47. All my previous houses. Part four.

Although this is a continuation of the house #7 story, I’m gonna include house #8 in it as well.

It’s beginning of year 2016, the check for house #6 just cleared and I just finished replacing all of the downstairs floors and sub-floor frame, that I worked on since the end of September the year prior. I could now finally start working on the rest of the house to make some progress. I knew this house was gonna take me longer to do and I wasn’t planning on doing all the work myself. It was just too much for me to handle. So from the beginning I’ve been hiring helpers. Unfortunately those helpers never lasted and I’ve been sort of getting tired of constantly searching for someone else. Spending too much time on the phone while I should be working intead. I’ve had total of 3 helpers there so far. The last guy broke his finger and quit so I needed to find yet another one.

His name was Jose. Another Puerto Rican Guy. The slowest worker I’ve ever had. In the beginning I thought he will pick up the speed as we progressed, but he was getting even slower instead. But as I mentioned, I was getting tired of answering the phone calls and waiting for people that never showed up. So I was glad I had at least someone for now.

So we started doing many things simultaneously. I designed the future floor plan on my computer to see what’s it gonna look like. I had Jose started on stripping down the roof and siding, while I was preparing the framing on the inside. I needed to do all the things at once so it’s moving faster. I also had him demolish the above-ground pool.

Alright. In my last post I briefly covered the original condition of the house and the room layout. I mentioned that I was gonna re-position some walls to create attractive master suite with huge master bathroom and walk-in closet. I re-organised the upstairs as well to clean up the layout to be able to create another separate suite with bathroom and walk-in closet as the pictures above shows. Plus I added another full bathroom for the remaining 2 bedrooms upstairs. Reducing the room count from 5 BD down to 4 BD. Main master suite downstairs, secondary master and 2 bedrooms upstairs.

I also widened the hallway downstairs from 3 ft to 4 ft to make it feel more roomy and welcoming upon entrance. It felt pretty cramped before. That allowed me to accommodate french door to the master suite and wider opening to the kitchen. I also widened the opening from kitchen to the formal dining. In the laundry area I added a door to physically separate the laundry room from the hallway and powder room. I also reinforced the caving-in ceilings by sistering the joists and then planed the existing joists to level it up.

In the mean time I had all the windows custom made. I demo-ed all the old single pane windows and installed dual pane insulated windows. Beautiful large sliding doors. I think there was like 30 windows in total. In order to be able to install all those windows I had to take down all the trimming. I carefully removed it and saved everything. I couldn’t afford to just throw all of the moldings away and buy new ones. It would be just too expensive. So all the door and window trims and all the base boards and crown moldings I saved and re-used. I piled all these moldings in the garage and once I saw this huge pile I thought to myself that not even if I was a Saint John I won’t be able to put all these back together. But I did. See all the rooms had different type of crown moldings. Some of them were really detailed. If I wanted to replicate those it would just be too expensive. The exterior under soffit moldings were matching the living room crown molding for instance. And I wanted to preserve to character of the house. So I carefully took it down and after the drywall got finished I put it back. I only purchsed moldings where I was not able to put it back together. Like the kitchen and master bedroom. In effort to preserve the original character of the house I also saved and restored the original doors.

So I had this one guy Jose and then one day while I was gone, my surveillance camera facing my house started getting triggered. I was like what the hell is going on over there? See since I had this house unsecured – while all the windows were removed – I installed these security cameras just for the peace of mind. And now I saw this black guy walking around my yard with a rake and raking the leaves. What the hell? So I went out there to talk to him. He was kinda slow and little bit retarded I guess. He was like: “I wanna rake your leaves”. So I let him rake my leaves. He kept showing up for the next couple of days and started asking me for more work and if he could get paid. So I gave him some work. I had him started cleaning the mess around the house. Piles of the old stripped shingles and stuff. Had him carry some debris out the house to load it in dumpster and such.

That guy was crazy. He’s been talking to hisself aloud like there was no one around. Laughing to hisself now and then. He started collecting all these old light fixtures and faucets saying he’s gonna build a satellite out of it to communicate with aliens. I was like Ok as long as it’s gone out of here. Then one day he slid down the roof. All the way from the top to the bottom and jumped. He was not afraid of heights at all. Once he slid down and jumped he started laughing like crazy. You know that crazy creepy laugh. Hysterical. He wanted to do it again. I was like hell no, man. I ain’t gonna be calling an ambulance for you. You need to quit that shit right now.

