A Literal House Warming

Since the one year anniversary of the purchase of our house is coming up on October 19th, I thought now would be a good time to tell "its story".

I knew from the moment I stepped inside this house that it would be ours. I also knew that there wasn't a "happy" vibe with the house. I didn't know the history behind it - all we knew was that it was a bank repossession and that obviously couldn't be good (for the previous owners anyways - score one for us though!). Our realtor later commented that she knew from the moment we walked in that we were the rightful owners.

We took possession of the house on November 2nd and we started the renovations that night.
In those first few hours in the house, I felt such a strange mixture of emotions and feelings. I was absolutely elated that this house was ours and that everything about it was perfect...location, layout, size etc. But I also felt sad for whoever the previous owners were (that feeling quickly dissolved as the renovations progressed and I got more and more frustrated with the lack of care and upkeep for the home).

As I wandered through the house, there were small details that stood out to me. On the light switch for the basement, there was a children's plastic cover plate - it was light blue and yellow with a teddy bear on it and 2 strings hanging down from it so little arms could stretch up and turn on the light. I tried to imagine how much pride the father took as he was screwing the plate on so that his little daughter or son wouldn't be afraid to go in the basement anymore. In the laundry room, there were still clothes hangers hanging from one of the water pipes. The hangers were the small, white, plastic kind that come with children's clothing. I tried to imagine the mother spending a Saturday afternoon down in the laundry room and the care and attention she had put in to washing and folding her kids clothes and how she would have hung them up on those little hangers. On the fireplace mantle, someone had scrawled their name and the date into the dust that covered the top.

As I noticed these different details, I was overwhelmed. I thought about all the happy times that the previous family must have had, but how all those happy memories would have been over-ridden by the anger that surrounded the final days in the house. We later learned that the reason the house was being repossessed was a divorce gone bad. By the condition of the house, it was obvious that no one cared for it after the divorce went through. There was mold growing in the window frames and ALL OVER the bathroom. The cupboard under the kitchen sink was rotted out and overrun with mold and who knows what else. The carpet in the upstairs living room, hallway and bedrooms was peppered with stains. After Mike had spent hours on his hands and knees pulling up staples, his jeans stunk like a mixture of dog excrement and rotten milk. Closet doors were missing and the rooms that did have doors, there was at least one hole punched in each of them. To describe the walls as disgusting is an understatement. It was easy to see that they had never been cleaned. In the bigger bedroom, as I was prepping the walls to be mudded, it was easy to see all the different ways the previous occupant had placed his/her bed because there were little sprays of boogers at night table height in several different locations...I had to pull out the puddy knife to scrap them off (and yes, I was wearing a mask!). The house was just an utter mess.

Even though it sounds hoaky, over the next few days and weeks, I honestly felt the house start to come alive again. As I was scrubbing the walls, it was like I was scratching the back of some giant cat and I could almost hear a faint purring in appreciation. As we cleaned and mudded and painted and ripped out flooring and replaced lights, I could almost feel the house perking up, as though it was starting to stand tall again after so many years of hanging its head low in shame and disgust.

The anger and sadness and disappointment and fear the previous family must have felt is something I hope I never experience. And yet I'm glad it happened because their ending was our beginning and I am so thankful to be in this house. I don't know where the family went to - whether they're still in the city or whether they packed up and moved far away, I'm not sure. But I would like to meet them some day...I don't necessarily want them back in this house (although it would be neat to show them what an amazing house they could have lived in if they had put some effort in to the up keep). Mostly, I want to meet them because I have one question for them...why the hell did they shove a stuffed bunny rabbit into the wall in the basement and then plaster over it? I'll never understand...


And so it "literally" goes...