The worst horror stories - help us all learn what you've learned
Specialist · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2016 · 841 posts · 480 votes
I'm lucky, I get to talk to investors all around the world. I learn something new on a daily basis. I'm thankful for that. I also understand that we don't learn anything unless someone else learned the hard way.
I'm asking for some of those instances when you learned - "the hard way". Please share a horror story if you can, but also please share what you learned from it. This can be very helpful to newer investors and I think everyone who comes here wants to connect and learn something new.
Keep it short if possible - and Thanks for your participation!
Cat Pee Flip.. yup did a 4 br house,, the attached garage was her cat kennel.. pee up to the rafters.. and they got in crawl space from garage to behind the fire place.. so all the insulation between garage and house was reeking with cat pee and odor,, so off came the sheet rock between house and garage and interior on same common wall.. we had to Kilz the fireplace block up to the roof.. interior brick was ok but all way up to roof of garage was bad. The sheet rock in roof of garage was urine soaked because cats were up in the insulation.. so that all came down, we had to kilz the entire interior of garage to seal all the framing and put in new windows. and garage doors.
I scraped off crystallized dried cat urine from the floor in double garage, using a garden hoe, then we power washed it, used hydrogen peroxide in gallon jugs from beauty supply applied that to help get more of the urine up and off.. Finally I used gallons of paint stripper, poured that on let it sit for a bit and it actually lifted the cat pee right up into a yellow foam.. and that actually took it off the cement floor.. we after several months using various products and then odor killers... found Odor medic to work the best for us.. along with Ozone machine..Final finish to cement was we painted with a cement sealer paint.
Inside was terrible also all sub floors in most rooms had to be replaced and those not were sealed with kilz. all sheet rock was removed at least 24 inches up from floors in every room and all base trim gone,, we kilz the studs before repairing the wall and putting back that sheet rock and also kilz the floor joists where we removed sub floor.. new insulation and new rock. ,
We got house for 191K sold for 430K cleared about 70 K and took us much longer than expected..
Worst job ever, never thought it would ever smell good enough to put on market but we won.. after a couple of asthma attacks and lots of labor.. the city had lived trapped about 40 cats previous owner was feeding out of her garage along with about a dozen she had inside..
Looking for bad deals, buying nightmares, selling issues, rehab stories, general contractor issues, issues with fix and flips, buy and holds, rentals, turnkey stories. Looking for anything that might help others avoid some of the issues you may have encountered.
Cat Pee Can cost a lot! Especially when Contractors Lie.
I purchased a flip that was a bank owned property (out of state). It had cat smells. Contractor said, No problem, he will fix that. I requested that the contractor walk the attic and roof to endure we didn't have any surprises during the remodel. He lied, he didn't. Here is how I know...
Two months later when the house was completely remodeled and went on market, the feedback came in, "the house smells bad" On a hot day, it was really bad. I could go on for pages on detail of all the things the contractor did during the remodel (bleaching concrete floors etc and what we tried once the remodel was complete, repainting walls with oil based kills, sealing tile grout on brand new floors, hi powered ozoneators for weeks. The contractor and the specialists I hired could not find the source of the smell so we just keep trying many things even replaced all the drywall in the house from the floor 3.5 ft up. By the way that is 6 inches more than how high a cat can spray urine. None of this worked at all! Then a different person I hired to check it out, got into the attic. We found the source of the smell!
Background, after I told the original contractor what we found in the attic, he remembered a neighbor told him, at the beginning of the remodel, there was a lot of cats in the house and the lady was a hoarder. What we didn't know was that the boxes piled up in the garage made a tower to the attic access (that was missing) where I guess a lot of cats made their home.
Okay.... suck out the litter box in the attic, replace all the ceiling drywall, re-texture, repaint, and blow in new insulation. Vola, no more cat smell. By the way there was a major roof repair that need to be completed that the buyers found at the sale inspection. This is how I know the contractor lied about getting in the attic and walking the roof.
Lessons learned:
Use trust worthy contractors and make them take pictures of their inspection, if your not sure pay for a quality inspector.
Cats can pee really high on walls and love the corners, even attics.
Cat urine is harder to get rid of than other urine due to the fact that its molecules are much smaller and are hard to cover up (seal in the smell), the smell molecules will literally pass through water-based kills paint.
Products that work really good are Oil based kills and to dissolve urine on hard surfaces, use a product called Anti-Icky-Poo. Replace all surfaces that can absorb urine.
Avoid houses with cat smells or add to the budget for the above fixes.
Thats a great story. Sorry that happened to you. I worked in water/fire restoration for years and our crews would see things like this. Raccoons, squirrels and any animal that can invade an attic space can leave behind terrible urine smells. In my experienced oil based sealers are very useful. In the insurance world the urine can be considered a biohazard. Thanks for your story Tony!
Rental "nightmare".
First home became a rental as we moved across state and could not sell due to horribly-timed purchase of last bubble and rapid job relocation. Contracted a PM from afar and leased to likely the first applicant that could scribble their name on an application(neighborhood was saturated with rentals due to "crisis").
All well and good for a few months then weird amounts of short rent start popping up - ie $724.39 where $1200 was rent. Communication with PM is curt but then magically, a week later, it was brought current. This starts to happen more frequently, so I demand a call with the company owner. It's revealed that the tenants were in cahoots with a former receptionist at the PM and they had brought crying kids in with them to contest their(my) posting a NTV. She also was related or something to a friend who shacked up there to cover the rent when man of the house got arrested for a domestic and some other shenanigans.
Their final f/u was stealing horse shelters and tack before they vacated. Realtor asks why we have it listed as "horse property" when there is nothing of the sort left. I drive several hours to investigate and find a mostly barren plot of land where fences, sheds and shelters once stood. Do a little more digging and find out the past "occupants" had moved just a few blocks away. Drive by their new haunts and see my old shelter with horses lounging away.
Lessons learned:
1) Vet tenants
2) Vet PMs
3) Don't be afraid to evict
4) Don't be afraid to fire
Cat Pee Flip.. yup did a 4 br house,, the attached garage was her cat kennel.. pee up to the rafters.. and they got in crawl space from garage to behind the fire place.. so all the insulation between garage and house was reeking with cat pee and odor,, so off came the sheet rock between house and garage and interior on same common wall.. we had to Kilz the fireplace block up to the roof.. interior brick was ok but all way up to roof of garage was bad. The sheet rock in roof of garage was urine soaked because cats were up in the insulation.. so that all came down, we had to kilz the entire interior of garage to seal all the framing and put in new windows. and garage doors.
I scraped off crystallized dried cat urine from the floor in double garage, using a garden hoe, then we power washed it, used hydrogen peroxide in gallon jugs from beauty supply applied that to help get more of the urine up and off.. Finally I used gallons of paint stripper, poured that on let it sit for a bit and it actually lifted the cat pee right up into a yellow foam.. and that actually took it off the cement floor.. we after several months using various products and then odor killers... found Odor medic to work the best for us.. along with Ozone machine..Final finish to cement was we painted with a cement sealer paint.
Inside was terrible also all sub floors in most rooms had to be replaced and those not were sealed with kilz. all sheet rock was removed at least 24 inches up from floors in every room and all base trim gone,, we kilz the studs before repairing the wall and putting back that sheet rock and also kilz the floor joists where we removed sub floor.. new insulation and new rock. ,
We got house for 191K sold for 430K cleared about 70 K and took us much longer than expected..
Worst job ever, never thought it would ever smell good enough to put on market but we won.. after a couple of asthma attacks and lots of labor.. the city had lived trapped about 40 cats previous owner was feeding out of her garage along with about a dozen she had inside..