Late 2014, Season of Changes

I pick up in our story, in our journey of getting TO the farm, in October 2014. The financial turmoil I mentioned in the last post that my fiance and I had post-summer was still happening and nearing a breaking point. Chad mentioned that his family had a house in another town an hour away that had been his grandparents and his mother and brother lived there now, there was still a small mortgage on it. They could always use some help with the payment and apparently there were 1-2 rooms that we could use for our rooms if we chose to move there. We talked about it for a while as it meant another move for me and Riley, him having to change schools, moving to a town we had never lived in, moving in with people we barely know and moving away from my real estate market in Maricopa that I specialized in. There were plenty of cons to the idea BUT the pros were that after talking to the family we’d have the option to buy the house from the family and own it one day, of course, allowing Chad’s mom and brother to stay. The house was run down and needed some work, things that they just weren’t able to take care of. So we planned a dinner with his Mom and brother to drive up there and talk to them about this idea, as they didn’t offer it to us in the first place. Chad did a lot of assuming but after talking to a few family members everybody was on board and so we prepared to move. It was the financial break we needed, to save us. We did, unfortunately, have to break our lease on our beautiful home in Maricopa but it came down to the fact that it was the only option we really had. We put 80% of our stuff in storage except for what we needed for our 2 bedrooms and moved in.

This is a part of mine and Riley’s life that because it involves so many other people, I will leave out a lot of the (unpleasant) details.

By November 2014 house remodel #2 on the farm was DONE!!! Myself and the Seller were very pleased with this. He decided he didn’t want the risk of putting a tenant in there again and the cost of the 2 remodels were more than he could recoup continuing to rent out the investment property so he had to sell it. He had an appraisal done on the property and I listed it for sale accordingly! 

Here are the photos of when the second renovation was completed as the house went on the market up for sale just shy of a year ago!

She's no looker and still has no curb appeal but at least she was all cleaned up and ALMOST everything in working order!

The deck is 515 square feet, I measured!

Done again. Dining room.

Living Room 

Living Room

Kitchen

Kitchen

Backyard

Backyard

I have always loved these 2 mature mesquite trees and how they just seem to beautifully frame the shop!

A view of the entrance to the carport, the gate to the back part of the property (about 6 of the 8 acres is rural and fenced in, separate from the "front yard" part of the house/property)

This is a tack shed on the property.

3 car carport/shop

The chicken coop is right there to the right, inside that covered awning area.

A shot of the back 6 acres. =D

Changes abound!!!

The house went on the market and I was excited! I was happy to see it looking so good again and I hosted a few open houses to drive people to the house since it’s in a very rural area. Things didn’t go as planned. There was hardly any interest in the home and when I would have someone come out to see it they either were just curious to see what it looked like after the remodel (nosy neighbors) or they were wanting a rent to own option which the Seller wasn’t too keen on!

In my life, the second week of November was a giant turning point. The stress my relationship was under with my fiance got to be too much and after arguing daily for about a month and finally sitting down to talk, we ended our relationship. Problem was, I had no intention on ending the relationship and I had vested my entire life and my business on this move to a new town. Riley had only been in his new school for maybe 2 months, if that. Add to that that I was heartbroken because nobody likes the end of a relationship but I knew that if we did proceed to hack away at it that if a marriage did happen, it would eventually end as our views on parenting were so far apart…that any compromise seemed impossible. So, since I wasn’t planning on having to move AGAIN we hadn’t been saving money. Both of us had put all of our extra money into fixing up his Mom’s house that we had planned to buy. I think we sunk about $3000 into that house in two months, repairs that were greatly needed. But then at that point in my life seeing the end of my relationship it felt as though all that money had been wasted, on a home I’d never own, belonging to a family I’d never be part of. The magnitude of the situation I was in got to be too much for me to bear. When venting to my Mother on the phone (who lives in Louisiana) she told me that Riley and I needed to come out to see her for Thanksgiving and just give myself a chance to get away. So we did just that. We loaded up in the car and hit the road a few days before Thanksgiving when Riley got out of school. The week following the break up, while still living together, Chad and I didn’t do much talking. We had talked about how it was obvious I couldn’t move out right away so he’d have to be flexible with me. And we needed to at least be friendly with one another or it’d be unbearable for both of us. Since we both agreed on those things, that’s what we did. So our trip to Louisiana and Arkansas (where I’m from, where most of my family is, where my youngest son lives) was great!!! I’ll share some photos below because it was such a wonderful time!

Thanksgiving in Louisiana and Arkansas!

