I just bought a foreclosure and am amazed at how disgusting the former owners were. They used the air conditioning/heating registers as their ashtrays, they let their children “tag” the basement with graffiti (at least I think kid’s did this), and the carpet was almost completely stained with liquids (most likely urine). This made me wonder—-what’s the most disgusting foreclosure/remodel you’ve ever encountered?
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I bought one that made the neighbors happy.
The woman next door told me the "Children" used to make bombs out of baggies full of flour and chase the dogs through the house throwing them.
Joe H
OK- nothing technically rotting or causing me to gag, but here's some photos of what we found when we demo'd a bathroom. The house is slab-on-grade in a generally arid area. Pepper tree planted about 15' from bathroom (and kitchen) wall. House was re-plumbed years (30?) ago by running copper piping over slab, then pouring enough concrete to cover the pipes. The combination of unbuffered concrete-copper contact and 120# watter pressure had apparently produced many pinhole leaks in the pipes, resulting in a perpetually wet slab. The roots had come up through small cracks in the slab, and were embedded between the several layers of bath and kitchen lino, and were also 7' up the bath wall between the CMU and the tub surround's mortar bed.In the same house, we finally solved a persistent, vague sewage smell when we discovered a saw cut 1/3 through a vent pipe with about 1' below the top plate (inside the wall.)Not that 'gross', but pretty amazing to us...
Kinda like ruins in the jungles of S.E. Asia and Central America. Stone structures with trees growing out of the joints.
-- J.S.
I'm working on a job last week and this, where the HO is gone, leaving the bitter old dog inside. A local mentally handicapped woman comes three times a day to feed and check on the dog - but the dog's too mean to be put out.
When I get there early in the AM, I have to put upside-down buckets on the various piles of poop on the rug so I can work without gagging - then I tell the woman when she comes, and she picks up the bigger chunks.
Luckily the dog just hides in the master closet and growls all day.
Kind of a freak show.
Forrest - hoping to finish Wednesday!
I'll never forget the rental unit where tenants had been evicted and the place sat empty for two weeks in 100 degree weather. Holes in walls, toilet stopped up - apparently for weeks, and millions of fleas in the carpet gleefully jumping onto my legs as I walked in.BruceT
The family bashed holes in the sheetrock and filled the bays 5' tall with garbage. They stood at the top of the stairs and threw old appliances and dead cats down the hole. The fan over the stove was full of corn flakes because it hadn't been vented outside, so it made a little blizzard when i checked it. Frogs were breeding in the basement under the plywood. They left a few freezers for me to haul away and cases of canned goods from disco days.The price was very, very right. <G>
Usually, I won't subject either a crew or myself to incredibly gross conditions.............
Except................
In June last year I discovered that there were roaches in the basement suite. Got an exterminator to come in.
I usually leave my tenants alone, but I had to enter this time. Gross!
Sent them a letter. They gave notice.
They couldn't find a place to live. I was soft-hearted & let them stay. Learned THAT lesson.
They moved out 2 days after we left for overseas, and I did not discover what was going on until a week after we returned (jet lag).
Cockroaches everywhere! The toilet was not white, it was brown from uncleaned overflows - oh yea, they left a "load" in for 3 weeks with the heat on high to ripen.
The children's bedroom had most of the drywall tape, and a huge amount of the ceiling drywall torn off. There were brown patches everywhere on the walls. Couldn't figure it out, until I realized that all the kids, including the 6 year old was in diapers, and the parents had changed the lock so that it locked from the OUTSIDE.
Food & debris everywhere.
It took me and 2 helpers 5 weeks to get the place rebuilt.
Quality repairs for your home.
