This apartment is Nasty. Thats right, with a capitol N. Absolutely disgusting. I don’t understand people sometimes. The tenant living here was getting his doctorate at our local university. How can someone intelligent enough to get a doctorate live like this?
Carpet is one of those things that just wears out so its understood if it occasionally has to be replaced. But this was more than wore out. The tenant had a dog that he used to leash to the stove handle in the kitchen when he was gone. Talk about inhumane. This explains a large chunk of carpet missing within a leash distance of the stove. The front entry area was completely soiled and black from traffic. A simple pass of the vacuum occasionally would have stopped that.
The master bedroom had a large (butt sized) hole in the sheet rock. Again, someone just not giving a crap. People just do not take care of stuff that isn’t theirs. It’s a shame really. There is no excuse for a grown man to put a hole this size in the wall.
With the electricity yet to be turned on, this is what I saw:
I was greeted the next day with the electricity turned on. Yay! I could now see what I was smelling! I found a few extra goodies.
The hall bathroom had some previous water damage to the ceiling. With the lights turned on it was apparent that this was either going on for a while or something that happened a long time ago and was never repaired. Either way, its just something else to add to the list.
Upon further inspection of the kitchen sink area I found that the sink base did not have massive water damage as I originally thought. It had fire damage. Fire? How can you have fire damage under a sink? I have worked on several horrible apartments and have never seen this. What gets me is the list of problems that would have fallen into the regular maintenance category. Most of these problems would have been fixed if they were simply reported. We cant fix what we don’t know about. I’ll throw in a pic of the stove here too. Mmmmm…I’m hungry!
I was also able to make a bit of progress on the floor. I ripped up all the carpet and got it out of the way pretty quick. When removing old carpet most people make the mistake of pulling it up one room at a time. I find the best way to remove carpet is by cutting it into 3-4′ wide strips and rolling it up. This makes it a lot easier on your back when you take it outside and dispose of it. Have you ever tried to put a roll of carpet containing an entire room’s worth into a dumpster by yourself? Not fun. Not fun at all. I use the smaller method and load my truck. You can then pull up next to a dumpster, jump on top, and start tossing it over. While ripping up the carpet I also found a bunch of razor blades in between the carpet and the pad. This bugs me for some reason. I understand that the blades will probably never cut through the carpet but just leave them there? Really? It’s not that hard to pick up after yourself!
I was also able to get the hole in the master bedroom patched up real quick. To fix the hole I needed to cut it to a decent shape. A simple rectangle slightly larger than the hole itself will do. Support has to be added to the back side of the repair for structural reasons. You have to have something for the new sheet rock to screw to. I used some scrap 3/4″ plywood scraps for this. I ripped them down to about 3″ wide and cut them to length. On the right side of the hole as a 2×4 stud. Most people like to cut the hole right down the middle of the stud but I don’t. I find it easier to just cut out what I need and shim around it. A 2×4 scrap piece was used to scab up next to the wall stud. With a structural backing in place I cut an appropriate piece to install. Simply screw the new piece in place and your ready for mud.
I more of a fan of paper sheet rock tape but all I had in the shop was mesh tape. Oh well, use what you have. To patch we first apply a layer of mud to the seam itself. Then cut and press the mesh tape in place gently and use a trowel to push the tape into the seam. After this is done all the way around we just apply a little bit of mud over the tape and spread it out. Your not too worried about being super smooth on the first layer. On the second and third layer I spread the mud out about 5-6 inches each time with sanding in between coats. After 3 coats I was ready for paint.
Here’s a quick video of it with electricity:
