When I found my house

Hello all!

The exclamation point isn't fake though I must admit, boy am I tired after work today.  It was 20 degrees below the average and mapping out wetlands in the cold wind wasn't very enjoyable!  However,  if I don't write you guys now, then I'm afraid I would always be too tired to write ;p

So now about my house.

After moving back to Pittsburgh from State College I was blessed to be hired for a field staff position at the Western Pa Conservancy.  It's a non profit so that means a small income. A small income meaning only 1000 dollars above poverty level. In fact, my income was just enough to pay most of my bills and have to work a second job to have any spending money.

After living at home for a while I decided that I needed to get my own place and that even though I  would need to pick up a third job, it would be worth it.  After searching a little I realized that I could only afford a run down room.  No Bueno.  That was not going to do because I would end up fixing the place up on my own and spend money on it, and if I was going to do that then I mise well buy my own house that I could renovate.  (Thats what everyone thinks right?............ right?.......)  A few months before a friend had bought a house in a neighborhood for 14,000.  Maybe I could find something cheaper??

And I did..

A lot cheaper.

In fact, 5,000 dollars cheaper.

Let me clarify that there were four stipulations to the house I bought.

1.  It had to be a fixer upper historic house with Victorian influences.

2.  It needed a lot of land around it so that I could have my own urban farm if I was able to acquire the surrounding lots.  (Side note, I'm a botanist and love urban greening initiatives.  I'm hoping to include quite a few posts about urban gardening)

3.  It had to be in a neighborhood that no one cared about.  I didn't want to be an East End bandwagoner.  No offense to any of you if you are indeed an East End bandwagoner!  I'm really happy that area is improving!  Its just that I wanted an area that I knew wasn't currently blowing up with restaurants and boutiques.  I wanted an area that needed help, and that wasn't getting it.  I wanted an area that needed me as much as I needed it.

And last but not least.

4.  It had to have a view.

Now trust me,  I knew these were somewhat weird objectives but they were what I wanted.  My job took me through every neighborhood in the city so I kind of house hunted while working.  It was relatively easy.  Look at abandoned houses with lots of room around them while driving to a site.  After months of looking I actually came to find my house through a man I met at a charity event.  I told him what I was looking for, and in true mafia fashion this man said his neighborhood might have just what I'm looking for.  The next weekend I was standing in front of a house that I knew had to be mine.

Isn't she beautiful?!  This picture is from the day I decided to buy her. (The date on the picture is wrong)  She is a clapboard, slightly Italianate, Victorian workers house built in 1889.    The whole block around it besides one house two doors down has been torn down.  You can see where the house next door used to be by the difference in my siding.

Educational Note!:  The brown siding is a fake brick called insulbrick, which is made out of tar, similar to roofing shingle.

When buying this house I knew the former owners sister and husband were cleaning out some items that they wanted from the estate sale.

What I found out about the former owner.

.  She lived there since 1986.
.  She studied medicine.
.  She spoke five languages.
.  She donated all of her money to charities (That's why the house was in such bad condition)
.  She dreamed of renovating the house.
.  She was schizophrenic.
.  She lived there with no running water and for some time no electricity, or heat....
.  She had racoons living in her walls.
.  She stole a body from a paupers grave pit in Mexico to use its skeleton to study and had it in her attic.  I am not kidding you about this!
. And she was a hoarder.  I wish I had taken better pictures but I was more excited to take pictures of the woodwork rather than her stuff.  It's a shame since the back bedroom was a full out kitchen with a stove and sink, as well as two couches piled on top of each other with blankets on them, and a raccoon nest inside.

The bathroom

Front Bedroom

The attic

Dining Room

Buried Fireplace

Random stuff in hallway

The attic

My friend Kristen and I cleaning out the fridge before it was thrown out a window.  Notice, no electricity and fridge full of food.

Half of the stuff from my basement.

Now why I didn't call that TV show hoarders I have no idea.  Because my house was a perfect specimen.  It took a month to clean everything out.

A month....

There were isles into each room and that was all the walking space you had.  There were walls of boxes. One wall of boxes was a collection of different kinds of Styrofoam,  another wall was labeled as trash.  There were 12 inches of carpeting in the living room.  You had to physically step a foot up when entering the room. There were pieces of furniture that were half stripped with their legs cut off stacked along walls.  I have no idea how an almost 70 year old woman did this.  My friend Tye and I watched as a squirrel crawled out of a mattress and jumped into a hole in the wall.  She also had three fridges with items in them though there was no electricity.  Two were in the basement, one was on the third floor.  I tried including a video at the end of me and my brother pushing it out of a second floor window but it didn't download right.  Looks like this 80 year old will have to figure that out!. There were shelves of jars with unknown liquids in them.  And vitamin bottles and vitamins strewn all over the place from raccoon's eating through the plastic bottles.  Those would come back later to haunt me, which you'll hear about in my next blog where I'll talk about the process of gutting the house and the lessons learned about how to properly gut your house.  Trust me, there are correct and incorrect ways!

So this was my house as I found it.  As I mentioned above, tomorrow I'd like to share how I gutted my house and why I gutted it.  I'm sure you already know why I gutted it judging by the pictures and by the fact that I said there were racoons inside. ;p  I'm sorry if my writing is off but honestly it usually is ;)  For now I'm going to sign off, but let me know what you thought of this post and feel free to ask questions!

Hoping you're doing well!

Joseph

Lessons Learned:

Number 1!  Whenever you buy a house take extensive pictures from day one!

Number 2!  Be expected to use way more dumpsters than you thought!