A little vent, that's kinda funny.

I'm getting ready to do this interior for a listing. Home's vacant, re-keyed, and whatever. And not in a completely horrid area, but not the best, so dumb me, I went alone.

Pull in the drive, and notice that on the mailbox, attached to the house, and right by the front door...There's a dead cat!

I can handle a lot of things, but not decompsing stuff. Especially when it's been as hot as it's been the last couple of weeks. Husband's out of town, my bothers' are both working out of the area today. Any advice on who I should call to remove it?

Oh my! I have only had dead birds. Maybe animal control?

I am LOL also...just so you know! Now because I said that I am probably going to come across something worse! LOL!! :p

Take a shovel with you next time you go out there and give it an aerial burial in the neighbor's back yard.

rubber gloves and a paint mask baby...

:p

I'm sorry... and by the way danni, I'm a bit scared about what this belly laugh might do to my karma too.

Will a paint mask work do ya think? Just go to Lowe's or someplace to get one?

I mean, my window was down just a little, and I could smell it from the car. I'm still smelling it. Luckily I didn't yack, but it was close.

It is funny though, in a really gross kind of way. My next one better be better, after this, that's all I can say.

Gary we are in trouble! We are probably going to get a double whammy!!

When I was on the Fire Dept. we would use Cherry Vicks under our nose. Good luck!!!

A little Vicks vaporub under your nose and/or a good clothespin! Rubber gloves and double plastic bags, put it at the road for the garbage men, or bury it...
I thought the dead, rotting dogs in the yard were bad, but I can at least think THEY died of natural causes, but a cat on a mailbox???

On the mailbox? Put a stamp on it, maybe it was returned for more postage! lol.

I found a dog on one of my listings... I called animal control, they picked it up...

KT --- Don,t mess with it yourself, call animal control... If you were close to yaking just by a distant smell, it will surley be worse up close and the smell will attach to your clothes and follow you until you change and wash them...

Animal control sounds like a plan. I hope they'll work with me on this.

Forgot to mention, it was a BIG cat, too. Looked like it would go 15 pounds on the old bathroom scale.

LOL @ Ben!!!

15 lbs?!?! What I want to know is who in the *bleep* put him up there?!?! Or did he just decide that would be his final resting place?!?

When ya call animal control, tell 'em it's wounded so they'll move.

Well it is, how do you think it died.

Gary, you mean I should skirt the truth a little??? =] Summit county' so screwed up I don't know that it would matter. Ya know, one less cat in the whole overpopulated cat epidemic thing.

Ben, your idea's the best, too funny!

We have had dead cats, dead dogs, and always--dead birds. The trashout guy has to take it with the trash. I just don't want to find any dead humans.

Actually, I don't mind the dead ones as much as I mind the 15 live ones that have been crawling through the ceilings and the walls, peeing *everywhere*. That smell is next to impossible to get rid of until the hardwoods are ripped out. SPCA comes out for those. I'm also going to add dead opossums and a raccoon to the list.

ky realtor -

Don't laugh. That actually happened here in our market, Charlotte NC, about 3 +/- years ago. The owner, who happened to be a realtor, had been missing for a month or two. When the agent got the listing she sent people to trash out the home and they found the guy stuffed in a closet. The media never followed up with the story real well but I think they found the people responsible. Freaky.

Just picturing the thought is just HYSTERICAL!!! lol:) You guys really know how to make someone smile and laugh!

Had a case last year here in Minneapolis. The city had boarded the property after a brief inspection to make sure the house was abandoned. It was sad but the owner was an elderly woman who had fallen out of her bed and died (they never gave specifics). Because she was on the floor and hidden next to the wall by a dresser they missed her.

Now one would think the smell would be there but I guess it was long enough that she had mummified. When she was found by another city inspector they figured she had been deal 9-12 months.

Very sad. But have always half expected (feared) that I would be the one to find a body.

Animals are icky but I would rather deal with them.

