In early
July 2014 I was contacted by the seller and asked to go “check on the property”
as the current tenant had not paid rent in 2 months and he had started
proceedings to do an eviction but he was curious as to if they were even still
there or not. I headed out to the property midday, again enjoying the drive as
always, and arrived at the property to see there were in fact vehicles there, a
few horses and from the side of the property I could see into the carport/shop
that appeared to be packed full of belongings. There was trash all over the
front yard and the front deck. It was a very sad sight and confirmed the
seller’s suspicions.
Then by
early August the eviction hearing was held in a court house in Casa Grande, Az
and I came if only to be morale support for my client, who had driven in all
the way from Kansas. The judge ordered she move out within 48 hours and the
Sheriff would be there to lock her out.
Fast forward
two days and the Seller, his wife and the Sheriff went to the meeting at the
property to make sure the tenant was gone or to force her to leave, I was not
present for that. Upon their arrival they found her not only still there (although
loading a truck with friends still to move out) but the house and property were
in such a disgusting disarray that they couldn’t believe anybody even lived
there. The Seller and his wife were ordered by the Sheriff to wait in his
vehicle while he handled the process properly, so that the two parties wouldn’t
speak. The tenant had a 9 year old daughter who was sleeping on a mattress on
the floor in her own room and that was all that was in her room with the
exception of the floor all around the bed being covered by dog, cat and unknown
animal feces. The tenant also had an elderly mother, wheel chair bound that was
in her care who was “bed ridden” to a recliner in the living room and you could
tell numerous “accidents” had happened in that chair and that the mother was
not being properly taken care of; even that statement is a stretch and doesn’t
dare describe the magnitude of the situation that poor woman was in. The state
of the entire inside of the house was literally beyond words and to try to
explain it now I feel would only upset my stomach being as I’m the one who
occupies the house now. What the Sheriff saw that day was so bad that CPS was
notified for the daughter and Elder Abuse was reported for the tenant’s mother.
By the end of that day they had everybody and every animal off the property,
although a ton of “personal items” remained.
The next
day myself and my new partner (new to real estate also) had our meeting with
the Seller and his wife. They had brought their RV down for the trip and had
planned to stay ON the property for a few days while getting the crew together
to do work and then head up north to see some family real quick. They asked me
to come see the house, I think primarily because they wanted me to see the
state because they knew I’d be just as shocked as they were. And he even asked
me if I had ever seen anything like it before. He had warned me that it was
grotesque so I didn’t wear my usual attire of a dress and sandals and instead
came in my country gear with boots and jeans on…because I had gathered from
what he told me that there was no telling what I’d be walking on or through.
But I must admit, I never expected what I saw that day.
It is
best to let the photos do the talking and I can’t even share all of the photos
because I don’t even want to look at them myself, I can’t believe it ever
looked like this but yet I remember the pit in my stomach and the ache in my
heart as I walked through the house that day, appalled and perplexed that
anybody would ever allow themselves and their loved ones to live in such a
horribly sad way. I remember the Seller’s wife had gone through once and
refused to go through again with us and my partner wasn’t too stoked to go in
either, I admit it was a nice plunge into the things that CAN happen in real
estate for a new agent to get to experience. I remember that the Seller was
walking behind or in front of me and he was talking and telling me about things
that the Sheriff had told him but I was lost somewhere in my mind. Even in watching
reality shows or movies on TV, I had never seen anything like it. When you
watch shows like Hoarders, first, you expect to see what you’re seeing and then
secondly, the level of grossness is still there when it is worse than you
expect. But these people weren’t hoarders…I’m not even sure if there is a word
for it. There was just trash EVERYWHERE. Every counter surface or piece of
furniture that remained was covered in trash. And also if you can imagine,
every square inch of the floor and some of the furniture was covered in black
substance. Of which, due to the smell, we quickly realized was a mixture of
dirt, mud and animal poo. The Sheriff told the Seller that she had dogs, cats
and a goat IN the house. And by the look of it, her other outdoor animals
(chickens and geese) had probably been allowed in the house at some point. The
filth that covered the kitchen cabinets was…out of this world. If you can
imagine cooking 100 meals or getting 100 meals of take out and just NEVER
cleaning up after each meal, that’s what it would look like. Even on the stove
top and in the sink…there were dishes and food and trash! The bathrooms were worse. Because since the
tenant had quit paying the rent 3 months before the water was in the Seller’s
name as an attempt to get her to pay he had that shut off and told her if she
wasn’t going to pay for anything he wasn’t going to keep footing the bill for
the water so she’d have to get it on in her name. Well we gathered that she
didn’t because the toilets were so bad…they had to be torn out!
The only
way I feel I can share these photos is if I share the immediate after photos so
that you can see how within a few weeks the Seller had it all taken care of
again. First the contractors came through and removed all the furniture and
trash. I’m not sure how they did it but I can imagine there were large shovels
involved, seriously. They also took care to gather up all the trash in the
front and back yards and all those belongings I had seen in the carport a few
weeks before turned out to be the tenant’s elderly mother’s belongings. I guess
they said that she had taken her mother in, put all her stuff out there to
store and “took care” of her mom although she wasn’t really taking care of her at all. All those items, including
some gorgeous antiques, were covered in animal poo as well…they all got hauled
off to the trash by the contractors. Then a professional (and amazing) cleaning
crew came through and for about a week they cleaned every square inch of the
house, excluding the exterior. They amazing things they did, they were
shockingly affordable and greatly underpaid for what they accomplished. Then
once it was in a bearable state the contractor agreed to start renovation #2,
they had to come in and remove flooring and drywall in places, replace a lot of
stuff, replace toilets, repaint every surface, etc.
