- Joined
- Dec 3, 2013
- Messages
- 1,844
A few days over three years from when we purchased our retirement home, we were finally able to move in on September 1st. It has been a long time coming…..
For the past three years the house has been rented. The couple who were here for the first two years took really good care of the home. When they moved out you would have never known they were ever there.
The second renter who just moved out well that’s another story. While they paid their rent on-time every month, when we got here, we discovered a few things. Apparently, they had a wedding here in mid-August. There are white marking paint lines all over my property designating parking spaces. Some of the tree trunks are also painted. I assume it was done so no one would hit them. I just can’t fathom why they would do this with paint. My property manager was going to have words with them and is sending out an arborist to see if the threes can be cleaned.
Also, the dishwasher is broken. The washing machine is missing a foot. The hot water shutoff valve for the washer was broken so they turned the water off at the well and said nothing. The irrigation timer was off, presumably since the wedding so my lawn and field grass are half dead. The dryer duct was missing. The dryer power cord was damaged, and one power leg was not even connected. Half the lightbulbs in the house were burned out. The front door has several nicks on it. The living room sliding glass door lock was broken so the door was not locked. In the hall bath they managed to break the seal between the toilet bowl and the tank so that water was shut off. The built-in range in the kitchen was disconnected from the power BEHIND the range? The pellet stove is full of cigarette butts though there is no indication they smoked in the house. And to round things off there is blue paint splatter all over the narrow concrete apron in front of the garage. Just really odd stuff.
A small example of their handy work. WTH!
My property manager was short staffed this past week and was not able to do his closeout yet so he will get the tour next week.
Now the house was built in 1973 and most things inside are original. It is like a living time capsule. The previous owner took such good care of things it almost looked new, just dated. For use that was perfect since we knew we were going to rent and then remodel. So I am not too put off with some issues with the appliances, I just wish people were upfront about things.
Our dog is going nuts having 3-1/2 acres to herself. Pure heaven. She is ¾ Staffordshire Bull Terrier and ¼ Rottweiler. A very sweet dog with tons of personality. On our fist day here, she discovered the deer. Now at the home we came from about all she ever chased were squirrels and lizards. She wanted nothing to do with the rats or mice the cat would catch. Apparently there (was) a mama and two 7-8 month old fawns living on the property. We are fully fenced with gates but had kept the driveway gates open while renting. When we closed those for the dog, we trapped one of the fawns who wasn’t quite old enough the jump the fence. Well, our dog discovered a new instinct, chased down and tried to kill the fawn.
Our neighbor across the road saw what was happening and alerted us to what was going on. We got the dog off but the fawn was on the ground on its side breathing hard, eyes rolled back and not moving even if we touched it. I figured it’s neck was broken. Not sure what to do we called a local animal rescue. They were not allowed “by law” to deal with dear, whatever that means. We are in the county, so next we called fish and game. They said “That’s too bad but these things happen. If the animal will not get up and is suffering you will need to dispatch it and either bury the carcass on your property or see if the land fill will take it.” Welcome to country living!!!
About an hour had passed while making calls and the only weapon I had unpacked and had ammo for was my 9mm. ****** off that on my first day there I had to go shoot a baby dear and bury it in my yard, I grabbed the 9mm and headed out to finish the poor thing off. As I approached it, it was still breathing so I bent down to touch it to see if it would or could move. As I touched it the damn thing sprang up and ran off. About crapped myself. After a few choice words and some herding, we managed to get it out the gate and on its way. Live or die it was off my property. Welcome to country living!!!
It’s now day four and I finally have my temporary office and the internet setup. Because of our location there are few options for broadband. Cellular, which is terrible. Satellite, which is slow and expensive. We ARE in a beta area for StarLink but wait times are around six months and I hear there can be gaps in service. For now we went with a company that does broadband over microwave. Because we sit on top of a knoll with loads of tall trees, they put the antenna 85 feet up in a tree. Unfortunately, the only tree with a clear line of site was too far away from the house so we had to bring it into the shop and then setup a wireless bridge. So far so good as far as streaming and internet goes but my download speeds are not great which will be a problem for work. The wireless bridge still needs some tweeking, I hope! Going from gigabit internet to 20mb is going to take some getting used to.
My temp office is in one half of a 34' x 12" storage shed. The was the former owners hobby spot. Needs some work.
Broadband Antenna, in a tree.
Today we were finally able to move the bedroom furniture in no more sleeping on the floor! Our living room and dining furniture are still at the old place so we are roughing it with a folding card table and folding camp chairs until we bring up the next load in a few weeks. We plan on all new furniture once we remodel.
Yesterday as I was still fixing things left from the renter it hit me as to how much work is still ahead of us. Over the last three years I have been updating our other home to get it ready to rent after we moved out. I had deferred a lot of maintenance over the years so it has been a large undertaking. Being a general contractor, I have a hard time hiring out what I can do myself. The only things I hired out were the concrete driveway & flatwork and re-piping the underfloor water. I still have the floors in three rooms, painting the kitchen and tidying up the rear yard left to do. Then I get to start all over again here. Ugh!