Steele

One of my brothers finally made it out there to get rid of that dead cat. Almost wish he didn't do it. The inside of that house was positively gross. I've seen worse, but not much. Trash, furniture, food, full fridge, drug items, animal "stuff" all over, couldn't even get into half the rooms. Seriously, how do people live like like that? More importantly, coming from some one who's childless, how in the world can someone raise kids in that kind of environment?

It truly is amazing that people live and raise their chilren in that type of an environment.

Have you noticed these houses always look the same and smell the same. I can't quite nail down what the smell is but they always smell the same. Some type of mixture of smoke, pets, diapers, rotten food, and gym shorts.

And its obvious that they didn't just start letting the place go to heck once they knew they were losing the house, but its been neglected since the day they moved in!

amplet, you pegged that smell to a T. This one especially cuz it was non-owner occupied, they had to have never opened the windows & doors, and left the heat on about 85 degrees all year long. I swear that smell gets baked into the entire house. I agree, it sure doesn't get that way overnight.

I know that smell! Its the one that seeps into your clothes, skin and hair. I go home and have to wash everything. I can't nail it down either, but I think it may be lingering body odor.
A note---not all the REO properties we get are dirty. We have occasion had ones that the people cleaned before they left, or some of the big ticket ones who hired someone to clean.

Even the ones that seem clean aren't always stink-free. I had one that I did a cash for keys on, and the owners were really nice and cleaned the house really well before they left - they even mopped!

After they were out, I was there getting the interior pics and noticed a quite terrible odor in the basement. It was a partial basement with about 1 x 2 openings to the dirt floor crawl space under part of the home. I peeked in the crawl, and noticed that their cats had been using the dirt floor as a litterbox (they were really big cats, too).

Then, to my horror, I noticed that the windows in the crawl space to outside were wide open. Then, to my even worse horror, I realized that the windows could only be closed from inside the crawl space.

Armed with a large, thick sheet and a huge bottle of lysol spray, I crawled through the little opening (I'm not exactly small, so that was a task in itself). I crawled to the windows, got them shut & latched, and bolted home to the shower. I burned the sheet.

I had one the other day that they must have left their dogs in the master bedroom for several weeks and you can image what that looked like.
It was from EML and they stil have not closed the order.

First lockout I had to attend to, the moving crew raised their price by $10 an hour because it was so nasty. That odor was one thing, but the maggots crawling through the animal feces and vomit all over was not too pleasant, either. One of the guys ran out the back door vomiting. I put on rubber gloves and used a whole box of kleenex to clean up some of the mess that was right in the way of the doors for them to carry stuff out...

Wait until you get 25 quadtrillion fleas and you have about 1500 jump on you immediately upon entering the house. I physically had at least 500 on each leg. I had one that we had to have sprayed four times over a months time in order to enter.

The people were actually living there with two small children.

I had one recently with "that smell" plus a little something extra....found out from the neighbors that the previous owner had a goat living in the house. In addition, of course, to several very large dogs. Isn't this REO thing fun!?!?!?

1 Disgusting house
2 months vacant
3 live cats
2 dead dogs
1 live basset hound trapped in a sauna tub

Yes, the dog had been trapped in a tub for 2 months without any food or water in the middle of summer. The poor guy was old and very heavy, surprising considering his conditions. His legs couldn't have been more than 2 inches tall and he was in a tub with a rim around 2 feet off the ground. Obviously placed there by the disgusting freaks that lived there. Birdseed, rat carcasses, cat poo, newspaper, and various other cesspool related items were covering the floor ankle deep. Fleas would not even brave such conditions. One dead dog in the garage in a garbage bag alongside dozens of other bags full of trash. One dead dog chained in the impassible, overgrown backyard. However, the most disturbing items I found were children’s items strewn throughout one particular room, poor kid.

On the lighter side. I went to the corner store and purchased some food and water for the pooch in the tub. I also called animal control. They came and picked him up out of the tub and took him away. Don't know what became of him, he was a fairly sweet old guy.

I went directly home and took the longest shower known to man. I still feel dirty.

Please tell me that those former occupants were put in jail and had their kids taken from them. They deserve that and worse.