I would like to write to you about the nightmare that has been my life since September 23rd, 2019. It feels like nothing has been going right. I feel like I have a black cloud following close above me. I have been so busy and stressed that I haven’t had any time to work on my site, my scripts, podcast, or anything else. I barely make it out of bed for work these days.
In what was supposed to be a joyous, exciting day, quickly turned into a nonstop living hell. This is the day we closed on our house. Everyone is so happy for us and congratulating us but really, I just want to sink into a hole in the ground and never come out. I can’t help but want to return the house. Let me start from the beginning.
Monday, Sept 23rd: We had our final walk through with our realtor and our closing appointment. During the walk through everything looked okay but I smelled urine. I stupidly didn’t say anything to my realtor because I naively thought one of their dogs must have peed before they moved out and I would just clean it later. No biggie…so I thought.
After the appointment I went to work and was anxious all day to move our stuff in. Our apartment was mostly packed up and in boxes. After work we moved a bunch of boxes to the house. When we walked in I was hit with a very strong smell of urine, stronger than it was in the morning. I pulled out some Nature’s Miracle and Vinegar and looked for the pee spot. We couldn’t find our black light so I went the old fashioned route and sniffed around. I found a lot of spots…This is the beginning.
Tuesday, Sept 24th: Knowing we were closing, I had already made 2 appointments to pick up a kitchen table and patio table from Facebook Marketplace. We had already arranged friends to help us pick up the tables as well as help us move our furniture from the apartment to house. We got beers and ciders and catered Chipotle. We didn’t want to move all of our furniture yet but we were forced to because one of the women with our perfect kitchen table wouldn’t hold the table for us and we didn’t want to have to rent a truck twice. We spent hours upon hours moving furniture into our new living room.
Wednesday, Sept 25th: My birthday. I am now 33 and an owner of a house I can’t live in. I tried to clean spots with Vinegar and Nature’s Miracle but i discovered spots everywhere. Everyone was wishing me a happy birthday and asking what fun things we were doing or where we were going out to dinner. I tried to joke about having to clean pee all night on my birthday and honestly I was having a minor pity party but I was trying to push through and clean the carpets so we could move in.
We contacted our realtor to let him know there was dog urine spots. He said try to clean it with vinegar which is what we did.
Thursday, Sept 26th: The Vinegar and Nature’s Miracle did not work in the slightest bit. The smell was so powerful. I could not believe how much this smelled like urine. After much research on the internet, we decided our next best bet was to rent a shampooer. We moved all of our furniture into the spare bedroom and sun-room because those are the rooms that smell the least bad. We rented a shampooer from home depot after work and shampooed the entire house for 3 hours.
Friday, Sept 27th: We were going away for the weekend for my birthday on a trip we planned months before putting an offer on the house. Not the greatest timing but it was okay because we were supposed to leave the carpets to dry for a day or so anyway.
Sunday, September 29th: We got back much earlier from our trip than expected so we went over to the house to check out the situation. When entering the house we were hit by an overwhelming cloud of urine. That was it. That night I realized that we needed to rip up all the carpets.
Monday, September 30th: One week since the closing date. After work I went straight to the house and ripped up all the carpets. What I found left me shocked and distraught. The bottom of the carpets had pee spots all over, the padding was soaked through with pee, and the sub-floors were stained yellow and even had Kiltz painted on them, which was just further proof that these people knew exactly what they were doing. Kiltz, I have learned is a type of paint like substance that traps odors. At this point I was terrified. This was going to be thousands of dollars worth of work, especially if the sub-floors need to be replaced, which at this point I was sure they had to be.
Our one silver lining was that that was this fake plastic tile under the walk in closet carpet and laminate under Mark’s office carpet. Thankfully there were 2 rooms we wouldn’t have to replace flooring for.
Tuesday, October 1st: While cleaning and ripping up carpets I just snapped! I sent a long text to our realtor about the issues we had been running into and many pictures. I explained that the situation was much worse than we had realized.
To our disappointment, our realtor told us there was nothing he could do on his end. Mark and I agreed that we needed to contact a lawyer, thinking we had a case because none of these issues were reported or disclosed to us at all and the house was not livable.
Wednesday, October 2nd: After work we looked up real estate lawyers and called a bunch. We left tons of messages. Only one lawyer called us back. He told us to contact our realtor again and have him contact the other realtor and sellers to ask why these issues weren’t reported. We called our realtor and told him we contacted a lawyer and what he recommended to him to do.
