Our house is empty of all the junk! A crew of 6 men and two women worked a total of 88 hours (including 8 truck-filled trips to the dump) to empty the home of 50+ years of possessions, douse the bathroom in bleach, sweep up the dirt, and dust off the cobwebs. And WOW what a difference it has made. If the home looked like this the week it was on the market, I am positive it would have had multiple bids that drove the price up. If you’d like to know how much these services cost, I’m happy to share!

The cleaners were able to sanitize the bathroom and kitchen, which is a great start! However, they simply were not equipped to provide the deep cleaning services that the house so desperately needs, which is where we come in. I started the slow process of cleaning every surface in the house on Wednesday night. I’m cleaning windows, door trim, window trim, floor trim, floors, around electrical outlets, in shelving, counter tops, cabinets. If you can see it, I’m cleaning it. This is how I felt:

I bought one of everything in the cleaning aisle at the hardware store and got to work. I think it might take 100,000 hours to clean this house but I’m determined to do it!

Meanwhile, Jeremy got to work ripping up the carpet in the upstairs bedroom. It was smelly and filthy and not a good look. In just one day, he removed the carpet and pad, and with it, he removed most of the horrible smells emanating from that space. I will post the after once we mop up all the dust.

Painstakingly scraping every square inch of floor with a putty knife

Jeremy took it out in 2 hours

Before: nasty, smelly, sad green carpet with pad glued to the floor

I’m realizing that our basement will need a serious deep clean from a company that cleans up biohazards. I won’t go into the gory details, but it doesn’t seem safe for a civilian to breathe in the air down there, and basic home cleaning services are not appropriate for what lurks below. Luckily a family friend works for a company that specializes in cleaning out the homes of hoarders, and they are on the case! Keep your fingers crossed that they can get the job done in the next week!

Jeremy and I have so many things to think about that it makes the mind boggle. I keep telling myself to hold on to the small victories and just go day by day. For today: the top layer of grime has been scrubbed off, the carpet was removed upstairs, the drains work in the back yard, and there is no longer a hole in the basement door! Even better, the roofers started to rip off the old broken roof and replace it with one that keeps rain out of our bedroom!

Notice the beam cracked in multiple places. Time for a new one!