Purchasing a house with animal damage.....

[Pouch]

I have a lead on a home in an excellent area of town, prime area in fact, and at a great price. However, the home has animal damage.

Apparently the widow who owned it, let her dogs piss and crap all over the place.

I've inspected it and it literally looks like a flood has taken place.

IOW up to 6 inches up every wall I can see stains which I am assuming are pee pee stains. It looks like the house had a flood 6 inches high!

I realize the rugs have to go, but how do I clean up the rest of the mess?

Can I just remove the baseboard molding's, clean, paint and be done with it?

Also the house has hot water baseboard heating and the miserable little creatures have peed on everyone of the baseboard units to the point that the covers are rusted!!!

Any ideas on how to clean this up?

[krw]

Rip everything to the studs and start over. There is a reason why the house is going for a "great price".

[Oren]

You will get a lot of feedback on this one, I'm sure.

My house had two dogs from the previous owner that did the same thing. I kept the house vacant for six months as we worked on it. Threw out the baseboard, carpet, vinyl, etc, etc....ETC!

I had asked the owner to drop the price by $25,000 and she accepted the offer.

Once I worked in a house, for a RE agent, getting ready to market the home. That house had a pet pot-bellied pig living in it and running all about the home. Yep, even the landscape needed work

[ransley]

If it was really peed on the floors, the wood floors may be not saveable, it may have to go to the stud to get rid of the smell, there are special primers sold for fire damage that may salvage the walls, the radiators, who knows a powerwashing would be good and then you wont know how it all does till the heat is on, its cheap for a reason, and maybe not cheap enough.

[HeyBub]

After doing the obvious, get an Ozone generator and turn it loose. Now don't get a piddly Ozone generator like you see on Ebay, get a BIG one.

They are used to rehab houses where dead things, mostly dead things, and very dead things have been left for extended periods. In the summer. In New Orleans.

You can contact a funeral home or your county medical examiner to discover where they got theirs. These folks can also point you to companies in your local that do this sort of work (hey, somebody has to deal with the hulls after a vampire strike).

[Joe]

Call ServiceMaster and get a bid on their professional cleanup. It may be advantageous to have their expertise on such a massive problem. There may be much you can do, but there is also the time factor to consider. Perhaps they could work with you in stages, as there may be a lot of remove/replace of damaged structure. Good luck...it won't be cheap.

Joe

[h]

My grandmother let a relative rent her house for a year while she did a year in the peace corps. No one knew she had 5 dogs, and that she never bothered to let them out into the fenced-in yard. The house was utterly trashed when my grandmother got home.

Here's what you need to do. You will have to rip up the floors and subfloors down to the joists and at least 2' of drywall from the floors up. You will have to get replacement covers for the baseboard units (cheap, but a pain to install) and you might have to replace some of the piping. Anything less and the first time the heat comes on the entire house will smell like a sewer. Check the electrical. It's quite possible that there is a lot of damage to outlets from all the urine, to say nothing of wiring that might be sitting in standing puddles of "output".

However much you think it will cost to fix, triple it, and you just might be close. I would RUN away from this "great price".

[Steve B]

There is no way to clean this up. I would run away from this "deal", and in this soft market, buy another where I could get a decent price, and then have some money left to remodel, and do things that don't involve cleaning up crap. The damage is there, and nothing short of a natural gas explosion is going to change it.

Does the house have natural gas?

Hey, it's an idea.

Steve

[benick]

A 5 gallon can of diesel and a lighter...LOL..Seriously , plan on a complete gut ...I would run away from it unless you could get it for just the cost of the land..A "cat lady" who had dozens of cats in her house , some dead and about 3 feet of crap on the floor was evicted from her city condemned home and it cost close to 100 grand to fix...The guy who bought it got it for like 12 grand..It was close to the harbor with views so he made out but I doubt that's the norm and somebody from out of state bought it...I wouldn't live in it if it were free even AFTER the reno...Just knowing about it would turn my stomach.......HTH...

[Nate Nagel]

unless it's so cheap that you can tear everything down to the framing and start over. Seriously, it's the only way. Might even have to shellac the framing if it's that damaged.

nate

[ransley]

Ozone works, but Ozone is a poison, bad for the lungs, it Oxidises them too. There are strick Gov exposure limits for ozone easily googled. I would never use one or even an electrostatic air filter as they output Ozone as a by product.

[HeyBub]

Right. I forgot to mention prudent safety precautions mandate that one should wear eye and ear protection when working around Ozone. Rubber-soled shoes and a safety harness would not be out of place either.

Thunderstorms produce copious quantities of Ozone. That's why all the knowledgeable people are migrating to Arizona and Nevada.

[Tony Hwang]

Hmmm, Dog is not as bad as cat.

[Phisherman]

Don't. Get another house.

[aemeijers]

Ya don't run it while house is occupied. You seal up house, tape windows, etc, post big warning signs, and kick it on as you go out the door. Leave it sealed up and running a week or so, and then vent the place a day before you start working on it.

[Pouch]

Thanks everyone! I've decided to move on to another property because there is nothing special about this house, location or price that would make it worth all the work required to repair the damage.

[Kate]

Smart move! You deserve better than all of that mess.

Good luck.

[The Daring Dufas]

Kate! Is that you? Some of the guys were wondering where you got off to.

TDD

[Kate]

Hey, yes, it is me. It is so good to know that I am missed. LOL. I felt like a pest.

I saw the earlier post and someone made a comment that a woman does not get harassed for asking dumb questions. My feeling is that I won't learn if I don't ask. (Smile).

I am not on here a lot as I don't have much to offer in the way of answers, but I try when I can.

I did some more crown molding and this time it went in my guest bathroom. I am now through with this project.

My laminate wood floor project came out fantastic. I am now in the process of installing sile stone counter tops. The owner can't come out until April 27th, so that is where I stand until then.

As always, I love all the great help I get from this group, as well as the chuckles.

Thanks.

Kate

[The Daring Dufas]

It must be the little sister syndrome. I have tons of adopted ones.

TDD