Want To See Some Dirty Pictures?

I always said if I moved out and rented our house I would never want to live in it again afterward and this is precisely why.  Tenants just don't care about your property the way you do and it is hard to find one that does.  There is no screening process for apathy, I'm afraid.

When I drove up I was greeted by a mountain of trash and a huge oil slick in the driveway.  I also discovered that apparently they had been walking through the oil and tracking it into the house as there is a path leading up to the front door and it was all over the front porch.

When I went inside it appeared clean at first and the strong odor of carpet shampoo left us hopeful.  However, the stains from the grease tracked inside and a lot of dripping of something was EVERYWHERE.  I was absolutely sick.

Our living room carpet

Stairs leading upstairs.

My bedroom.

My tenant did not show up for her final walk through and I'm sure this is why.  Probably a good thing because I would have definitely spoke rather frankly about the condition of the carpets, to put it mildly.  I couldn't believe it.  This is NOT how I left my home.

Thank goodness for wonderful friends.  Especially ones that happen to own one of the best carpet cleaning machines you can buy.  If it hadn't been for them I think I would have broke down and cried.  Once the shock wore off, that is.

After the first pass with the carpet cleaner.

Eeeeewwww!  Yuck!!

The carpet shampoo smell was really strong and when I felt the carpets they were sticky and crusty feeling so we knew they had used A LOT of soap and it was still in the carpet.  After a run to the store for stain remover, a scrub brush and a gallon of vinegar we got to work.  We cleaned those carpets FOUR times.  The color of the water was black after the first two passes not to mention the foam that came up on the surface of the carpet.  We retreated and cleaned the remaining stains and then "shampooed" again the following day with more vinegar and water until the water ran clear and the soap was finally extracted. Once it was dry it felt, looked and smelled like clean carpet once again.

We discovered the washing machine was riddled with mold and leaked on the floor.  My friend, who happens to be a plumber was all over that.  He unplugged the filter which was filled with sand and something he thought resembled lettuce.  I have no idea what that was, nor do I think I want to.  We ran two cycles of bleach through it and cleaned the rubber boot, door and the little drawer where you put your soap and bleach.  It was good to go after that.  My dear friend also pulled what resembled a small dead animal out of the dryer vent which was clogged with lint.

The dryer wouldn’t run and we got an error message to check the lint filter.  My daughter used her skinny hands to pull out a ton of lint from below and around the lint trap, then used the wand on the vacuum cleaner to suck out all kinds of junk.  After cleaning up the dryer it worked.  Thank goodness!

On garbage day we hauled the trash to the curb.  The bins were so heavy and I assumed filled with food.  They smelled like dead bodies and the flies were abundant.  I didn't want to check to see if there were actually any dead bodies.  I'm going with it being food.

Our neighbor let us use her trash bin to fill up some of the overflow too.  Nothing like parceling out your trash to your neighbors.  But now it is all gone and our trash man is high on my list of great people because he took it all with no complaint.  Here, if your trash can is too heavy they can refuse to dump it for safety reasons.  They don't want to injure their sanitation workers.  He was a trooper!  Thank you!!!

We loaded up the back of our truck with all the cardboard boxes the tenant had left behind and added our own from our furniture deliveries and hauled it off to the recycling center.  When we got back home and were able to see NO TRASH in our front yard I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Now I just need to get out there with a rake and clean up all the cigarette butts and little bits of trash and what have you. 

We'll be working on things for awhile yet.  But I am happy to reclaim my home and get it back to the standard in which I am willing to live in it.  I realize I am cleaner and pickier than most but for heaven's sake!  I don't think there was much cleaning going on around here.