On the Inside - Part I

Our original contract with Previous Owner included a clause to protect the occupying tenant from being chased out of the house.  (He was actually moving in the day we first came to see the property back in July.  Pause here to be astonished at the amount of filth that accumulated in a few short months.)  The contract stated that the tenant would be given up to 75 days after closing to vacate.  He took every last one of those 75 days, so it is now November and we can finally get inside and start some work.

This little guy had apparently made his home in the kitchen.  I'm sure there were plenty of bugs for him to feast on based on how clean the sink, counters and stove were.

There is, of course, cleaning to do first because, wow—reference previous blog post regarding the astonishing layers of filth.  Vacating tenant’s definition of “clean” and mine do NOT line up with one another.  While the guys worked on more clean-up of the back pasture and the trimming of trees, I donned a mask and rubber gloves and got started on the inside where I found food still crusted in the sink and caked all over the range top.  409 and I got started on the kitchen counters as well.  I expected to need to spray them down a time or two, but the depths of the gunk ran deeper than that.  When the 409 suds turned brown after the first two rounds, I had to take a break.  And there was still the bathroom to clean.  Suffice it to say that after much vinegar and baking soda, wiping, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, carpet shampooing and many trash bags later, we deemed the house disinfected.  Of course, we hadn’t removed any fixtures yet, so the best was yet to come.

This is after the first cleaning.  It needed 2 or 3 more to reach the liveable stage.

Tree Trimming with Tractors