Alright. Jose’s been slowly progressing on the outside. But been completely throwing off my schedule. I needed him to replace all those rotted facia boards. I swear that it took him on average 6 tries to cut each board right. Because of him I needed to keep running back and forth to Lowe’s to keep purchasing more and more boards because he kept messing it up. Anyway. I needed to have all those replaced so we can start covering the roof with new shingles. I also needed him to paint sections of it around the dormers before the new shingles goes up so we don’t mess it all up.

But Jose’s attendance started getting more and more inconsistent. He wasn’t showing up for work when I counted on him the most resulting in me needing to do it myself. Slowing down my overall progress.

There was this one time at the beginning when I started covering the roof I asked Jose if he knew more people that could help with the roof. And he brought over entire crew of about 4 Puerto Ricans. Entire gang came over one morning. I showed them what I needed to get done and how much I paid and half the crew left immediately. 2 brothers stayed claiming they have experience with construction and roofing etc. I was like, this is great. I’m gonna knock out this roof in no time. Boy was I wrong. I assigned one of the guys to Jose and the other one started helping me preparing the shingles for me. Cutting and handing over. So I gave him a measurement for example 5″ and 1/8. And I waited. And waited. 5 minutes later I’m like where’s my shingle and he asks me if I could show him on the tape measure where the 1/8 is. I was like what the hell? Didn’t you say you have experience? Turns out they have metric system in Puerto Rico. And he knew nothing about imperial. So I explained him the fractions but he couldn’t get it.

Man I started losing it. I’m realising this is not gonna work. I can do it much faster by myself than with his useless help. So I tried to swap the guys. I sent this guy to work with Jose and his brother with me. Same story. And at that moment I lost it. I was like: “alright guys, that’s it. I need you to stop everything and just go home”. Of course they were angry at me. And I was also scared. I didn’t know what to expect from Puerto Ricans. Are they gonna beat me up? Cut me? Murder me? I didn’t know. So I threw them out and since that day I started covering the roof myself.

I actually ended up doing the entire roof myself because Jose wasn’t showing up for work regularly. I though that by the time he paints everything he will be helping me with them shingles but that never happened. I actually ended up painting all the dormers’s trim and fascia myself too. I even installed the dormers siding as well. And also it was this time during working on top of the roof when I realized that the wooded part of my back yard is getting completely flooded regularly after rain.

So once I finished the roof I continued working on the framing. Deleted all the small windows at the south side of the house, spray painted the soffit and wrapped it. Prepared that side for the siding installation once Jose comes back for him to start putting it up. I remember getting really frustrated by this time because of him not showing up for work. He started working on this wall but have not finished it even after 3 weeks. Eventually I decided to finally end this guy as well. And instead of me working on the inside I had to finish all the siding and painting myself. I was getting really angry because I’ve been losing lots of time. So I had to figure something else out.

By mid March 2016 I had all the framing, plumbing and electrical done. Ready for the drywall. Just the exterior still not done. So I put up yet another “Help wanted” ad on Craig’s list to find some help with hanging up the drywall. On March 15th I had this first guy helping me putting up the kitchen walls but he gave up after his first day and never came back. Then next day whole family of rednecks came over and brought over young redneck boy begging me to give him a chance. He was useless as well. I couldn’t quite understand how anyone can be so bad with manual labor.

So I kept searching for help till I found these 2 guys who I let hang the sheetrock in nearly entire house while I worked on the outside. They’ve done really slow and sloppy work. At first they claimed they’ve done it before but then they admitted they’ve never done this much drywall. One of the guys actually never done it. People just keep lying all the time. Anyway. Same as with everyone else I ran out of patience and had to end these guys as well.

Sometimes during this time another older guy showed up at my house asking for work. One of my neighbors – Al have recommended him. By this time I’ve made friends with my neighbors Clerence and Al. Both been amazed by all the work I’m doing at the house.

