Our rental Nightmare...July 2012

When we moved two years ago we signed a lease to own agreement with a family.  They put down some money, with the intention to buy in two years.  Their were a few red flags that came up, but we were desperate and we justified those red flags.  They raved about how clean they were, how they regularly shampooed the carpets and cleaned.  They moved in and were on time every month with there payments.  So I stopped worrying.  The renter would occasionally post pics on facebook so I felt okay about the house, I didn't see any obvious damage or have any major concerns.  We did "drive-by's" every time we were in Oregon, but never did a walk-through.  Until the weekend before Sunriver.  Our renters were separating and it was looking like they were not going to buy or even continue to rent, so we decided to stop by and see what would need to be fixed up before we rented or put the house up for sale.  Now...have you ever seen one of those episodes of Hoarders, where you shudder and how dirty and cluttered a house can be and you think, who lives like this?  I felt like we had walked into an episode of that show.  My heart literally dropped as I walked around.  And when I walked outside..I thought maybe I would just throw up right then and there. The yard was a disaster.  Boards rotting out on the deck, garbage everywhere, no upkeep of the yard, screen doors and windows ripped by the dog, carpet torn and stained, extensive water damage on floor in kitchen, water damage behind backsplash, dog had chewed banister on stairs, smelled like dog pee, horrible paint job upstairs...it was overwhelming.
We wrote up a list of what they needed to fix and headed to Sunriver.  When we got home from Sunriver I got a text from a neighbor asking if our renters had moved out.  There had been a moving van in the driveway all weekend.  "not that I know of" I said.  She texted me back three days later to say she had done some investigating and found out that the renters had packed up and left, they left the keys with a neighbor and told them that we were aware of the situation and would be in contact with them.  (we were not aware and we had no contact information for this neighbor and they had no contact information for us)  Thank goodness for our neighbor who let us know.  We packed up our stuff and headed to Oregon that weekend.  We worked our tails off and planned to come back the following weekend.  During the week my mom and Dad came up to help out around the house.  Honestly, we could not have finished without the help of my family. I don't even know how I did what I did at 36/37 weeks pregnant.  We worked 13-14 hour days with no breaks.  I came back with a case of carpal tunnel (i'm sure from gripping a paint brush for so long) and a case of tendonitis in my foot that seems to have flared up pretty badly.  We worked SO hard and managed to get 99% of the house finished.  I am posting some before and after pics.  The before pics don't even begin to show the reality of how bad it was. 1st.  The backyard/deck before and after.  We pressure washed, sanded and repainted the deck, replaced rotting boards, cut down dying curly willow in back, weeded, trimmed and laid barkdust...

After: ah....as good as we could get it in two weekends.

The stove top before.  I assumed that we would have to purchase a whole new stovetop.  Seriously people, it's called a brillo pad...use it!

after, between my mom, my sister and myself we probably spent 2-3 hours just scrubbing this.  I am still on a search for new knobs...

The living room carpet before.  This picture doesn't really do it justice...the nastiness of it all

 

After, new carpet throughout house (except master)

Carpet up stairs was stained and had large burn mark, supposedly from a curling iron.  I know that I often curl my hair while standing on the stairs.

Before picture of the back yard.  They had all sorts of contraptions put up, I guess to keep the dog in the yard (although it's fully fenced)  ugh...our poor neighbors

Another before picture of the yard.  SOOOOOO sad

 

 after, we did the best we could, and it's Oregon so the grass should be easy to replant.  I guess they had put a swimming pool in the middle of the yard and left it there all winter.  Not the best idea....

 

An after picture of the kitchen.  Blinds were all closed, so it's dark, but it's clean. We learned some very important lessons about being landlords.  DO WALK-THROUGHS regularly!!  On a postive note, we have some friends in our Keizer ward who are planning on renting for a month or two and then purchasing the home.  They are moving in the end of August.  They are replacing the master bdrm carpet, and doing the yard work for us this month.  It's all a long story, but we feel like this is such an amazing blessing, how it all came about and how it's all working out.  So now we are back home, i'm trying to rest and recover from the craziest month of July EVER!