So on a hot day in August 2013 with the sun blaring I set out in my SUV to travel 25 miles southeast of where I lived in Maricopa, Arizona to go take a look at this property. It was an area I had never been in, roads I never even knew existed. As much as I love driving, traveling, exploring and photography...my curiosity had never taken me that far south of where I lived. So it was a really fun day, a day in which I took photos of the drive along the way because I was immensely pleased when I came across farmland! I am originally from Arkansas and feel although I have lived the last 15 years of my life in Arizona (I do love the desert) that I have always been a country girl at heart! If I see a cowboy, a Ford F250, farmland or a John Deere tractor I get super excited and feel like I'm "home"!
So that day I came down to the property I was meeting the contractor there to see what all work he had done and what he had left to do. He had told the owner he was already done with everything he said he needed to do. That wasn't accurate. He had finished his work but had not cleaned up after himself and people not doing their job is a huge pet peeve of mine. I began photographing the entire property, all 8 acres outside and inside the house so that I could compile a report for my new client. We talked about what items the contractor needed to take care of; primarily he needed to finish removing his construction trash from the whole property, finish the exterior paint and a new metal dark brown roof was going on the shop as soon as the materials came in.
I went home, compiled my photos and report and sent it over to the seller. He hired me for the job! The following weeks I continued to monitor the construction process, hired a crew to come in remove the extensive...hideous...TALL bamboo that was surrounding a good half of the house! That is one invasive, resilient plant!!! There are photos below to attest to how tall that beast was. I told the Seller it just had to go because you couldn't even see the house from the dirt road, the bamboo was over 20 feet tall in most places and was yellowing (although not dying) and so the home greatly lacked curb appeal. Now I know in the world of real estate it was just a rental listing but to me, if my name is on anything, or namely...if my face is on the sign posted in the front yard, I have to be proud of what I'm trying to sell someone. So, the seller agreed and let me hire the guys to remove all the bamboo that was in a row immediately in front of the house, only...
I did not realize at the time that the guys I hired had never removed bamboo before and I myself did not research the matter as I'm not the landscaper. What they did was they took a chainsaw to the stalks and cut them all down to about 2 feet tall. After they were done with that they burned the stalks in a pile and THEN began burning the row of 2 feet tall stalks that were rooted. This worked okay because it wasn't too close to the house and there was a metal chain-link fence in there somewhere under that bamboo and they said it wouldn't burn up or melt so fire was the quickest way to get rid of it. Well...about 95% of it was burnt out, leaving a black char on the ground and a few random stalks about 6 inches tall sticking up here or there.
This is another view of that same stretch of bamboo.
A close up of the house from the other side of the bamboo...with that huge ugly deck. The deck itself is quiet amazing, how they had attempted to close it in (I presume for privacy) was not so pretty. You can barely see the thick, numerous stalks of bamboo...it was bad.
Here is another view of the fence line, pre-burn.
The burn itself was pretty interesting because NONE of us had ever seen greenish smoke come from burning vegetation...
This is the
only photo I have of the after math, I wish I had taken more. What myself and
the seller were bummed to discover is that Bamboo is so invasive and resilient
THAT even fire can’t get rid of it. So after a couple of good rains those bad
boys were sprouting brand new green stalks up within a week!!! By that time we
had it on the rental market, house was all good to go and we had quickly found
a tenant for the property and she said she didn’t mind the bamboo so she didn’t
care if it came back. So that saved us the worry of having to dig it out BUT
the money spent on that “removal”…was a loss.
The
following photos are of the backyard clean-up we did (I helped actually,
because I love yard work!) before the tenant moved in. I should have known from
day 1 that this property would hold a special place in my heart because as a
Realtor I rarely come to a listing of mine in work clothes and spend 6 hours in
the sun doing yard work! But…I thought I was just going above and beyond for my
client and doing a hobby I enjoyed that was mutually beneficial. But I think my
sub conscious was thinking something along the lines “This will be hers one day
whether she realizes it or not, that’s why she cares so much!”…but who is to
know!
Here is a
2013 view of the carport. I have sense lovingly referred to this as “my shop”
because I have dreams of wood working (all of which I know nothing about and
still have to learn), enclosing it like a garage or shop so that it is weather
proof because the WIND and spiders here are rather…INTENSE! Behind the shop is
an attached chicken coop (pretty cool but I don’t plan to have chickens unless
I need to, they kind of creep me out for some reason), an attached covered
awning I assume for storage right outside the chicken coop and then on the
other side of the chicken coop is another outdoor storage area with a covering.
The chicken coop and both covered storage areas will eventually be modified to
be a large indoor/outdoor pig pen because now pigs…those are an animal I love
and I can’t wait to raise!!! I hope to make it a nice little paradise for them
to help them stay out of this Arizona heat!
Here is a 2013 view of the carport. I have sinse lovingly referred to this as “my shop” because I have dreams of wood working (all of which I know nothing about and still have to learn), enclosing it like a garage or shop so that it is weather proof because the WIND and spiders here are rather…INTENSE! Behind the shop is an attached chicken coop (pretty cool but I don’t plan to have chickens unless I need to, they kind of creep me out for some reason), an attached covered awning I assume for storage right outside the chicken coop and then on the other side of the chicken coop is another outdoor storage area with a covering. The chicken coop and both covered storage areas will eventually be modified to be a large indoor/outdoor pig pen because now pigs…those are an animal I love and I can’t wait to raise!!! I hope to make it a nice little paradise for them to help them stay out of this Arizona heat!
This is the
driveway area that pulls up right next to the house, before you get to the “shop”.
This area I’ve
called a “garden” from the very first time I saw it. Because it is (was)
totally fenced in, it’s on the far side of the house away from all the other
parts of the yard, it has a cute little gate, it has 5-6 tall, skinny trees for
shade and it has 1 small raised flower bed. The 2 windows of the house that
look out into this “garden” are 1 window in my son’s room and the window in my
office, ie, the 3rd tiny bedroom (more to come on that later).
Now, for the
“pretty” photos of the house, the ones that I took and edited that went on the
MLS with the listing when it was up for a rental. I’ll just give you a quick
tour of the inside of the house post-remodel #1 (more on that later) and the
grounds after the initial clean up.
MLS PHOTOS FROM AUGUST 2013!!!
Since there are more than 30 photos but I still want to share them with you guys I'm giving you a link to our Facebook page where I've put up an album of the photos! So if you want to see those just follow this link below!
The end of
the story for 2013 was that I was a single Mom living in Maricopa, Arizona with
my then 9 year old son and my then 7 year old had just a couple of months
before moved to his dad’s in Arkansas. It was THE toughest decision of my life
but after a few months of considering it I decided to let him and see if it
would help him with his behavior and health issues. He HAD chronic severe
asthma and eczema and seriously within a few months of living in a moist, humid
environment, having gotten out of the dryness of the desert, 90% of his
allergies and symptoms had completely gone away! So it was a hard decision but
it one that I know I made right, no matter how much I miss my baby!!! <3
Riley and I
lived with my Mother to save money and I wasn’t dating. The very end of 2013 is
when I met my fiancé. A true cowboy and a rather stand-up guy…and everything
moved so quickly so we got a house together in Maricopa, all the while that
there was a tenant occupying this property. This story will continue on the next blog post
were the journey of THIS property and my connection to it picks up again in
August 2014, a year later!
Xoxo,
Elizabeth
