The joys of "pre-owned" homes

Wow talk about stupid

 

I used to "flip" foreclosures and lower end properties.
Worst damage I ever saw was people left sometime during a weekend and when the Sheriffs Deputy issued the eviction notice on a Monday water was running out the front door.
They put the garden hose in a window, turned it on and left.

This house I have now had termite damage the PO had no idea they should treat for them.
The only good surprise was the GF using the upstairs shower/tub to bathe the dogs when I was sleeping after a nightshift, water started running out of the closet ceiling in our downstairs bedroom.
After all kinds of investigation for leak point I realized she had the shower head directed at the bezels around the valve handles which had no plumbers putty behind them.
Cutting the sheetrock from the ceiling in the closet I found a book checked out from the local library in 1980....

"Everything You Ever Need to Know About Sex" paperback version and it was a bit moldy from previous minor leaks around the bezels set directly under the tub p-trap.
I wish the GF had not thrown it away, I wanted to put it back up there

 

I would have taken some notes first.

 

Hold on honey let me check the notes I took

 

I was doing some wireing at my old house today. Noticed one light wired wrong. Wired everything back up the right way. Went to the outlet its feed from to heat up the light. The sparkshow was impressive even to me. Tripped the breaker and such. Come to find out at one point it had a switch instead of a pull chain. The switch was gone and both wires were wire nutted together. Could explain the nasty jolt i got earlier in the day too.

Same house when I lived there, found out when thefurnace was installed they never cut a hole for the gas hot water heater to vent out. It was like that for a long time too. Only reason i found out was the hotwater heater went up and i won't mess with NG.

 

New houses can surprise you also. We moved into our new house back in the 90s, with no appliances. When I plugged in our new oven I got knocked on my ars. Come to find out the electrician wired the 220 outlet wrong and had a live wire going to the ground!

 

ouch! I'm having a master electrician do all the wiring in our new living area. There was a total gut done and start over floor to ceiling in the entire space. Even added and updated the windows.

 

I forgot all about my wiring issues! My hallway, kitchen and dining room were all supposed to be controlled by two 3-way switches, but only one of the switches in each room worked and the other switches didn't do anything. I wonder how long the previous owners lived like that, as it was a very easy fix to get them working correctly.

 

The electrician also wired the garage door opener outlets through the garage light switch so the doors would only open when the lights were on!

 

that MAY have been done intentionally . As a kind of security system

 

The house I'm in now is actually pretty well constructed and was maintained pretty well too. My BIL's house, on the other hand, has been an absolute train wreck.

The house was originally build in the early 1900's. Right around 1990 they added another story on top of it. When helping him remodel the bottom floor, when we pulled off the wall coverings and exposed the framing we found no insulation (which wasn't really a shocker) and no headers in the framing. No headers above any of the doors, windows, or fireplace on the outside walls, and no headers above the doors on interior load bearing walls. I can't believe it didn't crumble under the weight of the additional "house" they built on top of it.

 

I hope that was corrected. You have to wonder what some people were thinking when they do the things they do. I've done some short cuts that I had to go back and fix. Really like the youtube web site for instructions.

 

Yup, everything is now the way it should be. We had to build a lot of temporary walls, jack the house up in several places, and installed headers where they needed to be...but it is sturdy now.

 

I bought an older house in a nice valley. I originally didn't worry much about the house figuring I would tear it down one day and build a new house. I have since changed my mind about the new house and have been planning some remodels and an addition. mostly what I have found over the years is the lack of any updating of anything. From floors and paint to anything mechanical.
Everything that was done in the basement was just patches and pieces and parts put together just to get things working. The basement was finished and lived in before the main level was constructed. The plumbing was the worst. There was plastic hoses, copper(hard and soft)and galvanized pipe. Looked like they did everything they could to not buy any fittings. Just used what they found from junk just left behind on other projects. Luckily I'm a plumber. No big deal for me.
The main frame of the house was a little under done. The house is 36' front to back and they used 2x10's with only 1 main beam in the center. You can't stretch 2x10's 16', unless you like springy floors that sag. The main beam is 3- 2x8's. with 1 post in the basement. Sagging also.
7'8" ceilings on the main level feel a little low. And , of coarse 6'1" to the bottom of the beam in the basement is way too low. I know it was cheaper that way , but holy cow, come on! At that time (1964) it would have cost $ 200 to make it a full height basement. Now it will cost me $4500 just to jack it up. Probably $10,000 total till I'm done with the added block and electrical upgrades. House movers want the chimney torn down too when they lift the house. Probably a few grand there till I get it relined and insulated... again.
All in all it will just take more time and money to get it the way I want.

I told the Mrs. before I built the garage she better decide if this is where we are staying, because once I build the garage (2500 sq ft block), I'm Not moving

 

I hear ya on that. When you get deeply invested, even when it is just your sweat equity, you don't give up on it easily. I never dreamed we would be redoing this house, but here we are. I am very lucky one of my kids wants to live here with us. We won't have to move into senior care. At least, that is the plan. It is costing a lot to rebuild, but I can't take it with me, so I might as well invest in what I can enjoy now.

 

Same here

 

That's alright I forgot my current house has switches I still don't know what they do.

 

I have some of the same!

Greg

 

My previous house was going to be my "last" house. We repaired the foundation, put a new roof on it, did a bunch of plumbing and electrical work, lots of outside work, insulation upgrades, etc.

Then I got a new job clear across the country. After only 1.5 years in the house, and all the above, we put it on the market, and it sold for $3000 over asking price within 48 hours (cash buyer). We probably made almost minimum wage on our work, but were thankful it sold well and quickly. (I see the buyer is now offering it for sale for $20k more.)

Our current place we have owned for about 1.5 years. It is a "amateur built" pole barn, and it shows. The structure is sound, but everything else .... I figure another year or so and it will be OK.

Hopefully this is really our last place. Our kids thought we were crazy to buy it.

Greg