1. An unopened bottle of bad Polish Vodka (which Jon opened when he nearly sliced his thumb off loading an aerator into the trunk of our car and was consequently in terrible pain. I was out of town when this happened and didn't hear about the incident for several months).
2. An open, half-eaten, week-(or maybe month?)old can of dog food in the refrigerator. Repulsive.
3. A leather (or maybe pleather?) couch and love seat (we did not keep this because we didn't have room, but also because one of the times we came to look at the house, the owner was laying on said furniture in his boxers while we took a tour of the house and I couldn't get the creepy image out of my head). Yuck. *My husband just reminded me upon reading this in edit version that we found a pair of underwear tucked into one of the cushions of this couch. Double Yuck.
4. A used and still wet back scrubbing brush in the master bath shower. I won't go into great detail on this one, but let's just say that I put on latex gloves to empty the shower of their used bathing products and tools. So, so gross.
5. A living room full of freshly-peed in carpet. It was still wet to the touch after we got the keys to the house. One word: disgusting! (FYI--this carpet was immediately torn up and put to the curb for garbage day). Revolting.
6. Years of food and grease baked into the inside of our microwave and the top of our stove. (If you ever wondered what it looks like when someone doesn't clean their microwave and stove for four full years, I can tell you). Appalling.
I'm sure there were other things, but those were the main highlights. I vaguely remember that the first thing I did was to put on a pair of yellow latex cleaning gloves and walk around the house filling up a garbage bag or two of the junk that they left behind. At this point, you may be wondering why we bought this house. Potential people. It was all about the potential. I don't second-guess it one bit, but I will admit that we put a lot of work into it painting and cleaning. And we got rid of the stove and microwave. I didn't even bother cleaning it. We just ate food that could be grilled outside until we got the new stove delivered two weeks later.
There was one thing that was left behind that I have grown to appreciate more and more over the years. It was this broom and dustpan set:
It annoyed me at first because its so big and cumbersome. I had never seen one like this in a house, maybe a restaurant, but not a house. I would have probably thrown it away, but Jon liked it, so we stored it in the basement laundry room. Before kids, I don't think I used this once.
Now, this puppy makes a daily trip (sometimes twice a day) into our kitchen. Its awesome. Seriously. You'd be amazed at how messy our floor is after each meal (our kids love shredded cheese and will eat almost any vegetable if they can put parmesan cheese sprinkles on top). If you have kids, you don't need me to explain the mess that shredded cheese is....it gets EVERYWHERE. The mess is sometimes so bad that I wonder if any of the food actually made it into their mouths. One of our dear boys (James), who shall remain nameless (James) has won the title of the 'messiest eater ever ' (James). If we had a dog, I know he would be parked under James' chair at every meal and he would be overweight.
This dust pan is amazing with the long handle, I don't have to bend down to clean the floor (it sounds lazy, but if I had to use one of those tiny dust pans where you kneel or bend down to the floor, I wouldn't bother). The dust pan holds a ton, so you can clean up the whole kitchen in like three minutes. This is why it is my new best friend. And clearly it wins for best "leave behind" since all the other treasures left behind were horribly gross.
So I guess I owe my husband a big thank you for having the foresight to save this treasure from being dumped into the garbage along with the rest of the previous owner's stuff. Thanks honey!
Why is it that the oldest kid is the messiest eater?! Elly and James have this in common. Chris and I often shake our heads at how many times Elly spills her juice and the amount of cheese or cereal on the floor under her chair. Just last night, she was eating some chicken and pasta, and dumped the entire plate in her lap.
ReplyDeleteAside from dumping the entire jug of juice a few weeks back, Ethan rarely spills. That was just an incident of his curiosity getting the best of him.
And I never heard about ALL those items the previous owners left--that is gross! Definitely worse than the wedding dress the divorced couple left us in our first house.
Oh Ruth, the plate in her lap is so like James. They are cut from the same cloth. And Aaron is like Ethan, he pretty much never spills. So strange. I call it the chaos factor. The twins are just more chaotic/less organized in how they do everything and its innate. I'm not sure how much you can "teach" that to go away.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I don't think I ever heard about the wedding dress that was left behind for you. Ha! I guess you don't want it if you're divorced, but leaving it? too funny!