Learning about the house through a previous occupant.

As much as we would like to learn about the history of the house, we don't want to have any contact with the previous owner. We got lucky when a neighbor approached us during our clean up and told us he used to play in the house as a little boy with one of the children that lived there, and that he was attending their family reunion later in the week. I gave the man my phone number to give to anyone in the family.

I'm not sure this particular post would be interesting to anyone else except us. As much as I am writing this with friends and family in mind I feel like its a good place to record these second hand stories.

I've heard back from a woman who lived there as a child with her eight siblings.We have spoken on the phone and are emailing back and forth. I try to suppress my enthusiasm when I speak to her, I feel very fortunate to hear from someone who lived in the house!

 Her parents bought the house in the late 1940s and sold it in the mid to late 1970s. Here's what she's told me so far:

-The yard was all gardens with grape vines. The father made 100 gallons of wine each year. 

The tree in the front yard was planted as a seedling by her father.

The father installed the stove in the kitchen, its made by the Franklin Stove Company. She remembers it being new, right out of the box.

She thinks the rock wall is just a retaining wall to prevent soil run off

The kitchen had a bay window, and above that in the maids room were two smaller windows. There was a bay window facing the street as well. 

The woman remembers the kitchen stairs being open and running in circles playing tag with her siblings up and down the stairs.

The father did not build the front porch but installed the windows, previously there were only screens. 

   

A few words about the (now previous) owner.

   I watch a lot of episodes of Hoarders, produced by the A & E network, so I know there are a lot of people who destroy their homes with varying amounts of crazy. Although the last owner was not a hoarder, he was certainly very neglectful of the house.  Here's what we know so far about the last owner as it pertains to the house.

 The previous owner, David, bought the house from his father in 2001. Its pretty obvious he was unable or unwilling to maintain the property. When the house was inspected we learned from a neighbor that he had cancer. (He is still living today, we think he resides in an apartment building across town. He has not lived in the house we bought since 2012) At first we believed the cancer was the root cause of all the problems with the house. I felt incredibly guilty for potentially taking advantage of someone's misfortune, but the story is not that straightforward.

One of the reasons the sale took nine months to close was because of the various liens on the house. He stopped paying his mortgage, property taxes and utilities, which I suppose can happen if a person is very ill and cant work. However, one of the liens was for a fur coat he bought with a store credit card and never paid.  (I joked with the realtor that he needed the fur coat to keep warm in a house with a non working boiler.) The fur store owner took him to court and won. He is employed now but I suppose he was not working when he was sued. No wages to garnish and the judge put a lien on the house. While cleaning out the house right after the sale I found an unpaid bill for the grand piano in the living room. There is a set of encyclopedias that were never paid for either. He also borrowed a  $50,000. home improvement loan that was never paid. I don't know in what order these events occurred, but he certainly lived beyond his means.
   
The last unresolved issue is the car left behind in the yard. Its been there since at least 2012. It belongs to David's nephew, who is currently incarcerated. I'd like to get it towed to his house and dump it on to his yard.

Photos from the first visit

Here are photos from our first visit:

View from the street. That porch is obviously not original to the house.

The back yard. The stone wall baffled us. Is it from a garden, or the foundation of an older house?

Half of the exterior walls are half painted. The last owner had a very difficult time finishing anything he started. 

These photos don't do the size of this place justice. (I'm not bringing my good camera to shoot any of these images, so please excuse the snapshot quality.) The attic is pretty much another floor.

This is the best detail of the attic, a closed off room with the roof as pointy as a giant pencil. Unfortunately this is in the center of the house and can not be seen from the ground.

This is the only place in the house free of  the owners possessions.

This is the master bedroom. There is a fireplace in every room...... 

.....and every fireplace is bricked up. This is what looks like one of two original mantels in the house. 

The second bedroom is even less impressive. I don't know what happened to the mantel that once lived here, but I hope its in a good home with a family that loves it very much.

This is on the second floor taken from outside the master bedroom. I cant wait to remove the paint off that banister and stain it a dark color! The bathroom is really small, like New York City apartment small. We are probably going to extend it into the maids bedroom, a small room next to the attic stairs to the right in this photo.

This is the back staircase or maids staircase. Many old Victorian houses have a staircase that leads directly into the kitchen for the servants. This is open upstairs and walled off downstairs. I guess this was done to make more room in the kitchen. Pete wants to make it into a "hidden" stairway with a false wall at the top.  

The bottom of the maids staircase is to the left of the refrigerator where that spackled sheet rock is.

If you look closely you can see the word "window" written on the wall. Yes, there is a window behind the sheetrock. We have yet to understand why someone would board up a window and write a reminder to themselves that its there.

