Project Number TWO

Life, health, jobs and LIFE even more left me (Jess) with limited time to find a place to move. But also…friends had tenants that pretty well destroyed their property. From setting a fire in the kitchen (four years ago) that they never cleaned up the portion they agreed to all the way to animals having sprayed up walls, timing is tight, but the opportunity to help each other is priceless.

Years ago, two daycares were ran in tandom, kids and adults were inseparable and this home still holds loved memories for many people. This home was a second home to many kids and even myself, I could walk in anytime of the day and sit on the couch to almost inevitably fall asleep because that piece of furniture was magic. So you can imagine the shock felt upon walking into a home you knew so well, seeing it in the state it was in. Reminder, this wasn’t even my home and my horror was even a fraction of the owners.

We had THIS week to start the process and get the home ready for temporary residence. My kids and I are moving in Saturday, fingers crossed, but as of this last Sunday, you could hardly breathe in the house. The carpet is destroyed and was removed first thing, the padding underneath was actually stuck to the floor in patches due to such awful staining, I kept feeling like I was sliding but put it out of my mind until David was pulling carpet through the kitchen and fell from the slickness on his shoes when he got to the tile. Y’all, I’ve never in my LIFE seen anything like this. David got all the carpet and padding out, we opened the windows (hoping to air some of the stench out) and set up a fan we found in a closet.

You may see these pictures and think, nah…I mean it’s bad but not that bad…so here is a picture of the living room carpet, next to the carpet from the closet IN the living room. Judge for yourself…

So much gross and please remember…this was WET.

Sunday night the house was left with the floors looking like this below. One room seemed to have been free of animals, but there were enough stains and smell that the carpet still needed to be removed. However this was the only carpet that was dry when it was removed from the house.

When I returned Monday, after more fans and a dehumidifier were brought over by the owner, the floors were still too wet to assess. Was anything salvageable? Did the dining room need to be refloored? There was some cleaning that could be done in the kitchen and bathroom…because there was pet hair EVERYWHERE, however, the smell was still so intense it was impossible to stay very long and I had to abandon ship until the floor had dried substantially.