So this guy claimed to be a finisher, that this is his thing and offered help with taping and plastering. Installing all the corner beads etc. I was like ok that’s great. I could at least finish the siding and spray painting. So I let him do it. I gave him some specific instructions. I told him to make sure to punch-in all the drywall nails that been popping out and add additional screws to secure it so they don’t pop out again. You know at these old houses they didn’t use screws to hang sheetrock. They used nails. But common problem with these nails is that after some time they all start popping out due to humidity and temperature fluctuations. The wood just push them out. So I told him to fix those and also to make sure that all the new sheetrock is screwed in properly because the previous guys did piss-poor job. Screws missing everywhere. And I don’t wanna have them joints cracking.

He was like: yeah yeah man, I know what to do, I’m a finisher. That’s what I do. I multitask. I’ll take care of it all. I was like: alright, finally I found someone reliable and I let him do his thing. Taping, plastering, corners and everything. Then sanding. He showed me some tricks like mixing 2 different kinds of mud together. He mixed 20 minute mud with 90 minute mud to harden faster but be soft enough for sanding. I didn’t really understand why he would need to do that but he said that’s what he does.

It’s now about end of April 2016, drywall is done. I finished sanding all the textured ceilings off as well. And I’m already installing kitchen cabinets and floor tiles and trim etc. I even ordered big butcher block countertop to be installed on the kitchen island. Despite all the delays and problems with helpers everything been sort of working out so far. Except the fact that I started realising I’m running out of money. The reason being that back in February I bought another house. For 45 thousand Dollars I bought a house #8. Back then I thought I had enough funds to purchase another cheap house primarily to have the work lined up once I’m done with this house #7 but also that I could live in it to save money on hotel room rent.

I also had a granite countertop ordered and installed. But That company brough me some bad granite. It was bent and the thickness was inconsistent. They installed it poorly too. I had to call them guys back to correct all the issues.

So because of that extra help and materials I exceeded my budget by a lot and now I was running low on cash. Ok, no harm done. I can always sell this house #8 for the same money I bough it for and move back to the hotel. So that’s what I eventually did. I listed the house for sale and found a buyer soon for $45k and waited 30 days for closing.

Up until this point all the problems I’ve been dealing with were nothing compare to what was coming my way. Sometimes in April/May I started noticing some of them drywall nails popping out. Upon closer inspection I realised that the “finisher” guy didn’t do what I asked him to do. He might have punch them nails in by hammer but didn’t add any extra screws to secure it, which didn’t take care of the problem. The drywall got smashed and loose and plaster started popping out again. I got so pissed! I actually ended up repairing all them goddam nails all over again after him. Scraped the lose plaster out, punched the nails in, added new screws, then re-plastered it 3 times and re-sanded it. I even noticed some joints cracked so I repaired those as well. Scraped it down to the joint, added some screws, re-tapped it, re-plastered it 3 times and re-sanded it as well.

These repairs took me couple of weeks. When I thought I finally had it all repaired I was so excited that the drywall is finally done now and applied first coat of primer on top of it. I sprayed just the basic primer. Not the latex type. And then I installed all the crown moldings with integrated LED light strips.

I’m walking around the house enjoying how nice it looks now compare to what it used to be. The walls all clean and white. I cleaned up the whole house of the white dust and was ready to finish it all up and put it on market soon. But that’s when the real clusterfuck started.

I started noticing these little bubbles here and there. I was like what the hell are those? I’m realising that this primer bubbled up all over the house. What the fuck, man! What the hell is this shit? How do I fix this now? I have these little bubbles everywhere. I didn’t have a solution for this issue.

It’s June now. It’s getting hot. I’m running fans all day every day to cool me down a bit. And I’m scrapping and sending them walls all over again to get rid of all these bubbles. This sanding and scrapping is of course creating more uneven surface, more transitions and more white dust. The place is a fucking mess again. During this process I’m starting to realise that some of the joints cracked too. So I’m inspecting that again and I swear that nearly all the joins on the new sheetrock cracked. All the walls, all the ceilings. All the joints are now cracked. I’m fucked.

I can’t believe this shit. Not only I’m low on cash but now I need to re-do all the plastering. The probable reason why all them joints cracked was mixing the different types of plaster powder together. I’ve read the instructions on the bags and it literally said: do not mix it with anything. Mixing the different types of powder caused to completely throw off the chemical ballance and the mud became pretty much useless. Fucking hell.

So not only I needed to figure out how to repair all these bubbles but also repair all these joints.