Here is my warning, don't judge! I am a true lover of homes and all things architecture and old and I've seen "run down" homes many times in my adventures. But when a home, any home, is not properly taken care of much less completely neglected like this one it makes my heart hurt. These pictures are very sad and make me sad FOR the house...that any property has to go through this level of neglect is something I hate to see.
The sad front porch
Part of the dining room/living room
Part of the living room
The entry and living room (you can see the piles of trash on the porch out the door)
Living room
The fridge...I still cringe at the thought of this.
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Kitchen
Dining room
Master bedroom
Hall bathroom
Hall bathroom
Third bedroom
Side "garden"...aka, their dumping grounds! Or just part of their dumping grounds actually!
Front yard
Front yard, in front of the house (See how that bamboo was already about 4 feet tall in less than a year after it was burnt out!!!!)
Front of house
Side yard, view to the shop. There used to be a chain-link fence there. We assume the horses messed with it until it was down because they also ruined 4 other areas of fencing.
Front corner of the front yard, used to be an enclosed fence area, now that corner and an 8 feet stretch is missing fencing.
In front of the carport/shop.
In the carport/shop area.
NOW FOR THE PICTURES FOR AFTER THEY CLEANED IT UP AND DID SOME WORK, ALTHOUGH NOT ALL...
The photos below are the state the property was in about September 2014 before they FINISHED the remodel. I'll pick up on photos after this time in the next post.
All the trash was gone, finally! But 2 pieces of fencing in the garden were ruined so it isn't completely enclosed anymore.
Being as I witnessed the fridge in the state it was in before I was SHOCKED at how clean it was after the cleaning crew!!! They did a fantastic job and I wouldn't be surprised if they told me they used tooth picks, tooth brushes and Qtips to get into all the tiny nooks! I thought we were going to have to throw it away!
Still some remnants of big trash items outside after the haul off.
The side yard post clean up, I'm still bummed that fencing is gone.
At this
point in my life, my son and I were living in Maricopa still with my fiance Chad
and things were rough. His 4 children had come down from New Mexico from their
mother’s to spend the summer with us and I had no idea what it would be like to
have a house full of 5 children and 5 dogs! We had just adopted Bella, our
yellow lab to add to our family AND his kids were forced to bring their 2 dogs because their
mother didn’t want them home with her all summer. Back 6 months before the
summer came when we got our house together I told him that I wanted us to have
a nice family home for all the kids, knowing they’d come home in the summer,
knowing my youngest son Konnor would come out to visit and Chad was also in the
middle of trying to get custody of his oldest daughter who was 14. So we opted
to get a house which was more than what we needed, that which we could barely
afford, but I made it work. So we had a 4 bedroom house with 2 living rooms, 2
dining rooms, a heated pool and a built-in spa. Some days it felt like we were “living
the life” but a lot of the time it was just another thing to worry about. It was a lot of house to take care of, the 2 extra bedrooms (although already setup for
the kids) always had the doors closed because nobody used them. When the kids
were down for the summer, all of the house and the pool were well used but the
expense of the utilities were insane. Because one well known little fact about
the town of Maricopa is that there is only 1 electricity provider and because
of that they have sky high rates and so over the months of June and July we saw
$700 electric bills! Over double what we normally had.
Then,
also with me being a Realtor and working from home 90% of the time it was hard
to resist my Southern Mom instinct to clean all day, entertain the kids, cook 3
meals a day and find fun things to occupy the children for their summer break.
I felt bad that I couldn’t be hands on all the time but my work demanded a lot
from me and I had recently taken on a partner in my business because I had too
much work, too many clients for 1 person to juggle and provide them the level
of service I demanded of myself. But in turn, bringing on the new partner meant
a lot of time training her, as she was brand new out of real estate school.
The
stress of that summer put a tremendous strain on our relationship and also on
our finances. Me being the primary breadwinner of the family, I was now losing
a good percentage of my regular income to share with my new partner, so that it
would justify having a position for her. I hadn’t fully thought through how
much that would affect MY finances…as the hope was that more people to work meant
more work could be handled but that meant MORE work would have to be
gained. I would have had to spend a good 60% of my time networking and doing
lead generation type activities in order to bolster in enough work to fully
support two full time real estate agents. And although I could have done that
that was never my game plan when I thought to grow my business. My plan was to
continue doing what I did which was finding most of my business through
referrals, repeat clients, word of mouth, etc. as I’ve always felt this was the
most genuine way to grow a business, the right way.
So then
my fiance's children went back home at the end of summer, we were down 2 dogs thankfully back to having the 3, my son started school back and life kind of
went back to this normal pace of things although the real estate business was
still in a bit of turmoil due to all the changes and our finances were in an
awful state after having not prepared for all the COSTS of caring for 5 kids
and 5 dogs for 2 months! I will pick up on this backstory in the fall of 2014
on the next entry!
Xoxo,
Elizabeth