This is the fireplace in the kitchen, we are guessing this is original to the house. 

This is the living room. The ceilings are about 12 feet tall on the first floor. This is the only room on the ground floor without a drop ceiling. 

Don't know whats going on with that piano but we may pull the top off, take it outside and grow flowers in it. The glass cleaner adds an element of humor.

This is the fireplace in the living room. This photo shows the smoke damage due to the owner running kerosene heaters in the house improperly. There is evidence of this all over the first floor. 

The top three photos are the dining room with more soot damage. The bottom picture is another attempt by the last owner to maintain the house. There are so many examples of incomplete projects in this house!

Why was the owner running kerosene heaters in the house, you ask? Here's a hint.

A cornucopia of crapola in the basement, but I like that the old stylee stone foundation is visible. 

For some reason I found this corner of the basement unsettling.

July 2014-Closing and clean out

Buying a house is certainly one of the most stressful events I've endured. Put moving to a new city in that sandwich and its really a lot to eat at once. I'm glad it took so long to complete the sale, it gave me time to mentally adjust to a major lifestyle change.

When we did the last walk through before closing we noticed some of the appliances were taken. I assume David sold them for scrap to pay off some of the debts he promised to pay over the months the realtor relentlessly hounded him. The only thing I was miffed about was the old double enamel sink he took from the attic. 

   
Its a pretty surreal experience sliding a check for such a huge sum across that high gloss conference table. We ordered what I expect to be the first of many dumpsters on the first day. The driver asked if we were concerned about the grass. I thought he was joking. It feels voyeuristic and sad to go through someones discarded possessions, and yet cathartic to destroy really ugly furniture. 

Here are some oddities found during the first cleanup:

The bottle said vodka, but I wasn't about to smell it to find out what it really contained.

I think this pancake mix was in the house since 1973.

There were several syringes in the upstairs bedroom, along with some information about diabetes. I believe it was David's father who was afflicted with the disease.  UPDATE: I was showing this blog to my oncology nurse friend, who said these are not syringes for diabetics. I will just let this link explain it. Warning-involves adult issues. And yes, the needle gets injected directly into there!

I found these dentures in that gravy boat. Pete wants to put them on display in a jar. I think that's a great idea!

Another ironic find. This factory sealed VHS tape was part of a series of tapes that came with a workbook.

 Jesus could do nothing to save these socks.

This is one of the more PG13 items we found in the house. I will spare you from all the other raunchy stuff discovered. 

Discarding furniture:

We disassembled the furniture to make the most of the space in the dumpster.

That TV was so heavy! Pete is so thin and yet so strong. I don't know how he does it, I think he has muscular savant- ism.

This end table was the only furniture small enough to throw out the window.

This photo doesn't show the paint hardened like a rock on the roller. Pete could not pull it apart.

And another attempt to paint. This is above the fireplace in the living room.



A few discoveries:

Pete decided to smash through the drop ceiling in the dining room and found this newspaper from 1961. I'm hoping there are more treasures in the walls and ceilings.

A wall abruptly stops at the banister at the top of the stairs, Pete smashed through the other side of that wall.....

.......and found the attached finial on the other side. 

To the right of that is an old fence point used as a spacer.....

As well as a capped off gas line once used for gas lighting.

This is the kitchen entrance to the maids staircase that Pete broke through, the stairs are to the right. The door is glued shut with urethane expansion foam.

A true walk in closet, we discovered the closets in both bedrooms are connected. There is no dividing wall. I cant decide if its funny or creepy.

We found this degrading rubbery thing that appears to be a cap on a pipe. We have yet to figure out where it goes.

I only noticed this chalkboard after we closed. The curtains were so dark with soot that  I missed a lot of details until we pulled them down.

Pete's gloves after two days of work.

First visit

December 2013-We took a trip to look at the house we ended up buying and a few other houses. The house pictured below was really pretty from the outside and had most of the original wood detailing but had extensive fire damage in the attic. It would be way too expensive to restore.  The floors were unstable when we walked through, I didn't feel it was safe to enter.  It was depressing to know that this really pretty house was probably going to crumble to dust.

Warning: its cute, but you may not come out alive.

The third place we looked at was in pretty good shape but too small, on a road that was too busy, and was on a triangular lot. I sounded like a spoiled brat when I told a friend, "If I leave New York, I kinda want it all."

Once we saw the Really Big House there was no comparison. We found an inspector and made an appointment for January.

Actually, I expected this to be much worse....

November 2013-After considering leaving New York for a few years, my husband called me from work and asked me once again if I wanted to move. He sent me a posting for a house for sale on Trulia.com. 2900 square feet on a  1/2 acre plot.

Kind of an eyesore, but I thought of all that space, and how beautiful it would look once it was restored.