Waterblaster inside

[banana]

My lovely partner and I are about to buy the stinkiest house I've ever been in, as a do-up, buy and hold!

The person living in it has had a menagerie of cats, rats, dogs and birds living inside (as well as a teenage son)!!! You could smell the house from the road when parking outside.

Anyway, said lovely partner thinks we should take the water blaster inside to clean the house out (obviously we'll be ditching the carpet and curtains).

I suspect this will cause more mess than it'll clean up... what do you guys think? Anyone else tried it.

[xris]

I'd be concerned about moisture damage.

xris

[GJB68]

I'm with Xris here, bad idea..

I have been in this situation before.

Go to Mitre 10 and get yourself a 5 - 10 litre sprayer, then go to a supermarket and get a few bottles of Janola, or The Warehouse as they have the best price around $2.90 for the big bottle. Get some saftey glasses, overalls and a mask. You can water down the Janola as it is quite strong, about 50/50, then go hard. (open up windows and doors)

I done this on a few places and was shocked when I returned, some walls and ceilings didn't need painting as they looked brand new.

Great if you are replacing flooring.

This is also great for the external of a house, although a small area should be tried first as it is harsh on the paint.

This was a tip from Ron a couple of years ago.
This method won't kill any cockroaches, they seem to be able to survive!

Cheers

Glenn

[SuperDad]

The waterblaster gets my vote.

If you do suffer some water damage, you can always dry the house out with a flamethrower.

Paul.

[xris]

Most large towns will have a cleaning supplies outlet that services the professional cleaners industry. I buy most of my stuff from there. You can usually buy in bulk and save some money - spray and wipe in 5L bottles. Also most of the equipment they sell is of a reasonable quality and will last more than one afternoon.

Cleaning is one of those jobs any private LL can do and save a lot of money. (If the tenant's paying and you're getting your money back via the TT then you may choose to let professional cleaners in though.)

I believe, however, that every so often a property will benefit from a thorough scrub down, just to waken it up, and this cannot really be a task dumped on tenants, who only have to leave the place reasonably neat and tidy. In many ways it is similar to repainting a room or two - the effect is very, very, cost effective.

xris

[Cliffy]

I know a professional trader who swears by the waster blaster inside method. He just uses it around the windows though to get all that gritty grime in the channels of aluminium windows.
Carpets get replaced after and walls repainted.

[RentMaster]

obviously we'll be ditching the carpet and curtains

I suspect that ditching the carpet and curtains will remove a very large portion of the smell anyway. They probably absorb and hold onto the smell more than the other harder surfaces.

[SuperDad]

Depending on the condition of the walls, it could well be worth ripping out the wall linings and re-lining with nice fresh Gib.

That will give you the change to insulate the external walls.

Paul.

[xris]

I agree with several of the above comments.

Sometimes a property looks beyond redemtion, but when you get down to it matters are not as bad as they seem. The carpet story of Andrew's is so very true. Remove a smelly, flea infested, filthy and torn carpet from the entire house and you've reduced the problem by a third. Remove the 30 year old oven and drapes reduces it to a half. Then a thorough scrub up inside and out, a weekend in the garden brings it down to a third. and to finish off, repainting, or stripping and painting takes it down again to 20%, and liveable by anyone's standards.

The final 20% can be dealt with by replacing light switches, windows, light shades and so on.

at this point you effectively have a property only 5% worsr than brand new.

An exaggeration perhaps, but you get my drift...

xris

[tricky]

The waterblaster gets my vote.

If you do suffer some water damage, you can always dry the house out with a flamethrower.

Paul.

And clear those tenacious spiderwebs away with a stick of dynamite.

[banana]

Ha! ..... stop giving Steve (my partner) ideas... he'll be on to the flamethrower/ dynamite option immediately.

He's already far to attached to the sledgehammer!

I don't think we'll be going down the re-gibbing road this time (apart from where the sledgy is involved i.e. taking out the chimney etc).

I really like the idea of the big sprayer full of bleach though... I might get a new hair colour at the same time?

[SuperDad]

Hi banana,

A mop and a bucket of hot water with sugarsoap will do wonders for getting rid of grime and smell on walls and ceilings.

If the walls are in good condition, it should then be possible (and desirable) to repaint.

Get rid of the curtains and carpets first, then clean, then repaint. Finally, add new curtains and carpet.

I did this in my first IP, which I purchased last year, and it absolutely transformed the place. The old carpet was mouldy, due to years of abuse (beer, urine, vomit). The walls were filthy (smoking inside, drugs on the stove and in the living room, and urine stains on the walls).

I managed to re-curtain an 8 bed, 2 living area property with new thermal backed curtains from Briscoes for under $1000. The trick is to wait until the curtains are half price (which happens every 2nd week with Briscoes). Shop around for carpet. I managed to get top quality wool carpet ($180 per meter new) on the floor (icl. underlay) for $100 per carpet meter (3.6m wide). The carpet was a mix of new end roll pieces, and (very good condition) carpet that had been removed from a house when the owner did not pay the bill. So I got quality carpet for around the same price as new cheap stuff. It will wear better, and looks nicer than the cheap stuff.

I too love my sledgehammer (which, when combined with a wrecking bar, makes for fun times).

Paul.

[banana]

We did pretty much the same as you last year too...(not 8 bedrooms though!!)

I only ever buy curtains at half price now. What a bargain and they look good too (and you can replace them easily if the tennants do bad things to them). We managed to get a house lot of second hand carpet free from our friend the carpet layer (still had to buy underlay etc).

We'll pretty much follow the same formula with this house .

The best thing we did with the last.. and this one too hopefully, is turn it from 3 bedrooms to 4. It's the only way we get close to cashflow neutral. Might need to do something even more cunning if interest rates keep going up!

[Aston]

I've used a hose inside before, I did the janola thing prior to hosing. I drilled holes in the floor first and went easy on the linings and anything made of MDF etc. Just make sure to air the house out thoroughly for the next week or so.

Aston.

[NESW]

We have had to waterblast on one property, yellow dripped down the walls as we did it...

But the wall material we knew would be able to survive it, and a concrete floor once we ripped out the three layers of carpet and vinyl.

Also removed the old oven which was a big cause of the problem, and the 4 layers of curtaining.

However it was during a nice hot Aussie summer day and we knew the neighbours well enough to know they would keep their eyes and ears open throughout the week we left all the windows and doors open....so no problem with damage by others.

I would pick my weather and location very carefully though before doing it again.