Hard Times at Chateau Pee-Pee

The past week I've been without internet access - which feels uncomfortably like being without a limb - while we finally, FINALLY, took possession of our new house on Camp Robinson.  (Therefore this may be a longish post...it feels so great to have my hands typing away at a keyboard again I may have a hard time stopping.)  Unfortunately, the day that was supposed to bring great joy instead brought intense frustration, anger, and not just a few tears as I walked through the house, stumbling over all the broken furniture, trash, and just utter crap the former tenants left not only in the house, but all over the yard, on the porches and in the storage buildings.  My eyes watered at the stench of cat pee soaking the carpets and the unmistakable odor of outright filthy living.  I quickly regretted rebuffing the offers from my folks to come and help with pre-move prep. 

Mom, you're entitled to a big "I told you so."  I humbly accept.

We spent an entire afternoon just clearing the flotsam left in and around the double-wide to stack on an ever-growing refuse pile, which the former owner promised to take care of.  I'm not holding my breath on that one, but at least we got it out of our way and consolidated into one big heap.  One thing I'll never understand is how poeple spend money on things, then don't take care of them.  The sheer amount of once-nice items that were not cheap, but that had been abused and neglected until they were junk was unbelievable.  A few things left behind were usable, such as a barely-used automatic dog-waterer I happen to know costs about $40 at Petco.  I'm guessing money wasn't a huge concern to these folks.  It's amazing what you can learn about people by going through their discarded stuff.  They seemed to have the attitude that many people have today - "don't take care of it, then don't fix it - just buy a new one."

After we got most of the junk and trash cleaned up, we turned our attention to state of the house.  Now, I've never been accused of being an immaculate housekeeper.  I seem to have contracted that recurring disease knows as "clutteritis", letting things pile up, forgetting to put things away after use, and allowing laundry to accumulate while waiting to be folded.  I also occasionaly give in to the "do-it-laters" when faced with a beautiful day or good book.  However, despite my failings as a neat-freak, I've never felt my home was actually dirty.  Oh, it accumulates dirt and dust, our shower is indeed a magnet for soap scum, and there are items in the back of the fridge that could possibly be designated as some new life-form.  But, I do excercise my vacuum, broom, mop, dust rags, and sponges at least once a week...and every couple weeks I try to make a foray through the fridge to discard food relics.  While my goal is to one day live in such a way that at any given time my house looks as though there is a place for everything, and everything is in it's place, in reality I'm happy if at any given time someone can walk in and feel comfortable.  Plus, the dirt that is in my house is my dirt...and that's different.

In our new house, the former owners weren't bothered by even the most meager methods of housekeeping.  Matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that to accumulate that much filth in the short time they lived in this house, not once was a vacuum run over the carpets or a sponge passed over the showers.  How do people live in such dirty conditions?  I'm sure bonafide neat-freaks ask the same questions about my house, so I guess it's all relative.

In any case, the accumulated filth left a grimy film over every surface, which collected dust, hair, food...and I'm not sure what else - I really don't want to know.  I'll not go into great detail, but after a short time of cleaning it wouldn't have surprised us to find Jimmy Hoffa somewhere in the mess.

I'll quit grossing you out, but I will say that I expect some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award for spending two solid hours mopping up the filth-encrusted sludge that had accumulated behind and under the stove and fridge.  *shudder*  Due to the intense odor of cat urine, we started calling our new place "Chateau Pee-Pee"...it has a nice Frenchy ring and it helped us keep up our sense of humor, which we were quickly losing.

(I'll also spare the details from the guy who took over the former house-owner's office and had to clean it...but I will say it included boogers.  Yes...boogers.)

Once we got the carpet and pad out, which took several days, the smell GREATLY improved.  And, we were delighted to find that the floor was undamaged from the "moisture."  After a few days of intense cleaning (and a lot of bleach), greatly aided by Marden's folks chipping in, the house not only lost all trace of the initial horrible stench, but started feeling a bit more friendly, as if Chateau Pee-Pee really could actually be our home one day in the near future, and the dark cloud over my head started to dissipate slightly.

On an additional bright note, we also continued having flooring success.  As I mentioned before, we decided to go with Ron Pack Carpet and Flooring.  We worked with Pamela, who came out to take measurements and give us a quote.  Unfortunately the flooring we'd initially picked turned out to be a bit more expensive than we thought, and with the sheer square footage we needed it flew right out of our price range.  That's not hard to do with 2700+ square feet to cover in flooring.  We wanted good quality that would hold up and not look cheap, but that prospect was starting to appear impossible.  It was either break the bank, or lower our quality standards and risk getting something that not only looked cheap but that wouldn't hold up.  Pamela was sympathetic to our plight, though, and had brought some samples of high-quality flooring she had only in small amounts, but that she thought we might like.  Long story short - after Pamela scoured their warehouse as well as the warehouse in Ron Pack's other location, and we ended up with really nice, thick, richly "hand-hewn" textured laminate flooring that is normally very expensive.  We did have to go with four slighly different floors, but the trailer is so huge that I don't think it'll look patchworky, and Pamela did find enough of one floor to do the main part of the house all the same.  It's not what I would've picked for my dream house - a little dark for my taste - but for this house it'll work, especially with all the windows and natural light it has, and after the walls are brightened up with some fun paint.  And it DEFINATELY works for the pocketbook - Pamela was able to get the entire house floored for $1.07 per square foot.  We left Ron Pack's parking lot in a state of almost giddy relief.

This whole experience makes me wonder, "HOW do we always get ourselves into these situations???"  It seems I'm always redoing a house.  It seems I've been redoing houses and apartments every year since college.  I sincerely hope against hope that this is the one...this is where we'll land for a significant amount of time.  We shall see.