Was the dark tile chosen to match the wall paper?
The blue tile was chosen by the owner to work with the wallpaper. Then the guy chose hideous brown baby poop color grout because they wanted a ‘contrast’ and it matched something in the wallpaper. Can you imagine what that would’ve looked like? I talked her out of it by explaining that dark grout was really dated and there is just too much contrast going on already.
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Let’s just agree that these people are color blind and have issues with pattern recognition.
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I drove by this property this morning - noisy location for sure! I could easily see a car ending up crashing into it - the driveway practically empties into the intersection and people do speed through and run lights there. Zillow and Redfin and such suggest the rent is appropriate. And it’s certainly walkable to plenty of businesses and services, although not so much the beach.
Vintage kitchen indeed.
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Given the rat house, I cringed when I read this.
From a Yahoo article, re the distributor for a rat capture device in NYC:
“He became the sole U.S. distributor for the manufacturer, boned up on rat stats — two of them can produce 15,000 descendants in a year, according to National Geographic — and opened an office in Maspeth, Queens.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/could-oreo-cookies-solve-yorks-162133760.html
That’s two rats producing 15K rats a year!! I can’t even imagine what that roof and ceiling was like with that infestation for 10 years!
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Yup. 
….
We just found a deceased mouse in the basement of the house we are flipping.
It was somehow sad (cute mouse) - that rat thing is a whole different level! Just yikes!!!
Hantavirus has been reported here in my county. This &$%* is being spread by mice. 
Get rid of the mouse and sanitize the area. Wear a mask if you are sweeping mouse droppings. Mice might be cute but they’re no better than rats! 
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Thanks, Bunsen! My hub picked it up in paper towel and put it outside (he disposed of it somehow; didn’t ask). We saw no trace of droppings or anything else. I will be sure to sanitize area, didn’t think of that! I put all the food in the house (that is not in cans) in the refrigerator before I left.
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Hantavirus is only carried by deer mice, not ordinary house mice.
Deer mice are brown with cream or white bellies, and have hairy tails. (Think of a gerbil.)
If you find a dead deer mouse, wear rubber gloves and a respirator mask when handling the mouse or its droppings. And don’t sweep. That just spreads the viral particles into the air. Don’t vacuum either unless you have vacuum with a HEPA filter. Wet the droppings with a bleach solution and scoop the droppings up with paper towels or a shovel.
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Yup. Deer mice get into houses here in my state. They do look cuter than “regular” mice. My kid and her BF caught a family of deer mice in the AirBNB they stayed once… when they sent me a pic of the mouse in a glass, I freaked out, lol. Told them to use their masks and wash their hands etc.
We just had a case of hantavirus infection:
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@coralbrook - haven’t heard from you in a while! Hope that means you made it on vacation and are well.
I gather the little house must be rented because there are two cars and a motorcycle in the driveway, and a wet suit hung up by the garage.
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The little house rented for $2,950. But, I got a frantic call from the owner this week because their old 1930s electric main panel fried. Evidently the renter called SDGE and they came out and opened panel and went Holy Moly!!! Told them they had to keep panel off and get it fixed. I had warned the owner that the panel cannot handle a modern load of appliances.
Of course, there is no such thing as ‘fixing’ a 1930s panel. So, I had to send my electrician over there in an emergency and jump a new wire to get power for the renters for the night. Then had to divert him over there for a whole day to install a new outdoor panel. But, it still only has 4 circuits at 15amp each and the breakers will pop every time the renters try to plug in more than one thing. But at least the wires won’t overheat and start a fire.
And then another prior client called and had an ‘emergency’. He needed someone to come over and help him mount new cabinets in dining room (this is La Jolla bachelor). “it will only take 2 hours”. Had to divert another guy over there to find out that client needed two outlets moved and we cannot really mount the cabinets because he has those stupid wall toilets with the water tank in the wall right behind where the cabinets have to be screwed in. 9 hours later still not done.
Not really posting about the rental house I’m fixing up because we are just putting lipstick on a pig to get it rented. Nothing transforming about it. But we are going through a nightmare trying to get blueprints, structural and a permit to get the downstairs garage ADU and basement ADU (accessory dwellings/rentals) legal. Four weeks later we still don’t even have a first draft of drawings to get towards getting a permit. So that means we are going to have some down time waiting for permits.
Goal right now is to get renters upstairs by Feb 12. They already have tenants. This is what we had to do
Rebuild entire balcony because of termite / wood rot.
New balcony tile and new railing
Fix railing around entire house because it was not to code
New furnace and new ducting
Remove internal staircase to basement (was not legal in original build)
Build broom closet, laundry closet and furnace closet into staircase area with electrical and plumbing. Previously the house had one furnace that was ducted to all the units. Except we discovered that about half the ducting downstairs had come apart
New bathtub and fiberglass surround
One new bathroom window
New glass shower door in small master bath
Paint interior, trim and doors
New sliding glass door to balcony
New outlets and switches
New lighting
New bathroom exhaust fans and vent to roof
Repair roof
New bath faucets/new toilets
I think we will get all that done for about $32,000
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You’re a miracle worker to get so much done on such tiny budgets. You also have patients I do NOT possess.
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Sending happy thoughts to @coralbrook and hope there will be a fun fix up soon to follow.
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Did anybody else’s heart skip a beat and get excited when this thread hopped to the top of the page??? Hoping @coralbrook succeeded with the rental house/permits…
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I haven’t updated much because what we are doing is just boring. No great pictures of a beautiful transformation. Putting lipstick on a pig to get things done.
We are working on a house in Paradise Hills (low income neighborhood) where the original house had a basement and garage in the original permit. Prior owner carved out two 2 bedroom rental units under the main house without permits. Upon opening everything up we are finding that the plumbing sewer lines are not adequately sloped and all the electrical wiring was dangerous. So, just trying to fix all that.
And, there were NO WINDOWS in any bedroom - they were dark holes. So, we have to rearrange things and install egress windows in the bedrooms. Had to take down wall between one bedroom and living area and remove a bedroom because there was no way to get an egress window into the room.
But our biggest problem is that the owner insisted on using some Earthquake company in Los Angeles for the building plans. It made no sense, but I am not in a position to say anything. After about a month, I wrote a long email outlining everything we were going to need to submit plans to City of San Diego and we get some kind of weird response that they are only doing the structural engineering for $6,500 and they want another $15,000 for ‘architectural plans’. I told owners to stop and find a local draftsperson but this went in circles for another 2 months.
So now we are 3 months into ownership, they are desperate for the expected rent to cover their costs, and we have to start all over again with a new drafting company to get plans. Once we get the plans they have to go into the City black hole and I expect another 5 months waiting for the permit.
We have stopped work on the project, cleaned it up and I am now out desperately looking for work for the crew. We have about 4 more weeks of work at a small project but then we might be out of business. I always say that, something will come up
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Hope that the next job is right around the corner - minus some of the headaches of the last few projects!
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Yes, I hope everything goes smoothly! No more unrealistic clients with studio budgets and caviar mismatched tastes! I feel ya!
We’re hoping to redo our kitchen within the next month, or so, but I want to open up my tiny kitchen, and pay additional support beam costs, but my husband can’t see the vision.
The company that redid our flood and bathrooms is willing to redo the kitchen but one of the contractors (whose work ethic we liked) mentioned that we would have to get an engineer out here, sometime, to see if it is even possible with our slanted roofline! Wish us luck!
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