AaronR Construction
Vancouver, Canada
Edited 6/27/2006 1:19 am by AaronRosenthal
I looked at one that was pretty dirty and smelled like it had dead mice.It was vacant and empty with no furniture but a lot of trash strewn everywhere.The utilities were turned off but the kids in the neighborhood would use the place to "hang out". The front door was left open day and night.They drank and smoked cigarattes in the house & on the front porch and one of the bedrooms was being used for R & R and it had used condoms on the floor.A mouse was dead and sticking to the wall in the closet. It must have crawled up the wall and stuck to some type of substance and couldn't escape.I've seen foreclosures where the homeowner will take all the light fixtures with them as they're leaving.I've seen them take the water heater, furnace, A/C, dishwasher, etc as they're leaving.Some of the homes have pipes freeze before the bank can get the home secured.Some homes have had significant roof leaks for months or probably even years before the bank comes in to secure the home.^^^^^^
S N A F U (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up)
Mr. Fixit, I didn't realize you had been to my house!
We bought it in 1999 from the city, because nobody else wanted it, either at the tax sale or the forclosure. We paid $2000 cash...and all the rest of our spare time, & all our discretionary income, for the rest of our lives.
It had been vacant for 7 years, but protected from arson & really major vandalism by vivilant neighbors, & responsive police. (Did I mention that this is a great place to live?)
It had the trash, the dead animals, the fleas, the frozen & looted plumbing, etc., but in New England the roaches move out in the winter if the heat is off. There were many, many corpses, but not one live roach.
It was totally worth it! It's a 300 year old gambrel salt box. It really is a colonial.
Not done yet, but I'm not dead yet...that's the answer to "When will it be finished?"
Pictures, pictures! (Don't envy the initial clean-up, but I do envy a 300 year-old, gambrel-roofed saltbox.)
"Once you institutionalize thinking outside the box, it turns to dust in your hand." .
Gen. Michael Hayden
I got called to replace a cieling in a little ramshackle place on the Hudson River once. The house was rumered to be the oldest house on the River Road dating back to the early 1700's. The neighbors warned me about this bag lady who lived there, a sweet person, but she had hundreds of cats living there, most of them inbred and wild. Before I went there I was told that workmen would not go into the place because of the smell. Of course that type of thing is always a green light for me to prove myself. Yeah....right kiddo.I almost can't describe the smell or the scene. There was cat poop everywhere, diseased cats limping about with their guts hanging out, dead cats half decayed laying in some rooms, in what was the kitchen there was feces in the stove in the sink, just everywhere. THis was right on the river and they would drag these large river rats up to the house and there they would rot. Flies and maggots were everywhere, and of course it was August.I did the work though. I gagged several times during those two days and I earned my stripes from everyone who knew me and many who didn't.She eventually died and I think a gay couple bought the place and had it razed. Really it was the only thing you could do.
I'm working on the pictures thing...
This wasn't a remodel, but one night a lady near me called because her bathroom was flooding. She was severely depressed from a divorce and sat around all day in bathrobe watching TV. I walked through a porch almost waist deep in bottles to be returned and through a very unkept house--clothes and dishes with old food and trash. She had thrown all her towels on the floor to absorb the leak. I determined that the hot water pipe had broken and went downstairs to turn off the water. Only one of the light bulbs in the basement wasn't burnt out. I walked by piles of dirty clothes waiting to be laundered which had been used as a littler box by her many cats (litter boxes were full and looked like they hadn't been changed in a year or so). I got the water turned off an her son came and fixed the pipe the next day.
Later the bank foreclosed and a guy bought the house to flip. He put a lot of money into it--found lots of surprises, like the brand new looking roof leaked. I'm sure the house stank of cats and don't know what he did to remedy that. The guy who fixed it up put in all new windows and doors, new plumbing, new furnace and air conditioning--and turned a fairly large dining room into a bathroom--you could see this because he put in huge windows with no drapes or blinds and the windows faced the front where the driveway was.
I thought about trying to buy it and fix it up to re-sell, but was glad I didn't--it took over a year on the market before he sold it. It started out at just under $200,000 and last I saw it was advertised for $135,000 before someone bought it.
