Home sweet home?

David and I moved in weeks ago now. It's finally slightly presentable enough to take some photos and share with my desiring public. Mind you, we still have a lot of work to do. Like, a lot.

To sum up the ridiculous-ness, let's just say the previous tenant here did not have a regard home maintenance, but also decided that whenever something broke, he didn't want to tell the landlord. Thus, when we walked into the house, the following things were wrong:


* It had not been cleaned
* There were cobwebs in the corners
* At least 10 nails in every room's walls
* Holes in the walls (like INCHES in diameter)
* Our claw-foot tub was missing a foot
* Our upstairs toilet didn't work
* The upstairs tub didn’t drain

* The upstairs tub leaks when you take a shower/bath
* Our downstairs bathtub didn't work (thus we couldn’t take a shower at all)
* The previous tenant had left a bag of trash in the storage room
* The medicine cabinet in the master bath was holding on by a literal thread
* The hallway light fixture didn't work

* One of the living room windows didn't even close
* There was mold growing under the washing machine
* The oven storage drawer still had food in it
* There were tens of plastic grocery bags behind almost every drawer in the kitchen

Well, that’s all I can think of right now. But, I think you get the point.
I was pretty devastated. I couldn’t believe that a landlord would allow a house they owned to be in that condition. These landlords were super nice and seemingly responsible, so I blamed the previous tenant. However, I nearly had a mental breakdown on all the daunting tasks ahead of me. I wasn’t sure if my landlord would fix them. I was panicking.

After demanding a walk through with my landlord, she understood and told us that not only would she work to fix most of these problems, but she would be willing to reimburse us for any improvements we made on the house. Well, my soul was lifted again.


So, with my mom in town to help, Brandan and Ian practically doing all the unpacking for us and David keeping a hammer in his hand at all times to make slight improvements, we made a home. It was a couple of days ago when I turned to David and said, “I really love our home.” Things were coming together. The landlord had sent a plumber, a repairman and a cleaning service. It was looking like not only a place I would live, but a place I wanted to live.


After my mom left on April 2, and we knew that our upstairs tub was still leaking, our landlord called a plumber to come look at it on April 4.
It was kind of the last thing that was really bugging me. I mean, half the reason of having a second bathroom is so you can use it, right?

They came to the house on April 4 and tried to figure out what was wrong. When, they saw the issue, they realized it was a main line problem. They went outside and looked for the main line. What they found was the knife in my heart.


Not only did the main line have a blockage. Our second bathroom? The one that was clogged and broken beyond belief? Yeah, turns out the line coming from that bathroom wasn’t even CONNECTED to the main line. God only knows where that is going. We still don’t know.

So, the plumbers left, while on the phone
with our landlords. It seems like they are going to need to dig up the side yard to put in a sewer line to connect to the main line. Yeah, seems like I won’t be getting that second bathroom for a while.

*DISCLAIMER* - Our landlords have been super understanding and really helpful through all of this. I don’t want the problems of the previous tenants to reflect poorly on them at all. But, mark my words,
if this takes longer than 3 weeks to fix, I will cut a b*&$%.

Positive part:
* I love this town, which makes up for all of the nightmare of my abode.
* I love my job. The people I work with are marvelous, nice and very well-educated.
* I love the church I've found. My first choir and handbell choir practice is Wednesday.

* I love living in a place with professional sports again. We're going to a Colorado Rockies game on Tuesday and it's going to be a blast.
* I love seeing mountains when I drive to and from work. The Rockies are nearly majestic. Just when you think there are clouds surrounding the range, you realized they are not clouds, but snow-capped peaks.

* I love how active everyone is. Out of the past two weekends, I've already gone on a mile-and-a-half job with Brandan and thrown the football around/kicked the soccer ball around with Brandan, Ian and David. I like this type of lifestyle. Everyone at work has competed in some sort of long-distance race/competition. It's rather inspiring.
* I love the night life choices here. There are so many bars, clubs, restaurants, etc. here, I'm pretty sure I never have to repeat places.
So, I'll keep you posted on whether or not that bathroom EVER gets fixed. Let's hope and cross our fingers. :D Besides the housing troubles, I absolutely love Denver and living here. So, it's not too bad.