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Little things

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 I decided that the first thing I could do to help myself feel like I could make progress was to clean up outside. The overgrown brush and bushes were hiding so much of the front of the house and I knew it was going to need to go.  A few hours with a pair of pruning cutters and a Ryobi cordless Sawzall allowed the front of the house to finally be seen uninterrupted for the first time in years.  It's remarkable how just an afternoon clearing out some brush can really open up the space. It's even more remarkable that the realtors of years past never bothered to try to convince whomever was selling to do the same. For a little backstory, the last time the house had been sold prior to my purchase was when the property was listed for $16,500. I'm not sure if that was the actual selling price but I'm sure if someone had just cleaned up the yard, it would've been easier to sell. I also believe that the buyer thought it would be an easy apartment flip - something that they ...
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Enter the first

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 I didn't even go home after the auction. I went to the house. By golly, I spent my money, I'm gonna go look inside this place. The rear door look had actually been broken off, who knows when. It saved me having to find alternate entry, but without knowing what to expect, I ventured inside. It became very evident that those pictures from OHD were definitely as old or older than the posts I had read comments from. The years between then and now had not been kind. To give an idea, here's the photo again of the main staircase upstairs from the front of the house that the last realtor listing had, versus how I found it. Then: Now: As you can see, the weather had caught up with the house. As it turns out, there had been a section of the roof at the top of the stairs that had collapsed. I'm not sure if it was a tree branch or what else caused it but it is thought to have been probably five years or more that there's been a hole there, pouring water into the house from the...
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The Beginning

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 In the Spring of 2022, there was a county tax foreclosure auction, held in-person versus a sealed bid format as had been the norm. During the hunt for a potential good deal on a fixer-upper for family, a listing kept catching my eye on the listing site.  While there were very little other photos, I couldn't help but fall in love with the carving detail in the front porch. During an open house opportunity to view, I was told that no one was allowed inside due to safety concerns. What this said to me was "No one's gonna want this thing." This stuck in the back of my mind walking into the auction.  Unfortunately, the houses we had on our short-list for potential purchase ended up fetching a little more than we were willing to part with, but I wanted to stick around just for kicks and see what this good ol' girl would bring. The auctioneer opened with the line "We know little about the inside, as we don't believe the house to be safe to enter." Music to...
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