow).  Ugh.  We likely will have to do the water heater next, so fingers crossed we get a break on that for a little bit.  The dishwasher went in today too which we're excited about since neither rental has had one.

In good news, the pool looks downright inviting now and I am itching to do a cannonball into the deep end!  It is nothing short of miraculous what our pool guy was able to do.  We'll be spending Memorial Day at home for the first time in a decade and we're kind of sad about that - its traditionally a beach weekend for us, but we'll be getting a truck to haul our boxes from storage this weekend.  We're hoping we can at least grill out and swim on the actual holiday.

Papa John and Clementine (on the right) watching the huge garbage pick up truck - she was fascinated with it!

A funny side note, our house is apparently notorious in the city waste department... when they showed up for the 4th pick up I apologized to the the guy (who was incredibly nice and thorough) for all the mess and he said "oh yeah, when I saw the address I knew what I was in for since I've already been here twice".  I laughed, but also felt awful.  Hopefully the worst of the mess is coming to an end.  I spent my evening last night vacuuming our grass for garbage scraps with a shop vac since there was bits of insulation, glass, and styrofoam everywhere after the pick up.  We had a pretty huge pile - it was bagged rat poop insulation, the kitchen ceiling, MORE of the seller's junk we found in the attic, the old pool equipment, the rest of the carpet, moldy drywall, the old toilets... even the neighbors can't believe how much stuff has come out of this house (apparently the seller even took two loads of junk to the dump before we closed!).

I have lots of pictures and some video, but the internet connection at this rental is ridiculously slow so I don't think we'll get to upload them until this weekend.  Thankfully we have internet and phone up at the new house and Wade's cracking through the painting.  We still have to put up our closet organizers so we can actually hang clothes, but at least Clementine's room is somewhat functional so she has somewhere to hang when we take her over to the house.  It's been hard to stay positive with all the crazy crap that's gone wrong, but I think once we're in the house and can swim it'll feel a lot better.  I did spend all afternoon yesterday scrubbing the kitchen cabinets, which were literally the filthiest things I have ever seen... I had to shop vac them first to remove all the roach poop and bug bits then scrub all surfaces to remove a nasty brown layer of grime all over everything.  Most of the cabinets are falling apart and most of the drawers were literally turning to saw dust while I cleaned them (insert laugh/crying here), so we'll be using more of our ikea cabinetry in the dining room for dish storage than we had before.  It was another shocking instance of not believing humans actually lived in this house 3 weeks ago as if nothing was wrong?!  You would swear this house was abandoned when we bought it!
We have been enjoying all that the location has to offer though!  Wade took Clementine on a quick maiden paddling voyage in the creek behind us (and she keeps asking to go paddling again), we've had bunnies in the yard just outside C's window, possibly a bobcat eating a catnip toy in our garage, bats at dusk, a downy woodpecker nest outside our bedroom window (so cute!), and lots of wading birds and fish plopping in the distance.  We're so excited for all the nature that surrounds the house!

We can even make this sh*t up

So we are wrapping up two weeks in our little rental, to spend another week in a rental Wade found last night.  Hahaha... where to begin....

C enjoying the front windows at the rental

Well, we closed on our old house successfully and uneventfully and had a fairly lovely day but ended up having a quiet night at home for Cinco de Mayo since we were all really wiped out from lack of sleep.  We've scheduled a make up day with friends for next weekend so that'll be exciting.

But then came our actual closing day... Going into this, I always expected the seller to not actually be out on the day of closing.  I just had that feeling and they just has SO.MUCH.STUFF that I had a hard time imaging them being out on time.  I had taken to driving by every night looking for progress the week before we closed and although I saw signs of progress I was not entirely convinced it was going to happen as it was supposed to. (Which led to our realtor prodding the other realtor to check up on her client, in theory.)

