It Ain't Pretty

OK- a few random thoughts, then some photos.

We bought a snowblower yesterday. **cracking up** it probably won't snow for the rest of the winter! NOT.

Cold and snow- hmmmmmmm- 2 feet since 12/8. OK already, I get that I'm living in Maine. Can we have a break for awhile?

I met my neighbors, really great people. V. is our local bus driver for the kids. R. works in trucking, and he's plowed us out twice. Go R!! V. has lived next door for the past 20 years. She has known all of the owners and filled us in a little. There's been a chimney fire here. great. The pipes burst. even better. The last use of the house was a group home for 6 teenaged boys, all deemed unadoptable. How sad. And how cool. The person who ran the house really loved it, and made some great progress with the boys. How in the world are people so cruel to these children, all of whom were abused in some way? Sad, very sad.

Which leads me to the next part- and be forewarned.... the bathrooms. You guessed it. We have three full baths upstairs, and one half-bath on the first floor. Nothing in this house has been updated recently- I mean, the place was owned by the State- do I have to say anything else? And the place was filthy. Apparently the boys were responsible for keeping the house clean, as part of their life skills and becoming independent. See where I'm going with this?? yeah.



This is the half bath downstairs. The shower is made of metal- like a camp shower. Just removing the dark shower curtain made a huge difference. The sink leaked, but is fixed now.


Anyway, when we moved in, the tubs and sinks and toilets (I thought) were given a good scrub. But we soon figured out that the blue bathroom had no seat, and the sink leaked. It also has a funky smell, so we just closed the door. The yellow bathroom, which we all use upstairs, has a fairly new toilet and faucet, but that's about it. I mean, you gotta love yellow formica countertops. And silvery blue wallpaper.



What's with the shape of the vanities- they're all the same.

We finally got a new toilet seat for the blue bathroom, which just sat for a week or two. So I decided I was going to change it out. I noticed that it was really grungy around the screw/clip that holds the seat on the bowl. It looked like putty. I thought "Did they putty this thing on- how pathetic." That would have been a good thing, 'casue it wasn't putty. You guessed it, it was dried urine caked on, layers and layers, of god-knows how many years. It was utterly revolting, and coming from me- and it takes a lot to gross me out- that's saying a lot. I actually had to use a scraper on it. And the pieces that I scraped into the toilet- yep, it reconstituted. UGH.

So then I decided that I'd better go check the yellow bathroom. And it was the same. Awful. Evidently the house wasn't cleaned after it emptied out. I'm posting the pictures here- you have been warned!!



Grunginess under the wallpaper. Disgusting corners in the linoleum.
rusting baseboards.

ta daaaaa!
So, I bought stock in bleach this week. I have never used so much in my life, and I've only made a tiny dent. A. Tiny. Dent.

hugs- Lee