Top 5 Worst Surprises So Far

Here is a list of our top five worst surprises with the house so far. I will follow up with a top 5 best surprises so far soon.

Top Five Worst Surprises (so far)

The exposed bathroom pipes via the kitchen ceiling.

5. Finding Leaks: Kev and I have gone on quite a few treasure hunts for leaks (See number #2), but so far, with Matt's help, we have been successful at finding and stopping them. I wonder how many busted pipes we will find once we have the hot water tank hooked up and running?

The leaks from the plumbing helped instigate the gutting of the kitchen. Another leak came from the roof and caused damage to the ceiling of the pink bedroom upstairs. The roof has been patched and we hope to start priming the walls and ceilings next week.

Broken bathroom pipes.

Our stained and mildew ceiling caused by missing shingles on the roof.

4. Chest Freezer: There were two chest freezers on the property - one in the basement and one in the garage. The one in the basement has been featured several times. It is by far the worst with stewing meat/dairy/fruit in it for at least 4-5 years. The other freezer was completely empty which was very nice for us.

Yummy.

3. Spiders: They are were EVERYWHERE in the basement!!!

Check out those fangs!

Before we noticed the cracked ball valve, Kev may have been
sprayed in the face when the water was turned at the street.

2. Trying to get Utilities: Getting our temporary authorization for utilities took Kevin many phone calls to the inspectors, city hall, the electrician and the utility companies so that we could have water and electricity at the house. To get water, it took two trips from the Comfort Systems to turn on our water from the street and it was all due to a busted ball valve before the water meter. Once we were able to let water run through the pipes we found several leaks (#5) and had a little waterfall pouring from the ceiling of the kitchen. But in the end we prevailed and we don't have any leaks (famous last words?).

Our working water meter.

Getting electricity turned on required an electrician to come in and check out and ground the electrical box and install a light and outlet. This took two days. But before the electrician could do his thing he had to pull a work permit at the city hall; however, there was missing paperwork causing the electrician not to be able to start his work on time.

After the electrician finished, the electrical inspector came out and he approved our temporary authorization for electricity. Then we had to wait for Minnesota Power to turn the power on, which we were told could take one day to two weeks. Luckily for us it only took two days, yay!

The blue tag on the electrical meter outside means we have POWER! We had a red tag on the meter before the electrical company came out. Just to double check everything we turned on the light the electrician wired in the basement. 

Dinning room graffiti. 

1. Darn Kids: While the house had been abandoned the previous owner's sons would bring their friends and use the place as a party house. There is graffiti on the floor in the dinning room and in one of the bedrooms and when we initially looked at the place the garage had been tagged along with our neighbor's garage. Luckily HRA fixed the graffiti on the garage (thanks Pam!) and a little elbow grease will take off the other graffiti.

An additional issue we have had is missing/stolen stuff. When we purchased the house it came with a lawn mower. Who knows if it worked or not, but at least we could have tried to fix it. We heard from a friend who was driving by the place that he saw the lawn mower out in the yard and an unknown truck parked at the back of the house. And just like that the lawn mower was gone. Also our chainsaw gas/oil mixture has gone missing from the garage. Just tacky.

Within the first week of buying the house we received a phone call from the police within the first week of buying the house. Some punks driving an old green four door Toyota car were throwing rocks and debris at the windows. And it was still daylight! Luckily for us they hadn't been there long when our awesome neighbors called the police and the kids ran off. We were also lucky that they were throwing rocks at already broken windows.