So I’m scrapping and sanding like crazy. Dragging the light with me to see through the dust. I’m frustrated. Depressed. I’m in fucking pain. My hands, My elbows. My shoulders are killing me. My neck got stuck from constantly looking up the ceiling. I couldn’t move my head. I couldn’t move anything. My body was giving up.

I spent 7 weeks just doing this. Scrapping the primed plaster back down to bare drywall. Section by section. Square foot by square foot. Joint by joint. to remove all that plaster that the “finisher” ruined by mixing different types together. Only to be able to re-tape it and re-plaster it 3 times using ONLY the 90 minute plaster, which seemed to be the best solution for this. I re-sanded everything again. Cleaned up the house of the white dust again. It’s hot. I’m at the brink of mental and physical collapse. I’m now getting ready to prime the walls again. Back to the moment of truth if this effort actually worked. It must work. I don’t see any reason why this should’t work.

So I spray primed one of the rooms again only to find out that now I have even MORE bubbles. Them fucking bubbles are now everywhere! But how? Why? I had no idea. This clusterfuck will never gonna end! I’m done man. I can’t do this SHIT any more. These entire walls bubbled up again. And I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know the cause. Why is it bubbling up? I give up. I give up!!!

On July 7th I dropped everything and I left the house. Like what am I supposed to do now? I ain’t coming back there. I literately can’t even set a foot cross the thresh-hold. It makes me sick only to think about that white dust. Do I need to scrape it off again? I’m not going back there.

So couple days later I cleared out my van, put in a mattress and a cooler, got my surf board and just basic needs and left for the beach. #vanlife. I had like $800 bucks left. I spent hundreds of thousands of Dollars only to get stuck with this fucking drywall. My house #8 was listed for sale at this point because I needed the money. I’m not coming back to Fayetteville till it sells and I actually have money to keep working. I needed a break. I needed to heal my aching body and mind.

So I headed towards my favorite spot – The Outer Banks. I was gonna try to re-learn surfing and just chill and relax. Sipping on beers and going out to the bars while sleeping in my van till my house #8 sells. But my surfing vacation got cut short because I broke a finger. My finger got caught in the surfboard leash and broke it when the wave hit. Plus I bruised my ribs from laying on my stomach on the surf board all the time. I actually ended up at Nags Head’s hospital there because my rib cage hurt me so bad I though I had it broken too. I couldn’t even breathe from that pinchy pain. So they x-rayed my chest and finger and I got a brace on the finger. The x-ray showed I don’t have any ribs broken. But the doctor asked me if I smoked because my lungs looked kinda flat that I could potentially have a cancer starting and my heart is also enlarged. I didn’t take it much serious because I had my last chest x-ray taken not that long ago and doctors have not mentioned anything. So I thought this doctor must have been just exaggerating.

Fortunately the house #8 did indeed got under contract on July 15th so after 9 days at the beach I returned back home to Fayetteville to just get some rest till my finger and ribs heal to a point when I’ll be able to work on the house again. All I needed now was to wait 30 days till closing to cash out the $40k. This should be enough money to finish the flip house. Hopefully I’ll figure out the plaster bubbling issue till then.

These were the times when I first started thinking about leaving USA and traveling back to Czechia to apply for an investor’s visa. Because I’ve been getting tired by not being able to get a bank loan or a mortgage as an illegal alien. Every time I run out of cash I end up being in this difficult situation not being able to do anything about it. If I had an SSN and legal status I would be able to get a loan to overcome the crisis. I could be able to get mortgages to work on multiple projects simultaneously. I could grow and scale the business more efficiently and lot faster. So sometimes at these difficult times, when I couldn’t do anything, I started planning for my trip to Prague.

So 30 days past. It’s now August 15th and I was supposed to close on that house. I slowly healed my injuries. Depleted my funds down to 0. Solely depended on those funds from the sale. I had no money for food. I literately ate everything I had. I’ve been just chewing on couple of leftover onions and that was it. I had no money for gas. I only kept enough gas in the tank to get to the office to pick up my check.

But no word from the buyer. I couldn’t get ahold of the buyer. And the closing office was reluctant to provide more information. It took them few weeks before they got back to me with the contract cancellation. I was fucked again. For 3 weeks I had nothing to eat because of this delay. I asked my mother to help me out with food but she told me to go to the Salvation Army food bank. So that’s what I did. I walked there and got box full of candy, expired canned food, expired frozen chicken thighs and bag of expired bread. I threw the candy out and survived on the rest.

