The taint! I can't remove it!

[chainedbarista]

i think some of my customers took a vacation there; what they need is remedial toilet training, so they understand that leaving 'tokens' behind isn't acceptable.
they should be , but for some odd reason...

[trunks2k]

Earlier this year, I spent a couple months living in my friend's house that she and a couple other people rented out, until the apartment I now live in was ready to move into. Although my stuff was there for about 3 months, I probably only actually slept there for a total of 1 month (I was out of the country for about a month, plus various other trips, plus moving into my new place before the lease was up). So I never had a chance to contribute to the mess that was this house.

I was already out of my room. Taken all my stuff with me, etc, when their lease was finally up and they had to move out. Even though I was really under no obligation to help them out, I helped clean the place out and make sure they can get their deposit back.... Oh... my... god... I knew the place was an absolute mess, but I never realized just exactly how nasty it was.

First of all, the smell. I spent most of my time in my room, away from the animals in the house. There were 3 ferrets, 2 cats, 6 rats, 1 dog, a hamster, and two guinea pigs, plus my Chinchilla (which doesn't smell). I knew the place smelled like a dirty pet store. But I never realized how nasty the place smelled until I helped out cleaning my roomate's rooms. Ugh...

Next came the flies. Due to the animals, my roomate's reluctance to clean their dirty dishes in the sink, and the hot & muggy weather, there were flies ALL over the place (except my room). Again, I never realized how bad it was until we tried to clean and there was fly crap all over the walls. Ewwwww.

Not only that, there were these area rugs in the hallway that they had stapled to the ground to keep them from sliding around. This meant that they never got cleaned. I ripped up the rugs (which smelled like animal piss), and the dirt underneath was literally half an inch thick and damp to the point that it was like clay. I had to take a large chisel to scrape it off the floor. Ewww....

I'm just surprised there were no roaches around.

[Becks]

I'd just like to thank people for scaring me to the point that I now want to move into a NEW house...even though I can't afford it. :shudders:

What is WRONG with people????????

[chainedbarista]

you're better off asking what's right with people-the list is much shorter!

[protege]

I'd just like to thank people for scaring me to the point that I now want to move into a NEW house...even though I can't afford it.

I just bought an older house. It was spotless! Apparently, an older lady lived there, and kept the place immaculate. I mean, there was no dust or dirt anywhere...not even in the garage!

However, the other (and more expensive!) house I looked at was a complete shithole. It didn't look too bad from the street though. However, once inside, I could see why the place hadn't sold. There were wires sticking out of the ceiling in some rooms; lights flickered in others. Grime and assorted dirt was all over the place--on the floors, walls, windows, and even on the ceiling. In the basement, you could see places where water was getting inside--there were water stains on the nasty carpets, and on some of the walls. That wasn't the worst of it. On the main floor, you could feel the floorboards moving when you walked around. Oh, and the garage was *full* of junk and garbage. In other words, I would have had to sink $30,000 into that place just to bring it up to code!

After seeing that, I'm soooooooo glad I was able to get the first house. The owner of the second one wouldn't budge on the price, nor would he fix anything. As of now, that place is *still* unsold.

[wagegoth]

When I was a teenager, my parents had a janitorial business, and I worked for them. Most of the cleaning we did was in office buildings. So, not to bad, just repetitive. But now and then, we'd clean up a rental. OMG!

This post just brought back so many horrid memories.

[Dips]

My former neighbor (he rented the house next to ours) bought a house whose previous owner was an animal collector: she had had about a hundred cats and over a dozen dogs. When she died animal control removed them and the house went up for sale. He had seen the inside briefly and knew it was going to bad, but he had paid about a tenth what other similar houses in our town would have gone for and figured the extra work was worth it...

The rest of this post is going to be gross. If you have a weak stomach, don't read it.

OK. You were warned...

...When they got inside they figured they would have to tear out the carpets and the kitchen. But there was an inch of fecal matter on so many surfaces, that they had to take out the walls, the ceiling and rip up the floors. When they removing the wall boards they were saturated to point they were dripping. Bowls of rotting dog and cat food were everywhere, some with maggots.

That's not the worst thing, though. When they started working on the yard, they found dozens of animal carcasses in various stages of decay strewn about the back half of the property. Some were skeletal, some were...more recent.

It's just horrifying that somebody could live like that and nobody would notice. And all those poor animals had to live in those conditions. She did have a pet door, so they could come and go, but still.

[friendofjimmyk]

My most favorite job EVER was remodeling houses. I loved that job to death - unfortunately my drug use at the time caused me to lose it (side note, I've been clean for about 20 months now)

Anyway, I worked for an investor who bought houses, fixed them, and sold them. He bought a lot of houses that were close to being foreclosed on and ones that the banks already took over and were unloading cheap.

The state that some of these houses were in were deplorable. I lived in most of them while I worked on them and it was awful. I slept on a cot to keep myself off the floor from the cockroaches. The first thing I would do is fog a place to kill critters and I would have to do that several times in some places. Dirt, grease, and trash were often abundant. One house had so much trash in in it filled the entire 2 car garage while I waited to put it out for trash day. Awful, just awful.

But, man, I loved that job.

[protege]

The state that some of these houses were in were deplorable. I lived in most of them while I worked on them and it was awful. I slept on a cot to keep myself off the floor from the cockroaches. The first thing I would do is fog a place to kill critters and I would have to do that several times in some places.

I know what you mean. My late grandfather used to sell cleaning suppliers...and one of them was some sort of bug killer. He said that one of the client's he went to was pretty nasty. After setting off the fogger, he said that an hour later, bugs were still falling out of the ceiling

That was the last time he did business with them.