When I go back home several times a year to northern Arkansas it is a 23-34 hour drive. This was my first trip heading to West Monroe, Louisiana and so when we left home and my GPS said 19 hours I was like "Woo hoo, I can do that!". A little known fact about me, I love road trips. Particularly, I love driving, as these trips going back and forth to places we've been so many times there is less "road tripping" and sight seeing and more driving through the night to not have to deal with traffic and fellow travelers! So I almost always set out midday or in the evening with the intent to drive straight through and every trip I've made by myself or just me and my boys, we always made it straight through. #motivation #loveit

But honestly I don't do it alone. I always have a monster (or 5) on board and generally a jug of my homemade sweet tea to make the drive a little easier! And it works! =D

Coming into West Monroe! It was my first time there and I swear you drive through Texas for 12-13 hours (no lie) and about an hour before you hit the Louisiana western border you go from wide open plains to TREES!!! Being from Arkansas with tons of big, huge, beautiful green trees but living in Arizona the last 15 years...I LOVE TREES!!! So that is always one of my favorite parts about going back home!

My boys and I at the Duck Dynasty Headquarters in West Monroe, Louisiana!

Boys being adorable in the hotel

Me and my Riley man

Some time in Arkansas with those we adore!

Part of the middle of southern Arkansas on our way from my Mom's in West Monroe, La (north central Louisiana) to where my bff and family live in north central Arkansas. Almost a straight line north through the center of the state. Trees and wildlife (deer primarily) abound!!! And fog, I do not miss driving in fog!

While there, I kid you not, I never once saw the sun. That to me, being so used to the bright, blissful, endless Arizona sun was pretty dreadful! This was a very soggy, long dirt road to my good friend Alaina's house. She also lives in the middle of nowhere, common factor with my friends and family! But on a sunny day in spring or summer, this road and this area is immensely gorgeous with bright green fields, tall towering trees and wild flowers!!!

One of the days going to my best friend Jeannie's house, this is the dirt road to her house. She lives in flat lands and the area is primarily all farm land. So all the area around her house in a good 8-9 mile radius is ALL farmland. The main highway is raised, due to damaging floods in the last 30 years. But once you turn off that main road you drop down to the rural dirt roads and they're all low, pretty level with the farmland. So when there is a ton of rain and the nearby rivers rise (and they do, at least a few times a year) then the farmland gets flooded. If it is bad enough, then the roads get flooded. A few times, most recently just a couple of years ago, the floods got so bad homes were lost and major damage was done on the nearby towns. These roads make me nervous as I seem to always find myself on them in a car!!!

While in Arkansas to see Konnor we got to go by my best friend's house and she's PURE COUNTRY! Her and her husband (and their kids) live on an acre outside of town and have chickens, lots of dogs they breed and pigs!!! I hadn't had much experience with pigs although...I do love pork! haha! So it was a wonderful experience to get to meet her pigs, talk to her and her husband about what it's like to raise them and I was smitten! I knew right away when I had a farm someday I would have to have pigs! They are such smart and social creatures! I loved how they wagged their little tails when you walk up to them!

One of Jeannie's pigs! So cute!!!!

I am still not a fan of chickens and I'm not sure why, they just kind of freak me out! haha!

Jeannie's dogs looking out to the farmland surrounding their house.

When we went back home to Arizona after Thanksgiving it wasn't too bad because we were only home for a couple of weeks before we left again for the Christmas holidays in the south. Chad and I got along fine, we had a few heart to hearts about how we could be friendly roommates and still split the bills like we were before and make it through until I could put a new plan in place. So everything was shockingly amicable on that front.

Christmas in Arkansas and Louisiana!!!

This was the first Christmas in too many years that all my siblings got together at my Mom's house. The previous 10 or so years my Mother and I both lived in Arizona so we'd celebrate together with my boys but my sister lived in Arkansas and my brother lived in Oklahoma. This year with me coming out, my brother and sister came out as well since they were all less than 8-9 hours away. So my Mom was very happy to have all her babies and all her grandbabies together in one place! We took that opportunity to have some family portraits done by my sister in law who is a professional photographer!

The swampy yet beautiful park where we did our family photos! The grounds were GORGEOUS! And I'm not sure what kind of trees these tall, lanky, mossy trees were but any tree is a splendid sight to me so naturally, I snapped up several photos while there!

One of the docks we did photos on!

My two happy boys, playing video games at Nana's!

My baby boo! He is already 8 but still loves his blanky that he got when he was just 6 mths old. Sleeps with it always!

Riley man on Christmas morning.

So those are just a few photos from Thanksgiving and Christmas! This was a long post with lots of pictures so I'll pick up on the next post in early 2015! Almost got you guys caught up to date, almost!

XoXo,

Elizabeth

Summer 2014, tenant eviction

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