Worst one I helped on was an old apartment complex that someone bought to flip. Most of the apartment was O.K. But the tenant hadn't cleaned out the fridge when they moved out. There were kind enough to unplug it, though. I got to it probably a month after that. I'd have to spray it down with cleaner, then go do something else for a while and come back to it. Couldn't stand the smell for long without gagging. .One more fridge comes to mind. The Lions club I belong to has a carnival once a year. Before the carnival we get together a couple of Saturdays to clean things up and get them ready. One year we opened up the fridge to find that is smelled terrible. When we opened up the freezer section we found a case of frozen fish that had been forgotten the year before. A couple of guys hauled the thing to the car wash to try to get the smell out. But it just wouldn't go away. We ended up tossing the thing and got another fridge.
It's amazing how many people beat you at golf now that you're no longer president. [George Bush Sr.]
Jeez, these stories make me sick...!Our house, my wife bought in 2000. The PO was a shut-in crazy old lady who tossed her trash onto a heap out the back door. 16 locks on each door and all of the windows screwed and nailed shut. She died in the hosue and laid there on the floor for probably a week while her yapper dog fended for itself.The estate that sold the house did a bit of cleanup BUT the realtor insisted on face masks when she showed it to us. I threw up when we walked in when I thought I was "man" enough to handle it.My wife's (GF at the time) mom cried when she first saw it after closing 3 weeks later and recruiting freinds to help demo got harder and harder as people "experienced" the house.Ultimately, we tore off 6 layers of wallpaper from the walls and ceilings, tore out most of the interior walls, refinished the floors and everything is alright now.
Your comment about fridges reminds me about a "friend"...(not really)....she borrowed another friend's picnic cooler, to put her leftover turkey in at Christmas, because she didn't have enough fridge space. Along about May, the owners of the cooler thought it would be nice to have it for picnic season....turns out the borrower had simply put the cooler, with the turkey in it, outside...which was fine for January, February, even March, with sub-freezing temps.....but she returned it without even opening it up......
Ahhhh, anyone for grilled turkey?
I started a repair project and after making nice with the owners, I kept getting wiffs of something that just didn't smell right. Couple hours into it I asked the wife if she smelled anything unusual.
She said yeah, in the last week or so, she had noticed an odor around the patio. She pulls the cover off the Weber grill, drops it and pukes in the back yard. There in the grill is a maggot covered remains of the turkey her husband had grilled 3 weeks before. This was in June.
Another "special edition" was while working for a rental company. The boss had bought a student rental house. There was garbage piled outside the back door, and it was springtime. There was a foul odor from the garbage, and after removing some of the bags, we found a large debris and water filled garbage can. My supervisor knocks it over to drain the water, and some bones fall out, along with the stench, and a deer head.
Seems one of the students had butchered a deer the previous fall, and left the remains in the trash. Hey it wasn't a problem all winter!!!!
Bowz
when I did apartment maintance, during trash out. If we found a fridge with food in it, and been turn off. Fridge go to landfill and new one was bought out of last tentant deposit. with 3000 unit, they just didnt care. It could of been a ten year old unit. Not clean, trash the frig.
Moldy clothes in the washer; rotted food in the fridge; rotted vegetables embedded in the carpet (yes, vegetables in the carpet); doggie do-doo just about everywhere; chicken bones thrown through the open windows onto the porch roof and to the unkempt yard below; and stalagmites of soap scum in both the sink and the tub.
That one was the worst. The one that made me wonder the most was an eviction after only 10 weeks of three kids -- 20-somethings -- living there. I filled my full size van to the roof with empty beer bottles -- twice. And the neighbors told me that there was never a party -- just those three kids.
Unless you're the lead dog, the view just never changes.
This is not for the squeamish. And, every bit of it is true.
Had to check some wiring in a basement. The resident asked "you sure you want to go down there?" (should of been a tip-off.)
