We’re a few weeks into our project, and have been filming as we go. Dad pulled out the old kitchen cabinets and realized just how bad the rodent infestation was. He found a huge rat carcass. Unfortunately, or should I say thankfully, since I wasn't at the house when this happened we didn't get footage of that. Maybe it's for the best, that might have been too much for family tv. Also, I'm pretty glad I wasn't the one who found that. In addition to the stench of dead animals, the back bedroom smells like urine, and we were told by a neighbor they used to keep big st. bernard dogs in there. The wood floors were buckling from all the moisture...you get the idea. I have a cute video clip when Anna Joy first walked in the house, pinched her little nose, and said "ew it's smelly." We have called it The Smelly House ever since, and every time I leave to go work she'll ask me, "are you going to work at the smelly house today?"

We hired Will, our friend who also works for Dad on rental properties, to help us with some of the demo. We needed to pull up the floors to see how bad the foundation and floor joists are (there's a slope to one corner so we suspected something.) We discovered the seal plate (I now know what that is!) was corroding along one whole side of the house. A few joists were damaged too. The guys had to jack up the house and replace the seal plate, as well as multiple joists. We’re only in the first month, and already this has set us back $4K and added at least 2 wks onto our schedule.

I’ve been working upstairs demoing the walls. Mom and I cleaned out the attic space. Sooo much raccoon scat, gross. Will found more dead rats under the house. We've counted about 15 so far. And ya’ll, these are not cute little country mice - we're talking big ol' hairy urban rats. I took a blurry photo of a huge rat that one of the guys found under the old bathtub...it was frozen in walking motion. Lordy that was creepy. At least we haven't found any moving ones...yet. Either way, I t will certainly be rodent free for the new buyers!

We're only a few weeks in, and it's already getting stressful. I really feel the internal struggle to just retreat and raise my white flag. When we started this project, the idea was I would manage the load while getting dad's expertise along the way. But with all the unexpected floor issues, he has really needed to take on a bigger load to keep things moving. He is now basically acting as general contractor, and while I want to learn how to do this without him next time, right now I keep thinking I don't know how that will ever happen, and maybe this flip thing is just a one time deal for me. But gosh, I really want to keep doing this. There's something growing within me during this season, I can feel the push and pull, like a breakthrough is just around the corner. So I can't stop now.

My blurry picture of the rats under the old tub....can you spot them? Ew.

A PAUSE FOR GRATITUDE

My Dad continues to work harder than everyone...I wish he didn't need to, but I'm so thankful for it. I know this project would be so much further behind schedule and budget if he weren't putting in so much labor.I know he's doing all of this so we can make as much profit as possible, in order to help my family. I'm so incredibly grateful. Sometimes I feel bad that he's giving so much...but Jonny reminds me -

"you'd do the same thing for any one of our kids. Just accept it, and be thankful."

And so I'm trying, and I am.

First Time Fixer, Weeks 3-4

First Time Fixer, Weeks 5-6

First Time Fixer, Weeks 1-2