Over the next few days I'm hoping to get all of the household boxes that we had previously brought up out of my shop so I can start thinking about how I want to setup my equipment and other tools. I want my shop back!!!!
For the past three years the house has been rented. The couple who were here for the first two years took really good care of the home. When they moved out you would have never known they were ever there.
The second renter who just moved out well that’s another story. While they paid their rent on-time every month, when we got here, we discovered a few things. Apparently, they had a wedding here in mid-August. There are white marking paint lines all over my property designating parking spaces. Some of the tree trunks are also painted. I assume it was done so no one would hit them. I just can’t fathom why they would do this with paint. My property manager was going to have words with them and is sending out an arborist to see if the threes can be cleaned.
Also, the dishwasher is broken. The washing machine is missing a foot. The hot water shutoff valve for the washer was broken so they turned the water off at the well and said nothing. The irrigation timer was off, presumably since the wedding so my lawn and field grass are half dead. The dryer duct was missing. The dryer power cord was damaged, and one power leg was not even connected. Half the lightbulbs in the house were burned out. The front door has several nicks on it. The living room sliding glass door lock was broken so the door was not locked. In the hall bath they managed to break the seal between the toilet bowl and the tank so that water was shut off. The built-in range in the kitchen was disconnected from the power BEHIND the range? The pellet stove is full of cigarette butts though there is no indication they smoked in the house. And to round things off there is blue paint splatter all over the narrow concrete apron in front of the garage. Just really odd stuff.
A small example of their handy work. WTH!
My property manager was short staffed this past week and was not able to do his closeout yet so he will get the tour next week.
Now the house was built in 1973 and most things inside are original. It is like a living time capsule. The previous owner took such good care of things it almost looked new, just dated. For use that was perfect since we knew we were going to rent and then remodel. So I am not too put off with some issues with the appliances, I just wish people were upfront about things.
Our dog is going nuts having 3-1/2 acres to herself. Pure heaven. She is ¾ Staffordshire Bull Terrier and ¼ Rottweiler. A very sweet dog with tons of personality. On our fist day here, she discovered the deer. Now at the home we came from about all she ever chased were squirrels and lizards. She wanted nothing to do with the rats or mice the cat would catch. Apparently there (was) a mama and two 7-8 month old fawns living on the property. We are fully fenced with gates but had kept the driveway gates open while renting. When we closed those for the dog, we trapped one of the fawns who wasn’t quite old enough the jump the fence. Well, our dog discovered a new instinct, chased down and tried to kill the fawn.
Our neighbor across the road saw what was happening and alerted us to what was going on. We got the dog off but the fawn was on the ground on its side breathing hard, eyes rolled back and not moving even if we touched it. I figured it’s neck was broken. Not sure what to do we called a local animal rescue. They were not allowed “by law” to deal with dear, whatever that means. We are in the county, so next we called fish and game. They said “That’s too bad but these things happen. If the animal will not get up and is suffering you will need to dispatch it and either bury the carcass on your property or see if the land fill will take it.” Welcome to country living!!!
About an hour had passed while making calls and the only weapon I had unpacked and had ammo for was my 9mm. ****** off that on my first day there I had to go shoot a baby dear and bury it in my yard, I grabbed the 9mm and headed out to finish the poor thing off. As I approached it, it was still breathing so I bent down to touch it to see if it would or could move. As I touched it the damn thing sprang up and ran off. About crapped myself. After a few choice words and some herding, we managed to get it out the gate and on its way. Live or die it was off my property. Welcome to country living!!!
It’s now day four and I finally have my temporary office and the internet setup. Because of our location there are few options for broadband. Cellular, which is terrible. Satellite, which is slow and expensive. We ARE in a beta area for StarLink but wait times are around six months and I hear there can be gaps in service. For now we went with a company that does broadband over microwave. Because we sit on top of a knoll with loads of tall trees, they put the antenna 85 feet up in a tree. Unfortunately, the only tree with a clear line of site was too far away from the house so we had to bring it into the shop and then setup a wireless bridge. So far so good as far as streaming and internet goes but my download speeds are not great which will be a problem for work. The wireless bridge still needs some tweeking, I hope! Going from gigabit internet to 20mb is going to take some getting used to.
My temp office is in one half of a 34' x 12" storage shed. The was the former owners hobby spot. Needs some work.
Broadband Antenna, in a tree.
Today we were finally able to move the bedroom furniture in no more sleeping on the floor! Our living room and dining furniture are still at the old place so we are roughing it with a folding card table and folding camp chairs until we bring up the next load in a few weeks. We plan on all new furniture once we remodel.
Yesterday as I was still fixing things left from the renter it hit me as to how much work is still ahead of us. Over the last three years I have been updating our other home to get it ready to rent after we moved out. I had deferred a lot of maintenance over the years so it has been a large undertaking. Being a general contractor, I have a hard time hiring out what I can do myself. The only things I hired out were the concrete driveway & flatwork and re-piping the underfloor water. I still have the floors in three rooms, painting the kitchen and tidying up the rear yard left to do. Then I get to start all over again here. Ugh!
Over the next few days I'm hoping to get all of the household boxes that we had previously brought up out of my shop so I can start thinking about how I want to setup my equipment and other tools. I want my shop back!!!!
