In my description here on the blog, it says I live in a nondescript house in a nondescript town. This is true. I live in "This Old Crack House".
About four years ago, the elderly lady that lived here, Mrs. C, passed away. So her family cleaned up the house and put it on the market. This is not an expensive neighborhood, so it was priced pretty low. Along comes a nice young man who had come into some money, and he buys the place and moves in. At first, everything is great. He's quiet and friendly, takes good care of the place. The yard is always neatly trimmed and his parents are very nice. He attends the local university and, surprisingly, he doesn't drive.
Eventually, weird things start happening. The stream of traffic in and out of the little house increases. People start coming and going all night and day. The neighbor on the other side of the house tells us she smells wafts of pot smoke coming in her open windows, and discovers her daughter has been hanging around with some of the people that come and go.
Then he gets a dog. A very sweet golden retriever named Peanut Butter. He says that it belongs to a friend of his that was deployed to Iraq. This, we think, is great and we help him out by giving him a large dog crate and some dog food. That dog was so sweet, just like a typical golden!
Then, one day, the sun rises...it is a normal day. Mom goes to work, dad is already on the road, and I gather myself together (I'm living at mom and dad's at this time) and go to work just like every day. I think this was a bank holiday, because the lady on the opposite side of my parent's house was home, and she was a loan officer for a local bank.
I went out with friends that evening, but mom came home like normal. The neighbor comes running over and relays the story of the day's events.
Apparently, about an hour after we left, there was an invasion of law enforcement. Local police and sheriff, the ATF, DEA and FBI were everywhere and they raided the little house and carted away the young man, along with quite a bit of stuff. Animal control came along and picked up the dog, the house was locked up tight and there it sat for a long while.
The young man's parents came along a few weeks later. The power, water and gas had been shut off and they listed the house for sale. His parents used an extension cord from our house to run a vacuum to clean up the house, and they took what was left of his stuff. The told us that he had been sent to prison for dealing drugs. He had been hanging around with a tough crowd, and he had been involved with them before. There wasn't a whole lot of his stuff left, though, since the house had been broken into a number of times while laying vacant.
Mother was worried about the dog, Peanut Butter. After hearing about the house being raided, she called around to find out what happened to the poor thing. Thankfully, she discovered that the dog had been reported stolen from a nearby town and it had been reunited with its grateful family. Mother was prepared to adopt the dog if it was still at the pound, even though we have three dogs already. He would have, in my opinion, made a great addition to our family...he was very gentle and sweet, and got along quite well with our existing pets.
The house sat on the market for more than a year, and was close to entering foreclosure. One Saturday, dad and I were at the barber and he said that I should buy the house next door. Right out of the blue! I thought about it more and more the next week, and then decided to look into it. I called the realtor, put in an offer and found out that it was to be sent to sheriff's sale in less than a month.
Without going into detail, the realtor didn't think I would be able to get it done by time of the sheriff's sale. However, with the help of my chosen mortgage broker, the lovely Erika, I was able to get everything done in less than seven days. There were a lot of trials, issues with the realtor and the original lein holder. I had issues with the mortgage broker's manager, too, which eventually lead to Erika leaving the company. I, however, am very happy with the little house.
When I took possession of the house, the first thing that I had to do was clean it from top to bottom. This was no small task. I took a few days off work and dove straight in. The previous owner's parents had cleaned it up pretty well, and had removed all of his stuff. This, however, left several other people's possessions...clothes, mementos and more. A shocking amount of stuff. The trash man would NOT be pleased!
I started setting out all kinds of crap, huge boxes full of clothes and papers, boxes of photo albums and more. The entire front of my house along the street was filled with crap! It did not take long for people to start showing up and carting off vast quantities of stuff. There was one lady in an old, beat up Ford Escort...already chock full of stuff...that stuffed even more into it. She took all the boxes of clothes and some of the other garbage. Someone even came by and took an old, nasty mattress. They left the box spring, but took the mattress. It was stained and stunk badly! Eeeeewwww!
My dad and I completely rewired the house before I had the electric turned on. The plumbing was in great shape, and the furnace and water heater are functional. They left a perfectly good, brand new gas dryer. The washer was crap, but mom and dad gave me their old washer when they bought new. The fridge left there is still running strong after a good scrub.
I still need to put in a new bathroom and a new kitchen. The driveway needs replaced, as well as the windows. The basement and attic need more insulation, and I could use more outlets around the house. I need to add in more network and cable jacks in a few places to make it more convenient to connect to the internet. Other than these few nit-picky things, I love my little house.
The little house was built in 1940. It was once owned by my grandfather and grandmother. When papaw's brother, Noah, built a new house next door in 1970 (my parent's current house), they lived in it for a few years before they eventually traded houses! They did things like this all the time. Eventually, they sold the house to Mr. & Mrs. C, who lived there until they both passed away.
I certainly hope that I have brought back a sense of pride and happiness to the little house, "This Old Crack House".
About four years ago, the elderly lady that lived here, Mrs. C, passed away. So her family cleaned up the house and put it on the market. This is not an expensive neighborhood, so it was priced pretty low. Along comes a nice young man who had come into some money, and he buys the place and moves in. At first, everything is great. He's quiet and friendly, takes good care of the place. The yard is always neatly trimmed and his parents are very nice. He attends the local university and, surprisingly, he doesn't drive.
Eventually, weird things start happening. The stream of traffic in and out of the little house increases. People start coming and going all night and day. The neighbor on the other side of the house tells us she smells wafts of pot smoke coming in her open windows, and discovers her daughter has been hanging around with some of the people that come and go.