September 7th 2016 they terminated the contract and I was supposed to get the $500 earnest money but they refused to pay it out. I eventually took this buyer to court and he was ordered to pay me the money. Thing was that the closing attorney office failed to secure this earnest money deposit check at time of signing the contract. So I took this woman and the buyer to the court..

But in the meantime I had to solve my new situation. I had no time put the house back on market and wait yet for another buyer and another closing. I needed to start working on the house. I was pretty fucked. I had to vacate my storage unit and move the rest of my stuff back to the house because I couldn’t afford to keep paying for it. I had no other option than to sell my new beloved 2015 Ford Transit 350 van that I put only roughly 15,000 miles on. I planned on keeping this van for at least 5 years. But I had to sell it now. I bought it for $40k cash and was able to sell it for only $21k just a year and half later. This was a big blow for me. But I had to move on and finish the house. I figured the $21k should be enough to finish it up. But it wasn’t. I ended up selling the house #8 later on anyway.

So I sold the van and wanted to buy a cheap 4×4 truck so I can haul stuff to the landfill. My van was only rear wheel drive and when it was raining, I kept getting stuck at the landfill with the trailer hitched. So I figured I better get 4×4. So I picked this old 1989 lifted F250 with mud tires on it for $3800. I figured this should do. So I called the guys and had them pick me up. They let me test drive it in the forest. Everything seemed working except the steering had like half-turn steering wheel play in it. This tattooed skinny guy cleaned the battery connectors a bit and I was good to go. He was some ex-con. He’s had some pictures from jail framed on his shelves at home posing all buffed when young. Now skinny old man.

On my way back home the power steering went out. Something’s busted, all the fluid leaked out and because this truck is so heavy, big 36” wheels and all, I barely made it home. I was barely able to make any turns how hard I had to pull at that steering wheel. I tried to call them guys that they screwed me over demanding money for repair but of course I got nothing. They knew what they were doing. They conned me and got away with it.

So I haven’t even got home yet and it was already broken. The next couple of days I was trying to have that power steering pump replaces and also got new alternator later on because the existing one was not charging as I found out when the battery died. Then those mud tires were so old that they been cracking. Way over their life span. They kept busting one by one over the following days of driving. But I wasn’t gonna spend all that money on new set of mud tires. So I just searched for used tires here and there. As a result I had 4 different types and sizes of tires on the truck in the end.

Then sometimes I couldn’t crank it up. It was completely dead. Another days when I parked at the Lowe’s store or at home I couldn’t shut it off for a change. I turned off the ignition and pulled the keys out and the engine just kept running. So I let it run and went shopping. Then I came back slammed the door and it died and I couldn’t crank it back up. So I kept slamming the doors or the hood till it started again. One day it died on me right in the middle of an intersection and I had to push it away to the parking lot and call me an Uber. I also had an accident with this truck when a lady didn’t see me driving in the turning lane about to make a left turn to Hardee’s and ran right into me. I only had few scratches on the steel bumper but she had destroyed her front end.

This thing was driving me nuts. I found out that faulty relay was the cause of these unexplainable electrical issues. Those relays were so rusted I had to replace them all. Every trip with this truck was a suicide mission. Not even the 4×4 was working. The main reason I bought it for. Turned out the 4×4 gearbox was busted too. But I had to manage with it. I hated this truck. What a piece of old junk. But other people loved it. Anytime I pulled at the Lowe’s parking lot, strangers been complimenting the thing. That thing been attracting attention anywhere I went. Even some chicks been hollering at me at a red light: Hey dude I love your truck! People just loved it.

So I used the remaining van money to continue working on the house. First I needed to figure out the drywall clusterfuck. It’s mid September 2016. I haven’t touched the tools for over 2 months. And I still didn’t have the drywall figured out. So I went back to the house and suddenly it came to me. What if I use one of those latex primers? So I sanded the bubbles out again and plastered over. Then I bought a bucket of a latex primer and sprayed it over. Oh no! Are you fucking kidding me?? It’s not working either!. So no. I don’t have a solution for this fucking shit.