Thursday, October 3rd: Our realtor sent a long email with pictures to the other realtor and the sellers.
Friday, October 4th: Mark and I were again out of town this weekend due to prior engagements we weren’t able to miss.
Saturday, October 5th: After a few back and forths of the other realtor trying to blame us for the issue and accused us of “remodeling” and finding things we didn’t like during the remodel, the realtor said to never contact them again.
We left messages for the lawyer but he never contacted us back. We had to get on with our lives. We still weren’t able to move into the house we bought and we had already moved in all of our furniture. All this time we were sleeping in sleeping bags in our empty apartment. We decided that the best way to work on the house as much as possible and to get it done quickly would be to move in.
Wednesday, October 9th: We brought our clothes and toiletries over after work and set up our space in the spare bedroom since that was the room that smelled the least. We didn’t rip up the carpets from this room yet.
Sunday, October 13th: Mark had a friend come over to help sand the sub-floors which was recommended to us by a contractor as opposed to replacing all the sub-floors. During the sanding we discovered a soft, rotted piece of sub-floor and realized the floor was not level with the kitchen floors. There was tile partially in the room and Mark and the friend decided to rip it up to help the flooring be even.
Tuesday, October 15th: After seeing the above picture of the ripped up tile, one of my friends said the tile looked like asbestos. Mark went to have it tested and to our horror, the test came back positive.
Thursday October 17th: All week we contacted companies that would safely remove the asbestos tile and clean the whole house. Sadly I had to cancel our housewarming party that was planned for Saturday. I planned it weeks before we moved in, thinking we would be all settled and moved in by Saturday the 19th. I was clearly an idiot.
Friday, October 18th: After only living in our house for a few days, we were told by the contractors that we needed to leave the property, especially when they were going to do the cleaning. I had off of work so I spent the day packing our clothes, sleeping bags, and essentials to bring back to the apartment. That night I had a friend’s birthday party to go to. I was so distraught and upset and stressed that I really didn’t want to go but I knew I should. I’m glad I went because it helped me to feel a little better or at least helped to distract me from my miserable life for a few hours. That night Mark brought over all the stuff I had packed and I met him at the apartment. It was back to the sleeping bags.
Saturday, October 19th: Instead of hosting our housewarming party we went to Lumber Liquidators and bought flooring. They were having a big sale so decided to just buy it and store it in the garage. We bought flooring for the living room, hallway, master bedroom, and spare bedroom.
Monday, October 21st: As if life was not stressful enough, Mark’s job sent him to California for a week and he has to go away again for work for a week in November. Worst timing ever.
Tuesday, October 22nd: We found out that we weren’t supposed to wash the clothes Mark was wearing while he was ripping up the tile because they are exposed to the asbestos but we did already. We have to throw that load of clothes out and our washer is at risk for being contaminated.
Wednesday, October 23rd: Exactly one month since closing. We have still not been able to live in our house.
We have been having a hell of a time contacting the abatement companies. We were in contact with four different companies. Three of them would not respond to our emails, calls, or texts. It was like pulling teeth to get quotes from them. Of course the most expensive one was the only one that responded to us at all. The abatement companies all told us they would start Monday…well it is WEDNESDAY and none of them have responded to us at all. Enough was enough. I told Mark we just had to go with the most expensive one because they were literally the only one willing to work with us. He called and signed the paperwork. The abatement is going to take a few days and then they need to run a post air test. They think they will start Monday. We will be living in our apartment and sleeping in sleeping bags another week at least.
Other bad luck I have been having unrelated to the house issues:
My brand new car that I bought in March and just paid off got a dent. I was trying to be a nice and decent human being by letting a truck go in front of me on the highway. Well before I knew it, a large metal bolt fell from the back of said truck and was bouncing like a freaking bouncy ball on the highway and came in direct contact with my new car. I let out a yelp when I heard the bang. I got out to check it when I got to work and yep, a scratch and a dent.
The pressure gage on my car is glitching. It constantly beeps nonstop that my tire pressure is low. Mark and I checked the tires and filled them a bit but they are all normal. Also now my Bluetooth isn’t working. I have a warranty on the car but zero time to bring it in to get these issues fixed.
My laptop officially crashed. It has been on it’s last shred of life for a while now but I have been pushing it past it’s breaking point. I tried to turn it on the other day but it wouldn’t turn on for a long time and then when it did I got this message:
I officially need a new one. I spent a few hours backing it up. Thankfully I have an external hard drive.
How much bad luck can a person take? I for sure have a black cloud following me around but I am hoping this storm will pass soon.