Opened the door to the basement steps and "the smell" hit me. Oh, I've smelled worst I suppose, so down I went. No lights, only my flashlight.
I tripped on what I thought was a rolled up carpet and landed on something similar.
I finally got my flashlight to light-up (these were pre Maglight days.) There inches from my face was the half decayed scull of a German Shepard, its skin pull back from around its teeth. It was sort of grinning at me. I looked around in horror; I had tripped on a dead dog, I landed on others.
I left a pouch full of tools (Kliens too!) on the floor and ran up and outside. The resident asked me what was the matter.
"Your basement is full of dead dogs!"
"Yeah, I gotta gets me a new one, day keep dying down there."
It was the rottenest scene you could imagine.
Lee, the first thing I would have done is call the cops.You have to wonder about the possibility of bodies other than canine down there.And just the canines, the number, and the fact that the guy said "they keep dieing down there", is criminal enough.I wouldn't have left the tools. Horrid conditions or not. I would have either made sure I still had them, or would have steeled myself and gone back for them.I was called in to replace a furnace once. They couldn't figure out why the furnace stopped working once the basement was thigh deep in sewage. A toilet line had broken, and it spilled right into the basement. They went right on using the toilet.I passed, on the furnace replacement. Told the boss I wasn't going back until they cleaned out the basement. He tried to bully me into that one anyway, as well as another one in a crawlspace full of dead chickens, and chicken by-products. He did finally have to give up on those two jobs because I simply refused...He finally fired me when I fixed a furnace in a bank about a block from the shop. Seems he'd been nursing the problem for years.
Only slightly faster than the speed of stupid, since 1957.
I'd say the dead dogs in the basement wins... i almost puked read'n it...
I'd purchased a former fried chicken fast food place... brick building on a large lot with a covered drive thru... was a simple deal to close in the drive thru and make a 3000sf retail space... was 100 degree days and i was run'n ductwork in attic space sweat'n like a whore in church... i didn't know how much flour dust was in that attic and i was work'n alone... finished run'n the duct... and I'd spotted a 40yd roll off across the street empty with the rear door open... for weeks i'd been looking at this 55gal open top drum full liquid sit'n where the walk in cooler use to be... i figured tonite was the nite to put it on a 2 wheeler and quick like a bunny take it to the empty roll off across the street... wasn't a hint of smell until i went to move it... then i pretty much figured out i had 55gals of 2 yo liquid chicken on my hands... it was full enough that i left a trail from my place to the dumpster of liquid chicken and puke... mine... be'n the good guy that i am i walked the 1 block to the grocery store and filled a basket with 20 gals of bleach... i'm stand'n in line and i notice people move'n away from me.. a few ck'n the bottom of their feet as if they had maybe stepped in something... at this point i couldn't smell anything so i checked the bottom of my feet too... leave'n the store i saw my reflection in the glass... all that sweat & old flour had left me looking like i'd just surfaced from a sewer... and i guess i'd spilled some liquid chicken on me... the next day police crime unit was at the dumpster someone reported that there must be a dead body in the drum... guess the 20 gallons of bleach wasn't enough.... 4 years later we could still see the "chicken trail" run'n across the street..
I was told by someone wiser than me... if you get a good story out of something you can't put a value on that
p
I do apartment maintenance for a public housing authority.Had a couple of people pass away in their apts. and be there for a while before anyone found them.One guy was starting to turn black and shrivel up,pretty nasty,lots of flies but not much of a smell.He was on the couch and I mentioned to the cop that showed up about him not smelling too bad considering how he looked and the cop said "Don't worry,when they pick him up he'll smell plenty".Other than that ,pretty much the same as some of the others have mentioned, pit bull kennels in the bedroom,abandoned refridgerators,roaches,mice,dead cats,(no dead dogs so far,that sounded nasty).Another time,the police raided an apt. and were dumping all the food from the fridge out on the living room floor and sifting through it looking for drugs,and when they were done,they just left a big pile there(August, of course).THAT smelled like a dead body.It's good to hear we're not the only one's dealing with nasty stuff like that.Sometimes,I feel like I must be an idiot to keep showing up to work,but from some of the things I've read here ,I guess it's not so bad after all.
