The Garage
When we moved into our new house, we had a very aggressive timeline. We closed the new house one Wednesday, and the old one the next Wednesday. We had my sister’s out of town wedding the weekend in between, and a 10-month-old in tow. So when I got the keys at 4pm, the first thing I did was head for the house to make sure everything was ready for the movers the next day.
It wasn’t.
There were 8 large bags of smelly garbage in the garage. There was an ancient chest freezer downstairs, and a queen size bed upstairs. There was a lamp in the guest room that the previous owner had been so kind as to label for us:
Yes. That does, in fact, say “fire hazard”.
Thankfully, we had the world’s awesomest real estate agents, who got on the phone with the selling agents and (ahem) persuaded them pay for the clean up. We had the world’s awesomest movers, who called in reinforcements and got everything moved out so that we could move in.
1.8 metric tonnes of stuff went to the dump that day.
That’s right. One point eight metric tonnes. Including a sign that said “City of Kanata. No Dumping”.
But that’s not all. While the movers were pulling junk out of the shed, it collapsed. Apparently it was only being held up by the stuff that was stuffed into it.
Without a garden shed, the garage never really had a chance. It’s now so gridlocked that we can’t move around in it to organize it. I’m sure there’s stuff in there we could get rid of, but I can’t even get to it.
And so, tada! Here is our new shed:
This is, shall we say, a work in progress. But progress is being made, and it is being made just a bit quicker thanks to Sara’s garage challenge. This deadline was the only thing that kept me going when every Home Depot in town had the shed I wanted ‘in the computer’, but only one actually had one to sell.
So we’re off! We’ve found someone to help build the shed, and with any luck I’ll have some ‘after’ pics in time for April 22!
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7 Comments
Wow, what is wrong with people that they leave crap like that. My DH used to be an agent and he found the same problem. His clients would show up at their new house and it will full of garbage. So crappy!
Looking forward to after picks.
I don’t know how our agents managed it, I certainly hope the selling agents got that back from their client (and I said as much in my thank-you note). I’m so glad they did though!
I’m looking forward to the after pics too!! Right now, there’s a new platform where the shed will stand. Getting rained on. Maybe next weekend…
We were so lucky that our house was spotlessly clean when we moved in. That must have been awful to have been faced with that.
And now I have garden shed envy!!
Well, for the moment if there’s any envy to be had it’s platform envy, because with the weather this weekend that’s all there is
Ay, ay, ay… all this talk of realtors. Yowzah. We’re trying to sell privately right now, as you may know, and I gotta say, I’m not yet convinced whether using a realtor (for $25K) is the way to go, but your post DEFINITELY makes me see another benefit to using them! Definitely! Lucky you for having such good ones pull their weight!
(By the way, can’t believe you did such a tight closing. You are brave and my inspiration right now!)
I assure you, the tight closing was not by choice!! We sold before we bought, and then ran into problems with the purchase – we bid on 5 houses before one was successful! It looked for a while like we were going to be homeless – and with a 10 month old. Scary stuff.
I knew you were moving, and I think I saw something about private sale (post? tweet?) – didn’t you have a buyer bail on you or something? Nasty.
[...] idea” for a Garage Cleanup Challenge, and thus far have failed to clean up the garage. Last time it looked like [...]