Foreclosures

Cleaning & Other Fun Stuff
When you purchase a foreclosure, taking possession of the house and moving in can be a different experience than buying a new home. We are very lucky in that the house that we have purchased is in exceptionally good condition for a foreclosure. Many foreclosures are real disasters that require major work before they are fit to live in. While we were prepared to do some work on a home, our knowledge was limited. This house allowed us to increase our purchase price some since it didn't need any immediate work done to it.

With all foreclosures you probably will find that the house does not meet your idea of a clean house. This was especially true in our case. The bathrooms in particular reminded me of some of the worse old gas stations I have ever seen in my life. I know that the real estate agency that was selling the property had cleaned the house, but as with many professional cleaning services, they clean at things instead of really cleaning it. (If you know what I mean) Luckily for me, my youngest daughter volunteered to clean the bathrooms for me. She even did the guest bathroom one day and then returned the next day for more punishment by doing the master bath, which was worse. Go figure! She's some kid. There were some really nasty people who were living in here.

The kitchen isn't much better. There are grease splatters and cooking buildup all over the cabinets that obviously hadn't been cleaned in quite awhile. The inside of the cabinets had two layers of shelf liners that had to be pealed off and the interior of the cabinets are in need of repainting but I am not up to that right now. There were bugs of such a variety that we set off bug bombs in the whole house the weekend before we closed and that has greatly helped. There was brillo pads stuffed in various holes in the cabinets and other places, so I assume that previous owners were attempting to deal with mice. We'll see when the weather gets cooler.