When I started reading this thread, two jobs I had worked on immediately came to mind.
I once got dispatched to a form job at our local sewer treatment plant... The smell I got over after a while, but I will never forget the river of corn and condoms that flowed into that place.
The other was working on an old strip shopping center where the owner had recently terminated the leases of the bar and porn shop that had been tenants for years. This was in the early 80's when there were still booths you could go in and put your quarters in. At first we thought the roof must have been leaking to make all those stains on the floor...
View Image
ponytl's first sentence said the same thing I was thinking after reading yer dead dog post. And I was just thinking how ugly it was the other day when hunching thru a crawl full of fiberglass batt and spiderweb stalactites when one bite me and put a halfdollar sized welt on my back.Been intentionally trying to get away from that end of labor unless yer going to go in ready in a spacesuit pumping oxygen to you with a pressurewasher in one hand and a flamethrower in the other.
be was that dog story in ohio?
Beware. RFID is coming.
This was an excellent topic and for future reference maybe pictures could be added. Also prizes could be awarded for:(1) the house with the most mold(2) the house most likely to catch fire and burn to the ground(3) homes that "just needs a little TLC" according to the realtor(4) worst roof(5) most broken windows(5) most termite damage Maybe Lowes or Home Depot could sponsor this and provide Gift Cards to the winners in each category.^^^^^^
S N A F U (Situation Normal: All Fouled Up)
Yep, beautiful Cleveland, Ohio - "Best Location in the Nation" as they used to say. I'm still here and I'll turn the lights out when I leave. At one time it was home to many Fortune 500 outfits. Now it is just another sad town in the rustbelt. Most of the serious manufacturing has left for greeener pastures. Almost all of the little machine shops are gone.
Couple weeks back I was riding as passenger heading on the way to downtown, down what I think was Euclid and was able to view all those once majestically sweet buildings and houses that are now boarded up, ramshackle with weeds in the yards. Block after block. Friggin' kind of sad.
be you gotta go walk around HTGR 'Hit The Ground Running' in the old chevy building I think it was. Huge place stacked with you name it. Acres under roof.
Beware. RFID is coming.
Hey, rez,I think you meant HGR. A fantastic surplus industrial machinery outlet. Over ten acres under one roof. Located in the old Fisher Body Works building. Lots of history there. I peruse their aisles twice a month. Great bargains, probably half of my 5,000+ drill bits came from there. None of the heavy iron is of use to me, almost all of it is three phase. http://www.hgrindustrialsurplus.com/index.aspx
yep, that's the place.
I go in there and get brainstorming over all that varied stuff and the guys got to yank my chain to get me out of there.I mean circular soundproof telephone booths. Who needs castiron for that drain running from upstairs when you have something like that available.
be I can't believe I was considering that. Roar!
Beware. RFID is coming.
> None of the heavy iron is of use to me, almost all of it is three phase.
In that case, have a look at:
http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/ph-conv/ph-conv.html
-- J.S.
I've read about those converters before. If I find a nice Powermatic or a big old Delta cabinet saw I might give it a try. All of my other machines are adequate for me. My drill press and lathe are from the '40s (same as me!) and work just fine (same as me!) They had an old milling machine or shaper (metal), I can't remember which, that had WWII decals on it. "Loose Lips Sink Ships", "Buy Bonds!" and the like. It was old but probably had lots of life left in it. It may have made parts for an B-29, an M1 or even worked on the Manhattan Project. Semis full of machinery arrive and depart daily - an amazing place. The first time my wife went in there she commented about it was all "guy stuff". A minute later we were standing in front of a bin of "Industrial Safety Brassieres." We had a good laugh over that. BTW - she didn't buy one. If you ever need a good workbench, they have a lot of maple topped, steel legged tables at $50 to $100.That place is just plain fun.~Lee
I spent a few days at the Horsburg&Scott gearbox factory on Hamilton Ave...it was pretty neat.
i'm laughing my a off,that sounds so much like what i'd do.i'm going to sneak over there.then things don't work out and there is still a trail a year later!anyway lots of value in that story. larryhand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.