So I figured I’m gonna start working on other things and maybe in the meantime I’ll figure it out. The next day I came back and looked at the walls and those bubbles were gone. I couldn’t believe it! They were gone! They shrunk back once the latex paint dried up. So it worked! Man I couldn’t believe this shit. After all these months being stuck with this crap. Since April till September been stuck with drywalls. Fucking hell. And now I’m finally able to wrap this shit up. So I bought more latex primer and sprayed the entire house interior with it. And it worked. All for saving some money on just basic primer. If I used that latex primer from beginning I could have spare myself from all this sanding and re-plastering and depression and shit. Alright. Let’s move on.

So I installed all new insulation under the house. Wrapped all the existing ducts in the crawlspace plus installed all new flexible ducting to all the rooms. Taped and sealed everything. Then installed all the window trims and crown moldings. And started spraying it with semigloss.

I’ll never forget that particular day. October 7th 2016. I’ve been spray painting the trims and it started getting really dark outside. Dark and humid. My paint kept running down. And I could’t see shit. It was later that evening and I decided to wrap it up for the day and go home. The paint was so wet anyway. It wouldn’t dry. On my way home I stopped at McDonald’s to dine in. I ordered me a Big Mac and sat down so I can see the TV. At first I wasn’t paying attention but then I heard “hurricane” word which woke me up. See I wasn’t really watching the forecast recently because I was working on the inside. So this news channel got my attention now.

Hurricane Matthew was approaching. Supposedly bringing over lots of rainfall. So I’m sitting there chewing on my burger watching the news in disbelief. I knew this would be really bad if it hits Fayetteville, because my house sitting in that freaking flood zone. Even without the rain, the adjacent forest behind my back yard is flooded and swampy all the time. This is bad. Really bad.

So I finished the burger and rushed home to keep watching the weather channel and monitor the situation. It was supposed to hit hardest the following morning Oct 8th. Like what am I supposed to do now at night? Nothing. Just wait till the morning. See if I finished and sold the house on time I wouldn’t have to deal with this shit.

I got zero sleep that night of course. What if the water gets high enough to flood my garage or even the ground floor? I’m gonna have to move everything to higher ground. All the power tools and materials. So I got in the truck early in the morning and drove over to the house to start moving things upstairs. First of all I needed to save my hardwood floor planks I had stored in the garage. Entire palet of it. It would cost me lot of money if that gets ruined. So I ran up and down the stairs and hauled everything to second floor. Exhausted. Gasping for air while carrying those heavy boxes of flooring. Then I carried upstairs all the tools and whatever else that needed to get protected from the flood.

Then I needed to see if there is anything I can do to prevent the water from flooding my crawlspace. Still hoping that that scenario never occurs. But it was pouring down really heavily. The water started rising slowly reaching the bottom crawlspace door. I started panicking and trying to seal the crawlspace door and all the vents with leftover insulation. Hoping that the sump pumps will pump that little water overrun out. My neighbor Clerence brought over another pump but then the power went out. At first it looked like the water wasn’t gonna rise much. But still I wanted to make sure we can pump it out the crawlspace so I rushed ahead to nearest hardware store to purchase a little power generator. Of course my truck’s battery died at the store’s parking lot so I had to call Clerence to come get me. By the time we got back it was already too late. The crawlspace was flooded.

The water started rising so quickly that there was nothing we could do. Crawlspace got flooded in seconds through the A/C duct opening which I was unable to seal in any way. Matter of fact I set in place the A/C heatpump pack unit 3 days prior the flood. So imagine how freaked out I was when it was now getting all flooded, not knowing if its’ ever gonna run. So I’ve been running around the house through that muddy water getting soaking wet. I couldn’t save it. I needed to get out the water before the water reaches the power meter and I get electrocuted if they turn the power back on.

Running the generator and the pumps was totally useless. All I could do for the rest of the day was to watch the water rise and hope it wont reach the house’s bottom. My newly installed sub floor frame, the insulation, ducts etc. were at high risk of getting ruined. After I gave up all the efforts I just stood there by the big master bathroom picture window just observing the rushing stream of waste deep water outside, right under my feet. Praying the water won’t rise high enough to ruin the floors. Monitoring the water level under the house through the duct opening. All this water right underneath me, man. It was just devastating circumstances for me. Hurricane Matthew. All so sudden. I would have never thought that I’ll be dealing with a hurricane force floods in the middle of North Carolina. Crazy.

