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lprovenI said it was a long story...
Well, its owner left it empty after he moved out. For SIX YEARS. It had an electrical fault that had killed the lighting on the right-hand side of the house: kitchen, bathroom and spare room. He'd called the local electricity board in but they just told him he needed to have it rewired. Instead, he used candles and a garage inspection light. He couldn't afford to have it rewired. (Me, I called an electrician, instead.)
Rewiring the electric system would have cost several thousand pounds, which the house owner didn't have. He did eventually manage to get a loan from a bank. He spent it on a motorbike. He's disabled and can't ride it, though, so he put it in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drpete's garage until he'd raised the money to have it converted into a trike.
Guess how long it stayed there?
Yep. Six years.
When he finally moved it, a couple of years back, it was virtually a ruin. If he'd spent the money on the house and rented it out, he could have bought the bike for cash a year later, and paid for the conversion a year after that.
Eventually, I made a deal with him. Andy was living here in Veals Mead, but when Kirsty moved in, he had nowhere to go. I said to the owner that I'd pay to fix the electrics, redecorate &c., and I'd rent it out for him. I'd keep all the rent until my work was paid for, then take 15% as a management fee and he got the rest.
Andy and I nuked the place. We moved all the owner's leftover stuff into the attic - 30 to 40 boxes full - threw away a good dozen binbags of rubbish and half a dozen of paper for recycling, stripped and threw away all the carpeting, which had rotted, repainted the whole place with the leftover paints from my house, recarpeted it throughout and put new lino tiles down in kitchen and bathroom. I scrubbed the fridge clean; it was, literally and exactly, BLACK with mold. The bathroom walls were encrusted with limescale; I coughed for a week from the fumes of clearing that off.
I paid a firm of handymen to fix the leaking bath and the worst of the water damage, make safe the dead electric shower unit, replace the bathroom extractor fan - and change one fuse in the hall, restoring power to the whole house.
We cleaned up the old furniture. We tried to move some broken bits into the garage, but were foiled: it hadn't been opened in so long, a sturdy tree had grown in front of the door; its trunk was several inches thick. We cut it down, but the stump still blocked the door. Sawing this off flush to the ground allowed us access, revealing the owner's abandoned car, sunk into corrosion and rot. I had that towed away.
I provided a microwave oven and some odds and sods - lightbulbs, paint, vast quantities of cleaning products. Andy purchased a cooker. The exercise cost me a couple of thousand quid, which was repaid inside 6 months. Everyone wins: Andy has a home, its owner gets the rental income as well as knowing the place is safe and sound - not that this seemed to bother him much, given how long he left it empty. I get a little money each month and learned some useful lessons.
I'm even idly toying with becoming some kind of slum landlord as a future occupation once the computer-fettling business dries up. Seems to work forpugwash so far.
Well, its owner left it empty after he moved out. For SIX YEARS. It had an electrical fault that had killed the lighting on the right-hand side of the house: kitchen, bathroom and spare room. He'd called the local electricity board in but they just told him he needed to have it rewired. Instead, he used candles and a garage inspection light. He couldn't afford to have it rewired. (Me, I called an electrician, instead.)
Rewiring the electric system would have cost several thousand pounds, which the house owner didn't have. He did eventually manage to get a loan from a bank. He spent it on a motorbike. He's disabled and can't ride it, though, so he put it in
drpete's garage until he'd raised the money to have it converted into a trike. Guess how long it stayed there?
Yep. Six years.
When he finally moved it, a couple of years back, it was virtually a ruin. If he'd spent the money on the house and rented it out, he could have bought the bike for cash a year later, and paid for the conversion a year after that.
Eventually, I made a deal with him. Andy was living here in Veals Mead, but when Kirsty moved in, he had nowhere to go. I said to the owner that I'd pay to fix the electrics, redecorate &c., and I'd rent it out for him. I'd keep all the rent until my work was paid for, then take 15% as a management fee and he got the rest.
Andy and I nuked the place. We moved all the owner's leftover stuff into the attic - 30 to 40 boxes full - threw away a good dozen binbags of rubbish and half a dozen of paper for recycling, stripped and threw away all the carpeting, which had rotted, repainted the whole place with the leftover paints from my house, recarpeted it throughout and put new lino tiles down in kitchen and bathroom. I scrubbed the fridge clean; it was, literally and exactly, BLACK with mold. The bathroom walls were encrusted with limescale; I coughed for a week from the fumes of clearing that off.
I paid a firm of handymen to fix the leaking bath and the worst of the water damage, make safe the dead electric shower unit, replace the bathroom extractor fan - and change one fuse in the hall, restoring power to the whole house.
We cleaned up the old furniture. We tried to move some broken bits into the garage, but were foiled: it hadn't been opened in so long, a sturdy tree had grown in front of the door; its trunk was several inches thick. We cut it down, but the stump still blocked the door. Sawing this off flush to the ground allowed us access, revealing the owner's abandoned car, sunk into corrosion and rot. I had that towed away.
I provided a microwave oven and some odds and sods - lightbulbs, paint, vast quantities of cleaning products. Andy purchased a cooker. The exercise cost me a couple of thousand quid, which was repaid inside 6 months. Everyone wins: Andy has a home, its owner gets the rental income as well as knowing the place is safe and sound - not that this seemed to bother him much, given how long he left it empty. I get a little money each month and learned some useful lessons.
I'm even idly toying with becoming some kind of slum landlord as a future occupation once the computer-fettling business dries up. Seems to work for
pugwash so far.