This was the late 60's in Cleveland. Plenty of racial tension. Cops were not real responsive. Direct quote from a Cleveland officer at 4:30 in the afternoon: "You better get your white a$$ out of here before dark. Don't expect us to save you just because you're stupid." I didn't expect anything from him or any other innercity cop at that time. During one of the riots I had two armed Ohio National Guardsmen escort me to my jobs and back. I felt a little safer. Dropping a dime on someone would be a waste of time. If anyone at that would have responded it would have been asking for serious physical harm. I had a problem one night and the local numbers runner bailed my butt out. He fired two shots into the air and told a group of thugs to leave me alone. I had done some work at his home and he remembered me. I pray we never see those days again.
My father had a tenant who wasn't paying his rent. Went over on a Friday afternoon and gave eviction notice. Neighbour phoned on Saturday afternoon and said they had cleared out in that night. So we went over to have a look at the place.
He had been keeping his 3 rotwielers locked up in the house, mainly in the back kitchen for at least a month. Crap everywhere, on the floor, counters, walls, in the sink. I don't know how anyone could live there, turned the stomach just walking through.
I guess he felt keeping the dogs in was going to keep anyone from bothering the weed that he was growing upstairs. One bedroom had tinfoil on all the walls, wires hanging from the ceiling for lights and some pretty safe looking home made wiring. At least he was dumb enough to forget a crop of seedlings growing in the cupboard under the stairs.
Yours, unfortunately, sounds very similar to what my brother did with my parents house after they died....
I bought an 8-plex fixer-upper with a couple friends. After closing, I went around to introduce myself the the residents. One tenant who claimed to be blind - I couldn't tell - lit into me about the water problems. Her carpet was continually soaked and said she was going to sue me for all the ruined clothes piled everywhere because they were mildewed. I reminded her it would be possible to pick them up and that there was a laundromat a block away, but she didn't see any connection.
After I talked my way into the apartment, I could see that the P-trap in the carpeted bath was clogged, but instead of just cleaning out the trap, they had come up with a more novel approach. Right under the sink, they had cut a 3" hole in the floor to drain the water into the unfinished basement.
I told her we'd fix it right away, which she didn't believe and threatened to kick my #### for good measure...she was half-again my size, and probably could have done it.
Of course, there was the dogs, cats and the problem with the husband shooting her son, but that's another story.
Red Dog
About three years ago a friend bought a rundown house for next to nothing and was fixing it up. He called me to give him a hand for a few days hanging drywall and getting so other demo work done.
The basement was the kennel it looked like for 10 pit bulls. The crap was over a foot deep, the smell in July was horrifying.
The previous owners had gotten evicted and it showed, they poured concrete in all the drains, smashed the toilets and pissed all over the floor, broke all the plumbing stubs for supply lines off with the water still turned on ruining the entire subfloor of this house.
Went upstairs and the bedrooms were downright disgusting human crap and pee all over the walls and floors, all the electrical outlets had been kicked in, doors kicked off the hinges, god only knows how long they had used their closets for garbage cans.
After the ten cent tour I told my buddy I would do anything for you but I can't be in that house until it's cleaned out the smells alone had caused instant nausea. Call me when it's cleaned out and I'll clear my schedule for you.
That house needed a wrecking ball more than a remodel!Can't you hear the violin playing your song.
Man, I've had it easy, I guess.
