This is what met our eyes yesterday morning when we arrived to trash out a little house that a rental agency asked Jonathan to trash out and repair!
When Jonathan told me about this job, I had suggested that the children and I could do the trashing out instead of his work guys,
as we could use the money, especially Crystal.
This is what the back yard looked like.
as we could use the money, especially Crystal.
This is what the back yard looked like.
This is what the side yard looked like--piles of garbage bags full of trash.
This is what the kitchen looked like--and Jonathan warned us NOT to open the fridge as Sam had accidentally opened the freezer and a bunch of bugs fell out, plus he said it would stink up the house.
Food had been left in the fridge for a month--and the electricity had been off!
Food had been left in the fridge for a month--and the electricity had been off!
Wellllll--we looked at all that, and we looked at the one worker that Jonathan had sent to do the weed eating and helping with heavy things, and I made an announcement to him and to my children.
I said cheerfully, "We are not afraid of dirt!"
It's amazing how a parent's attitude can affect the children.
They started finding fun things like a plastic saber and a radio controlled car, though I didn't let them keep much due to the disgusting situation!
Sooo- we got to work, loading trash from the front yard, back yard, side yard, and inside the house
into a 30 cubic yard dumpster, plus scrap metal into the dump trailer.
(By the way, we almost completely filled that dumpster!)
and the above pictures were transformed to these pictures within 7 hours.
This back yard, with weeds 5 feet high and trash strewn all through them,
Sooo- we got to work, loading trash from the front yard, back yard, side yard, and inside the house
into a 30 cubic yard dumpster, plus scrap metal into the dump trailer.
(By the way, we almost completely filled that dumpster!)
and the above pictures were transformed to these pictures within 7 hours.
This back yard, with weeds 5 feet high and trash strewn all through them,
looked like this below by the end of the day.
The trash bags in this horrid pile of mess fell apart as soon as we tried to pull them out,
so Crystal came up with a working solution of carefully lifting one bag at a time into a strong, new bag, then dumping the new bag into the dumpster and coming back for the next bag.
She and I were quite the team most of this day.
Sam was working elsewhere most of the day, Carrie and Rose were elsewhere for the day,
and the younger kids did some school in the van while Crystal and I did most of the work here, (except for the weed-eating and carrying the heaviest items) as it was pretty disgusting work.
The trash bags in this horrid pile of mess fell apart as soon as we tried to pull them out,
so Crystal came up with a working solution of carefully lifting one bag at a time into a strong, new bag, then dumping the new bag into the dumpster and coming back for the next bag.
She and I were quite the team most of this day.
Sam was working elsewhere most of the day, Carrie and Rose were elsewhere for the day,
and the younger kids did some school in the van while Crystal and I did most of the work here, (except for the weed-eating and carrying the heaviest items) as it was pretty disgusting work.
Hello to all manner of earwigs, centipedes, worms, spiders, bugs, wasps, yellow jackets, and other grubs!
Goodbye to trash, broken glass, beer bottle caps, garbage, shredded paper, dog-chewed bones, filthy rugs and other gross things.
Thanks to gloves, rakes, shovels, brains and brawn and lots of hard work,
the horrid side yard pictured above was transformed to acceptability with even a pruned rose bush--minus the trash stuck inside it earlier!
The children were troopers, especially Crystal!
We had to clean out the basement, where the tenant's boyfriend had been sleeping.
On the floor was a wet carpet, moldy and filthy, with trash strewn all over, including pots of what we assumed were dead marijuana plants. The electricity was off, so there was no light except what came through the outside stairway.
The work guy and we lugged the horrid, heavy old mattress, box springs, and bedding up to the dumpster, along with load after load of other stuff that had been strewn all over the basement.
Goodbye to trash, broken glass, beer bottle caps, garbage, shredded paper, dog-chewed bones, filthy rugs and other gross things.
Thanks to gloves, rakes, shovels, brains and brawn and lots of hard work,
the horrid side yard pictured above was transformed to acceptability with even a pruned rose bush--minus the trash stuck inside it earlier!
The children were troopers, especially Crystal!
We had to clean out the basement, where the tenant's boyfriend had been sleeping.
On the floor was a wet carpet, moldy and filthy, with trash strewn all over, including pots of what we assumed were dead marijuana plants. The electricity was off, so there was no light except what came through the outside stairway.
The work guy and we lugged the horrid, heavy old mattress, box springs, and bedding up to the dumpster, along with load after load of other stuff that had been strewn all over the basement.
I will not attempt to describe the buggy, hideous toilet.
I alone cleaned it, (THREE times with two kinds of disinfectants) for the simple reason that we needed a bathroom!
As for the fridge, after Jonathan's work guy had hauled it out of the house, Crystal and I dared to open the door.
We opened the door and RAN!
Out flew hundreds of bugs.
Inside were thousands of gaggy maggots.
We would dash to the fridge just long enough to grab one maggot-filled dish, box, pan, or package after another
which we held far from ourselves while hurrying to the dumpster to throw it in.
We kept up our courage by gasping out various and sundry gaggy, groany, and grossed-out exclamations of horror, disgust, revulsion and other maggotty terms.
But when it was all done, we were very proud of what we'd been able to accomplish,
arriving home with sore muscles, dirty clothes, a sunburn, and a huge gratitude for our own imperfect but very livable house and property!
Boy, we are neat freaks compared to that!!!!
And yes, the bath tubs and sinks and laundry machine kept very busy this evening!
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