We showed up for our final walk through at 8:30am and there was junk on the curb, and I mean there was so much stuff, the pile was bigger than our two cars.  The good news was that the storage pod was gone and so was their car, so that was promising.  But we were a bit early and walked around back to start the walk through until the other realtor came and it became quite apparent that the lovely sparkling clean house we left for our buyers was not what we were getting from our sellers.  There was stuff all over the porch (plants, a grill, broken bits of stuff) and we peeked into the windows to see stuff all over the floor inside the house too as well as wrapping materials and garbage.  When the seller's realtor got there, she was pretty livid (and surprised) which cracked me up because this was entirely predictable.  So we talked through options with our realtor and with her and she called the seller who clearly was not in touch with reality and didn't get it that she needed to be out, let alone clean the house.  
Realtor: "Your stuff is everywhere and needs to be gone.  We talked about this - you should be out of the house and the house was supposed to be cleaned by this morning.  They are offering to call a junk service to remove everything for you.
Seller on speaker phone: "Junk service?  But those are my things?!  My clothes are there, I have a printer!"
Realtor: "Ok, you need to bring me the house key so we can get in for the final walk through right now, closing is in a half hour."
Seller: "Well, I need to brush my teeth and I'm in my pajamas, and I need to eat some breakfast...." (It was 9am)

So we said, fine, get her to sign papers, let's walk through the house (the realtor had to run and grab the key from the seller in a hotel 15min away), and see what we're dealing with.  It was pretty bad - the house reeked of pet (and rat) urine, the fireplace was overflowing with ashes, the cat box had spilled on the floor (complete with poop), there was personal stuff everywhere and garbage on the floor, the fridge was full of food, the kitchen sink was backed up and dirty dishes all over the counter, the toilet was backed up with stuff in it, and there was a new beehive in the soffiting... it was a general disaster.  The silver lining was that all the neighbors came out to greet us and were sweet, lovely, and helpful people.  We feel so lucky to live in such a wonderful neighborhood!

So we documented everything - pictures and video - and got the seller to closing.  My theory was, we just needed her to sign the papers and I could deal with anything after that.  I just wanted to get working on our house.  We negotiated an escrow holdback and gave her until the end of the day to get her stuff out then asked for cleaning and steaming of the carpets.  Once the paperwork was mostly signed and they finished the finer points of the escrow holdback I left with Clementine who napped in the car and Wade kept me up to date by text while I sat in the car with a sleeping C.  And this text exchange generally summed up how our closing went:

Wade: So Denise (seller's realtor) just came in and said there's a dead parrot wrapped in a towel in the freezer.... did you get a picture of that?
Me:  HOLY F*CK, WHAT?!
Me:  And I am now crazing laugh-crying in the car
Me: We are throwing out that fridge TODAY
Wade: Yeah, Toby (our realtor) and I are dying too
Me: We can't even make this sh*t up!?
Me: Can't stop laughing....  Might pee my pants.  I needed that.
Me: That does explain the empty parrot cage in the garage!
Wade: Toby said we can have his old stove and fridge to replace the contaminated junkers

Mercifully, a mild front blew through just before closing so we could open all the windows and air out the house for the first time in years we've been told (oh yeah, most of those don't work either!)  As soon as we were closed the hive of activity began - our rodent/pest control people, a locksmith, and pool people were there while the seller's movers arrive to finish taking everything.  The junk pile grew to a size larger than 4 cars and finally by 8:30 at night I was alone in the house with nothing but the rats in the walls and attic for company (ick).  Finally a cleaning lady showed up and I called it a night.  The next morning the steam cleaners showed up and even they told us to throw out the carpet.  Everyone kept asking us how long the house had been vacant for - assuming it was a foreclosure!  The plumber was shocked people were living there very recently given the state of the plumbing (sink backed up, toilets shot, old crappy connections, but thankfully we have good copper pipes everywhere!).  We cleaned some things and replaced the garbage disposal that was the culprit for the blocked kitchen sink.

Closing day - we bought a crazy house!

On Mother's Day our furniture arrived and we stacked it all in the garage.  We also used the movers to go get our hand-me-down fridge and stove and when we took out the old ones I discovered what looked like years of spilled, burned coffee underneath.  So I spent the day on my hands and knees scrubbing our floors and our "new" appliances.  Whee.  Thankfully Poppi and Granzie were here to keep C entertained while we moved and cleaned then we had a nice dinner with tropical mimosas!