The worst job site I can recall was doing some bathroom repairs in a place where the tenant had apparently done nothing but sit in front of his computer and smoke 24/7 for ten years or so. I don't know who fetched his smokes for him. I never did see him move. I don't know if he could though he said he went out to work.
The simple dirt was bad but tolerable. It was the unbelievably stale smell of the smoke that nearly made me sick on my way to and from the bathroom, where I could close the door and open the window. Everything in the house was stained brown. The walls looked like they had been heavily varnished, but if you dragged the edge of a tool down the walls you'd scrape off a little roll of tar.
Ron
When we bought our first rehab we learned that the neighbors had a block party and celebrated when the last owner left.
We removed 60 cu. ft. of debris from this 1400 sf. house as mice and cockroaches ran. Broken furniture, matresses, clothes and moutains of empty malt liq. bottles. The deposit from a beer keg was the only thing of value. Also had 22 appliances in the two car garage. Washers/driers/air conditioners. Not one of them worked. while looking at the garage for the first time an elderly neighbor walked up dropped off some old shovels and grabbed the newer ones from the corner. Didn't way a thing.
We had graffitti in three bedrooms that was more extensive than most NY subway overpasses. Took four coats of Kilz to cover.
Not one window pain was unbroken and it took 25 gallons of sheetrock comp. to batch all the holes and plaster repairs.
Woooweee, there's some stinkers in there.
I used to rehab a lot of places that had no bathroom; part of the rehab was putting one in. This one place the homeowner's previous husband and sons had been using old 5gal pails instead, setting them outside the back door when they got full. Some fresh, some there so long they had saplings growing in them. Ceilings all collapsed with soggy remains of cellulose and drywall everywhere. So much grease on the wall behind the stove that if you touched the area it came off in 1/4" thick globs stuck to you hands or tools. Floors collapsed in kitchen in front of counters, so homeowner balanced around on the remains of the joists when she did cook.
This is not a rehab story. When I was a teenager, I was working at a grocery store and a co-worker needed some help dropping off some furniture at his house.
A little back ground on the co-worker, he's a pack rat of the most unbelivable kind. He works and probably has never spent over $500 in his life. He once told me that he spends less than $1000 for an entire year. All his meals he got from the grocery store by taking the leftovers or the stuff they were throwing out. His bills were all paid by his relatives or brothers and sisters. On his way to and from work he would pick up anything people would leave in the alley, broken tv's, old vases, etc. He collected the points off of coke and pepsi bottles and sent them in to get new clothes. that's the extent of his cheapness.
Anyhow back to his house. He lived in a duplex in which the other side was owned by his father and brother. That side was perfectly normal. Nicely kept, no problems at all. His side on the otherhand was straight out of the movie Seven. He had amassed so much junk that he had 7 couches in his living room. Some stacked on end because there was no room. All the curtains were drawn shut and there was a layer of dust on everything. Apparently he slept on the couch cause the alarm clock was on the side table.
In his kitchen he had two freezers and 2 inoperable stoves. Upon asking him when was the last time he used the stoves, he replied that he had never had. On his fridge was cutouts of the underwear models from Sears catalogs.
Throughout the house there was piles and piles of magazines that he had taken from the store. And under most piles there was playboys or penthouse magazines. Upstairs his washroom nearly made me want to puke. The wall beside the shower was sheetrock and it was completely black from mold and missing in many areas.
His bedroom was the scariest place of all. The paint was peeling from every single wall. He had one bed in the middle of the room with piles of clothes on it. the kicker was that he had a rows upon rows of dolls all along the perimeter of the room and they were all staring into the middle of the room.
Sounds like a set Anthony Hopkins would want to act in.
Beware. RFID is coming.
Man, thats just plain creepy.
Drug house. They took the kitchen sink and everything else. Cat pee soaked the carpets. The Mexican helper said there were "caballos" in a small closet under some stairs. "Horses", I think, whats he talking about. Turns out that means sanitary napkins. Clean em up I sez.