Winner of the Nasty House Award

People who know me, know that I'm pretty particular (or a**l) about things. I've softened as I've gotten older, but I often times wondered why I chose the Staging business when things "gross me out" so easily. I remember the first few consultations I conducted, I would, as a courtesy, remove my shoes in the client's home. After seeing the interiors of peoples homes and how they lived and having stepped on one too many unidentifiable "wet spots" with my bare feet or in my socks, I decided enough was enough! I'm not taking my shoes off anymore!!! I would literally go home and either start cleaning my own house (even if it didn't need it) because I was so appalled at what I just saw in the home I just returned from or I would immediately take a shower to wash away the "funk" from someone else's house. If you can believe it, I got used to it after awhile or just knew what to expect, but one particular property stood out as the winner of the Nasty House Award! Imagine you are in the first trimester of your pregnancy and you are surprising shocked at experiencing no morning sickness, no food aversions, no problems at all and you have not had the need to announce your present condition to anyone yet.

Then imagine walking into a property to conduct a staging consultation for a Realtor to discover a home whose owners leave their medium/large size dog at home alone for 12-14 hours at a time, with no exit to the outdoors to relieve himself. They also chain smoke indoors, have clutter EVERYWHERE and they DO NOT CLEAN! And of course, your job is to help get the property ready for sale. Keep in mind that the owners were not present during this consultation which was disturbing because they really needed to be there. Allow me to describe what I found. (I tried to find old pictures and unfortunately, the best picture is no longer in my files). The house wreaked of pee, poo, smoke and mildew. The spaces were disheveled and filled with clutter. None of the 3 beds were made. The bathroom counters were packed with all kinds of products and the thought of sitting on their toilet or showering in their shower is unthinkable, there were pee soaked throw rugs THROUGHOUT the house, yes, PEE SOAKED, and to our delight, there were 3 pieces of doggie poop in the hallway upstairs. Oh, but there was a Neiman Marcus catalog laying around and lots of designer clothes and shoes in the closet***nice paradigm. Now remember the pregnant chick who was feeling good? Well, that was me and as much as I tried to suck it up and work as fast as I could, I had to go outside to catch some air and compose myself so I could run back in, take photos and leave. When I got home that night, I had to take Lysol Wipes to wipe the bottom of my shoes to clean them.

Obviously, we had to do a major overall on this property. When I brought my housecleaner, painter and handyman to the property, I had to warn them of the surprise in store for them. Obviously, the carpet was gutted and the subfloors had to be treated for all the urine, the entire interior was repainted, along with the shutters and the master bathroom ceiling needed to be mudded over and repainted due to the extensive smoke and mildew build-up (YUCK!) and the cleaners had there work cut out for them. Somehow, even after all this happened, the house still smelled like pee - why? Because there they still kept those nasty throw rugs around! The owners just didn't really have a vested interest in the selling process. They wanted top dollar, but was not willing to put forth much effort of their own. They were still going to be living in the property during the sales process so I was concerned about how the property would be maintained. We had rental furniture and plenty of our staging inventory in there. Trust me when I say, I emphasized to the agent that IF EVERYTHING WAS NOT RETURNED IN ITS NEAR ORIGINAL CONDITION, he would be responsible for the replacement value. This project was a total ugly duckling turned into a beautiful swan story because amazingly enough, they still got $20K over asking. In all honesty, it was the market climate at the time. If that property was on the market today, it would probably still be on the market - TIMING is so key!!

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