Daughter's messy house...
alamator
14 years ago
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grandma123
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agograndmaoz1
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Would you buy next door to a messy house?
Comments (27)Glad this surfaced or I would never have seen it - would appreciate suggestions on what to when it comes time for us to sell. We live next door to a messy house. It was a bit tired looking when we moved in but has steadily gone downhill - way down. It's not abandoned, not in foreclosure, we (and another adjacent neighbor) have tried working with the owners to find solutions but have had no success. We've lived here 22 years, the messy owners have been here quite a bit longer than that. They are elderly but that is not the reason for the mess and disrepair and it does not appear financial resources are a problem - money is spent in other areas that are known to us, but not on the home. There is obviously some degree of mental illness, but nothing that would warrant intervention by an agency. The city has known about this forever. Periodically we and the adjacent neighbor have pushed the city to take action and some issues do get addressed, minimally. But the messy neighbor is a retired lawyer and fights the city endlessly on code verbiage, finding other homes with similar 'violations' that have not been cited. As an example, he finds homes with parkway plantings that are technically against city ordinance as evidence that he should not be cited or fined. His example home will have a grass parkway with city planted trees and owner planted flowers in a bed around the trees. Messy neighbor's parkway has no grass, weeds and invasive ivy overgrowing the sidewalk, multiple owner planted trees that create safety issues seeing oncoming traffic on street and sidewalk. The city limbs up the trees when we complain, the owner plants more each spring and it goes round and round. He has the time and mental acuity to fight the city - it costs him nothing and *seems* to be somewhat of a game. The city has other places to spend money and will not push this as a result. There is no doubt in my mind it would cost a fortune, result in very negative press and PR and likely get nowhere if it actually ended up in court. We always thought we'd outlast them, they would move to a condo or retirement home of some sort and new owners would clean things up before we would need/want to sell. But that has not happened and we are planning to market our home in the near future. The housing market is what it is and we'd have to deal with that regardless, but this neighbor adds to the difficulty. Any ideas???...See MoreUPDATE: Daughter House Painted
Comments (21)You know what...I believe I will wait and start a new thread, "Part 2 the Interior" at a later date. I still need to take a few photos of the AFTER. Below is a link to the Nursery thread. But before you head over there, here is what the room looked like before. Here is a link that might be useful: Nursery...See MoreDaughter is Looking for a Whole House Intercom System
Comments (14)Again, I would recommend using an off-the-shelf telephone system with a handset intercom feature. Only the base unit needs to be attached to the landline twisted pair. The other units just require power. Most of the systems come with four handsets, but check the specs because you can usually add more handsets purchased separately. Some of these systems even have video screens. The speakers on these are standard phone speakers so I would really recommend using a separate system for music....See MoreKeeping a messy house
Comments (85)Joyful, I agree, you should take the best of what is in those papers and save it as digital files. You are a natural storyteller. The joyful guide to living ( attitude toward life ) book would be fun to read. Extra things always makes cleaning more difficult. I find enclosed glass cases help if you don't like to dust objects. I have a large silver collection which requires attention but we do it every month one one weekend. If I got tired of that, I would sell the majority of the pieces. I don't think anyone wants to care for them so one day I will sell the collection. Fine furniture is the same. It requires regular care. I used to have more antiques but now I have fewer and it allows me to put my energy into the flower garden. For a time, I had too many clothes and the decision to let go of half of them has made a big difference. The dry cleaner babies, as beautiful as they were, went to new homes. Having an orderly closet is much better than clinging on to some fantastic stuff that was rarely ever worn. I clean all my own clothes and linens and care for the antiques. I like ironing and I put on music and use scented water and it doesn't seem like work. I have help for the baths, the floors and the kitchen. I like to air my duvet in the morning outside and clean the rugs in the bedroom, then after breakfast, I make the bed. I don't use a dishwasher. I use fine china and silver because I have several sets and that's what I like using. It gets hand washed. I now have storage where the dishwasher used to be. Also, I got rid of the microwave ( never used it ) and I gained space there. I learned that I'd rather have fewer nicer things. There is always pressure to get more but now I save those impulses for garden flowers. It wasn't always this way. I used to be swimming in objects. What i learned was if i could get the same feeling from looking at a picture of it as the real thing, I would photograph it and let it go. I do like good kitchen tools but my kitchen had limited storage. Trading the dishwasher for storage space made a big difference for me....See Morebluesbarby
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