My boss used to live next door to my house, the house I grew up in. He bought the house from an uncouth and clueless bozo with a yappy dog that divorced soon after moving in. He lived there a while, moving out during a really contentious divorce that I found myself in the middle of.
They sold the house to a couple that allowed their children to run naked in the yard. The mother believed the angels were watching out over them, and sometimes she followed the angels into the woods, trespassing on another neighbor's land. They were loud and undisciplined and a thorough mess to live next to. They brought immigrant labor in to build a photography studio in the back yard, it was a large 2-story monstrosity that did not match the house and loomed over the poolside cabana.
They left suddenly about 3 years ago. The house sat vacant, and then was put up for sale after a few months. I think he wanted $500,000 for it (I'll check my notes). The grass in the yard would get to be about a foot tall, and then a crew would show up and chop it down and leave it all dead like a farmer's hay field. No one came by later to bale the grass, so it was quite a mess. One time we found three wet hungry kittens, lost from their mother after a mowing crew left. We still have them today - they are the best things that ever came from that house. I finally found out that someone had purchased it some time later, and the next phase in the adventure began.
Things between the new owners and us were contentious immediately. They had routed the septic system into the pond and I knew that a literal stink would develop over this when someone moved in. I had to do an inquiry with the state real estate commission just to find out who owned the property and to register my protest about the rerouting of the sewage into our pond. The new owner, a house flipper, at one point threatened to sue me if I didn't back down.
He went in and totally renovated the house. There were contractors over there for months. They tore out a screened in porch and made it into a room in the house. One of the contractors that worked on that told me that he found some files in the basement about someone that was a child molester and had gone to jail. I never got to see them and the guy didn't have many details. They reworked the first floor of the house, demolishing a brick bar and reworking the structural support of the second floor. The first floor was transformed into someone's idea of a home furnishing style magazine spread. Meanwhile, the basement, formerly finished, was ripped up to accommodate the changes. The upper floor, which had been redone by the lord of the flies people in jungle, angel, and baseball wallpaper themes, was not touched. The jungle wallpaper, probably done over too many sherries by a god-fearing housewife, was peeling off the walls and looked tragic. After seeing the house at this phase, my wife remarked, "No one is going to pay $800,000 for a fixer-upper." Eventually, the price was reduced to $750,000.
The house sat vacant for some months longer. We thought someone had bought it when the For Sale sign came down, but then nothing happened, no one moved in and there was no activity. Then some weeks later, these construction laborer types started pulling up in all kinds of pickups and got busy. They brought in a giant trash dumpster and started working day in and day out. How strange this was since the house was supposedly finished and there was an enormous amount of construction material going into the dumpster. I went over one night and peeked inside and there appeared to have been extensive water damage from upstairs to the central part of the house and from the first floor down into the basement. There was a ton of drywall missing, and it was a complete mess in there. The pipes had frozen, burst, then proceeded to flood for some time (days) before someone figured that out.
We met a friend that used to live in the house. He heard that the house has been sold again to another house flipper. They ripped into it, trying to fix the damage from the frozen pipes, but also making changes like putting plumbing into the "guest house" (the photographic studio abortion), pouring a concrete patio and tearing out a nice poolside cabana. My wife found on line that they bought the house late last year for $705,000. My friend was told by the contractor that they were going to fix it up and sell it for $1.1 million.
Meanwhile, the contractors started playing monster truck rally in the yard. Every time they pulled out it was a minute long squeal of tires and a trip through some portion of their yard or ours. Then Mr. Wonderful started bringing his dog and his ATV out and proceeded to rip up the entire yard with his exploits. My neighbor (who had been trespassed on by the Angel Chaser) told me that he heard automatic weapons fire coming from the house. We weren't there and a subsequent investigation by the police (with the crazy contractor being the only suspect) resulted in nothing.
I finally met the new "owner". He was actually the next house flipper. I had this really nice conversation with him, where he explained to me that there had actually been 3 house flippers owning the house (he was the 3rd). He said he paid $605,000 for the house and got $75,000 insurance for the water damage (which he said would not cover the costs). He showed me the house and told me that he was thinking about living in it himself. He showed me the work on the "guest house" which was being attached to the house through a concrete patio and a breezeway. He told me that this would add 2500 square feet to the main floor of the house and add $500,000 to the value. Looking around, I guessed he was putting maybe $20,000 into this modification. If wishful thinking can be taken to the bank, that man will be rich. I told him about the septic problem and he assured me he was going to repair it.
Despite that, we're running lab tests of the pond water as a baseline for the proof that their septic system routing into the pond was done incorrectly.
As we say, we have another in a lengthening line of idiots involved with the property. Maybe they can paint it tie-dyed and make it into a hippie commune. That would be fine with me except for the sitar music. My boss, who used to live in the house, confided in me his thoughts about the house. He was embarrassed, but asked me if I thought maybe the house was cursed or haunted. The barn he had made when he lived there has been eaten into a swiss cheese affair by the squirrels. I didn't believe it until I saw it myself one day. There must be some tasty starch in the particle board used for binder. The tennis court is completely overgrown and is crumbling away. Wild animals roam in the yard, including turkeys, deer, owls, and a friendly muskrat. I really like that. One day, our refugee kittens caught a cute furry little mouse and brought it terrified into the house. I grabbed it (disappointing the hell out of the cats) and my wife was aware of the episode. My wife is a tenderhearted animal lover, and I knew I would have to answer to her later, explaining what I did. We once tried to adopt and nurse some baby mice after their mother died in a tragic lawn mower accident, so I knew what her feelings about mousicide would be. If I returned the mouse to the cats, they would play with it for hours, no fun for the mouse, and just as likely to result in an escapee in our house as a meal for kitty. So, releasing it outside would probably result in it being re-caught by the cats. Dashing its head on the patio was sure to win me the disapproval of my wife. I finally came up with a solution. I assume it was captured in the empty house next door, so I returned it to its home.
No one has been over to work at the house for several weeks. There is an enormous pile of trash in the driveway, and from time to time, people show up and throw more trash, brought from somewhere else, onto the driveway. It will probably fill up one of those enormous dumpsters, whenever they get around to bringing out another one (I reckon there have been around 8 or 10 taken away from the house in the last 3 years - these are the big semi trailer sized ones).
We spent a nice weekend working on the yard and my wife expressed her concern about the trash pile and the foot high grass in the yard next door. I told her that I don't care. Let them trash the place. I enjoy having the wildlife and the quiet, and if no one moves in, that will be fine with me. I wonder if they are upside down on the loan. The housing market is terrible now and rather than doing something reasonable, people keep trying to scam someone into plopping down much more than it's worth though some scheme. That means we are likely to have someone with a lot of money and very little sense move in. Not my idea of an ideal neighbor. I keep wondering and waiting for the place to mysteriously burn down some day. It seems to me that this would be the only way for the house flippers to get out of this trap.
It's not over yet.