The contractor we hired to get the wallpaper down was working at an impressive pace but the more we saw the worse it got.  So fast forward and now we have a shiny new AC unit (planned), and solid new roof (planned), and the wall paper removal has grown to gutting the bathrooms and ripping out all the carpet and staining the concrete subfloor so we can live in a clean house rather than a filthy one. (Yeah, there was even carpet in the bathrooms!)  Under the carpet we found all sorts of lovely animal pee smells and lots of bugs and some water damage/mold, so we decided it had to go and we could live with clean, stained concrete for a while.  We also did some wall repair where water damage was hidden behind the wall paper.  It was amazing how getting all the wall paper down and painting the walls has really brightened things up!  One other good thing - the pool should get cleaned this weekend and we should be swimming by next weekend!

To balance out the unexpected bathroom renovations (thank you IKEA!), we managed to get used appliances for the kitchen (but will have to buy a new dishwasher) and will get a used washing machine tomorrow.  (Of course the washing machine hook up blew and sprayed water all over when we unhooked it which helped us figure out where the past leaking came from in the second bedroom.)  

Another fun tidbit - we found a safe in the floor of our closet!!  But it's totally corroded and we can't get it open.  It's set into the foundation concrete so there's no way to get it open but we all got a huge laugh out of it and one of the AC guys and the contractor tried using a torch to cut it open, but no luck.  Oh well.  The curiosity is killing us though!

Clementine is already having fun exploring her new room and she seems to think her big walk in closet is a secret play room! :)  We've also been picnicking in the yard to enjoy the weather and to start to feel at home even though we aren't living there yet.  I've been trying to capture the change as much as possible, but with the crazy pace we're moving at it's been hard to catch it all.

This house could easily be called "the money pit", but on the first day of real work I had this vision while standing in our master bedroom with the breeze rolling in through the open french doors - the morning sun was shining on our pool, the birds were chirping, and I could look out into the mangroves and the water and I felt so at peace despite the chaos and filth around me (to anyone else they saw a pee-stained carpeted room, torn up porch, mucky pool, and unkempt backyard) - all I could see was nothing but incredible potential and secluded water access as far as the eye could see. :)

Transitions

We are officially in our rental house now and everyone is settling in.  The only regret is that we weren't able to book this for an extra week to allow us more time to work at the new house, but oh well.  Everything works out as it's supposed to I guess.

We close on our old house tomorrow morning (today the furniture gets packed up and the house cleaned), and Friday morning we close on the new house and the work begins literally that afternoon.  We have to get as much done as soon as possible before we run out of time in our rental house.  Our furniture will get delivered on Mother's Day (oh, wow, Mama got a new house for Mother's Day!  haha) and loaded into the garage to stay out of the way while we attack the roof, AC, and wallpaper/painting starting on Monday.  Most of our boxed stuff is in storage that we moved there over the last month, and some is here at the rental (along with all our potted plants).  This weekend we've be taking an inventory of the status of things and prioritizing what we need to fix immediately and what can wait for a bit longer.  We're also not sure of the working status of some of the appliance and the guest toilet, so we need a clearer picture of what we're facing.  We also aren't sure how much clean up we have to do and what the sellers will leave behind.

We've trying to help C feel at home as much as possible and she was beyond thrilled when we broke out her kiddie pool under a shade tent in the back yard of the rental.  Our sitter was able to get some pictures of her glee:

Thankfully this little pool will keep her happy for a while until we can fix up the pond, I mean pool, at the new place.  I'm sure Clementine will be sad to see the frogs go!  She's loved the grasshoppers at the rental house so far.

Another transition is that I plan to redesign the blog to update it with the new house.  I'm going to use the blog to document our renovation adventures, in addition to Clementine's adventures so stay tuned for DIY antics.

And today is Star Wars Day - May the Fourth be with you!  C has been listening to the music this morning and has been asking to watch the movies so we'll celebrate the move with that tonight.