Then he gets a dog. A very sweet golden retriever named Peanut Butter. He says that it belongs to a friend of his that was deployed to Iraq. This, we think, is great and we help him out by giving him a large dog crate and some dog food. That dog was so sweet, just like a typical golden!
Then, one day, the sun rises...it is a normal day. Mom goes to work, dad is already on the road, and I gather myself together (I'm living at mom and dad's at this time) and go to work just like every day. I think this was a bank holiday, because the lady on the opposite side of my parent's house was home, and she was a loan officer for a local bank.
I went out with friends that evening, but mom came home like normal. The neighbor comes running over and relays the story of the day's events.
Apparently, about an hour after we left, there was an invasion of law enforcement. Local police and sheriff, the ATF, DEA and FBI were everywhere and they raided the little house and carted away the young man, along with quite a bit of stuff. Animal control came along and picked up the dog, the house was locked up tight and there it sat for a long while.
The young man's parents came along a few weeks later. The power, water and gas had been shut off and they listed the house for sale. His parents used an extension cord from our house to run a vacuum to clean up the house, and they took what was left of his stuff. The told us that he had been sent to prison for dealing drugs. He had been hanging around with a tough crowd, and he had been involved with them before. There wasn't a whole lot of his stuff left, though, since the house had been broken into a number of times while laying vacant.
Mother was worried about the dog, Peanut Butter. After hearing about the house being raided, she called around to find out what happened to the poor thing. Thankfully, she discovered that the dog had been reported stolen from a nearby town and it had been reunited with its grateful family. Mother was prepared to adopt the dog if it was still at the pound, even though we have three dogs already. He would have, in my opinion, made a great addition to our family...he was very gentle and sweet, and got along quite well with our existing pets.
The house sat on the market for more than a year, and was close to entering foreclosure. One Saturday, dad and I were at the barber and he said that I should buy the house next door. Right out of the blue! I thought about it more and more the next week, and then decided to look into it. I called the realtor, put in an offer and found out that it was to be sent to sheriff's sale in less than a month.
Without going into detail, the realtor didn't think I would be able to get it done by time of the sheriff's sale. However, with the help of my chosen mortgage broker, the lovely Erika, I was able to get everything done in less than seven days. There were a lot of trials, issues with the realtor and the original lein holder. I had issues with the mortgage broker's manager, too, which eventually lead to Erika leaving the company. I, however, am very happy with the little house.
When I took possession of the house, the first thing that I had to do was clean it from top to bottom. This was no small task. I took a few days off work and dove straight in. The previous owner's parents had cleaned it up pretty well, and had removed all of his stuff. This, however, left several other people's possessions...clothes, mementos and more. A shocking amount of stuff. The trash man would NOT be pleased!
I started setting out all kinds of crap, huge boxes full of clothes and papers, boxes of photo albums and more. The entire front of my house along the street was filled with crap! It did not take long for people to start showing up and carting off vast quantities of stuff. There was one lady in an old, beat up Ford Escort...already chock full of stuff...that stuffed even more into it. She took all the boxes of clothes and some of the other garbage. Someone even came by and took an old, nasty mattress. They left the box spring, but took the mattress. It was stained and stunk badly! Eeeeewwww!
My dad and I completely rewired the house before I had the electric turned on. The plumbing was in great shape, and the furnace and water heater are functional. They left a perfectly good, brand new gas dryer. The washer was crap, but mom and dad gave me their old washer when they bought new. The fridge left there is still running strong after a good scrub.
I still need to put in a new bathroom and a new kitchen. The driveway needs replaced, as well as the windows. The basement and attic need more insulation, and I could use more outlets around the house. I need to add in more network and cable jacks in a few places to make it more convenient to connect to the internet. Other than these few nit-picky things, I love my little house.
The little house was built in 1940. It was once owned by my grandfather and grandmother. When papaw's brother, Noah, built a new house next door in 1970 (my parent's current house), they lived in it for a few years before they eventually traded houses! They did things like this all the time. Eventually, they sold the house to Mr. & Mrs. C, who lived there until they both passed away.
I certainly hope that I have brought back a sense of pride and happiness to the little house, "This Old Crack House".
3 comments:
This is an excellent story. In fact, I think I might print it out and have some of my students read it for discussion for a variety of reasons. It shows something about crime in America but there's a nice element of redeeming the place and making it your own...like you rescued it from dilapidation.
I'm rather a big dork about houses and whatnot so I'm curious about the size of your place and the number of rooms. I do believe small houses are the way to go for a lot of reasons (largely environmental but also because people tend to keep more junk than they need if they have more space).
Shari: I should have included the statistics on my little house! It didn't even occur to me. :)
The house is 820 square feet, it is a bungalow style with a full, walk-out basement. It is two bedrooms...two quite small bedrooms...one of which I use as an office. My bed and dresser fill the other, larger bedroom to capacity. The living room is pretty big, and the kitchen/dining room combo is pretty large, too. All told, these two areas cover about 2/3 of the space. The kitchen is of an odd shape due to the "hallway" leading to the bath and bedrooms.
Interestingly, it has a walk-up attic with stairs. It really isn't for daily use as you have to stoop to get up as to not hit your head on the roof beams. It was, however, extremely conveninent when dad and I rewired the house!
I will take a few pictures and post them in a future entry.
- Mike
Thanks for taking the time to type out the details. I'll be looking forward to pictures!
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