It was a very long day for me. Running around since early morning. I was exhausted. Wet. Cold. Luckily it seemed that the rain is stopping and water stopped rising. The water stopped right about 10 inches below the floor frame and started slowly receding. I felt like it’s a good time to go back home to get a shower and some rest. So I used the generator to charge the battery just enough to jump the truck and left home. But because of all the flooding all the bridges were closed and I had to take long detour. Eventually I got back home and watched the rest of the disaster to unfold on TV. Record high swelling of the Cape Fear river and all the creeks. Downtown all flooded. Catastrophic devastation from the record rainfall.

Next morning Oct. 9th I went back to the house. Seen some fallen trees along the way. Even at my street there were some bent branches. But thankfully none of the big trees at my yard fell and didn’t destroy my house. The winds were not as strong. But it was raining a lot. When I came to the house the water was already gone. As quick as it rose it also receded. I crawled under the house to assess the damages. I got lucky that the water didn’t reach all the way to the house’s frame and didn’t ruin the insulation and floors. But most of the newly installed flexible ducts and the main duct insulation wrap was all ruined soaking wet and had to get replaced. And I just finished installing those few days prior.

There was some mud rdeposits and baby crabs crawling around. I knew I had to clean this mess fast before it stinks up the entire house. So I gathered some buckets, sponges and rugs and started collecting the mud and wiping the plastic liner clean. I had to pull out all the soaked ducts. And laid down new liner on top of the existing one. I realised I won’t be able to make it look as new so I just covered it up. It took me 2 days to restore the crawlspace. I had to take couple of days off after the clean up because I was so exhausted after all this work. I was stressed out about yet another extra costs for new ducts and delays.

It’s October 14th. It’s been over a year I’ve been owning and working on this house. So far I’ve lost about 6 months due to combination of inconsistent help, drywall and plaster clusterfuck, funds depletion, health issues and now the hurricane. I also exceed my budget by about $20k by now. And the costs just kept adding. So I needed to get back to work to finish this house and put it up for sale before another flood comes.

So I went right ahead and installed all the hardwood flooring and then I continued with finishing all the door trims and base boards. I’ve been losing lots of sleep for past several weeks. Been stressed out a lot over everything. Which resulted in me having all these panic attacks again to a point when I ended up at an emergency room with it again.

They ran bunch of tests on me and my heart. Blood tests, Blood pressure, etc.They even did the nuclear heart scan on me. Everything came out negative except the EKG been showing these chart spikes every time my heart skipped. None of the doctors or nurses ever pointed this out to me or gave it a name till I showed them these heart skips on the chart during the stress test. And they were like: oh, that’s nothing. Those are just PVCs. I’m like what the hell is PVC? So I looked it up. Premature Heart Contractions. Your heart does what the name suggests. Basically skips a beat. Or thats what it feels like. Too much stress or too much coffee can cause this. It’s very uncomfortable and it stresses me out even more every time it happens, because I’m thinking my heart stops and I’m having a heart attack causing me to panic and shit.

Anyway. I needed to slow down at work. So not only I was already behind, but now I was able to work only couple of hours a day and the work became a real drag. So I kept slowly progressing with putting all the cabinets together, painting, caulking and all sorts of finishing touches. And just like that the year of 2016 came to an end.

Through the spring of 2017 I finished all the interior pretty much. Installed all the lighting and bathrooms. Restored all the original interior door and hung them back in. I even decided to put up all these barn sliding doors in kitchen, living room and couple more upstairs in master suite. I re-installed all the ducts previously damaged by flood. And then I needed to finish repairing and painting the exterior of the house. So I repaired some of the brickwork and replaced some of the garage doors sections.

Then by the end of March I started finally working on the yard. Clearing all the overgrowth. I even brought down about 7 of the big Oak trees that were sitting mostly on the huge front yard. Not only they were blocking the sun causing the house being pretty dark inside but they were also very dangerous. They were sick. And them dead branches been randomly falling off of the trees possibly harming someone’s kid while playing. So I bought a chainsaw and took them down. My suspission that those trees are half dead been confirmed. They been almost completely hollowed out. Then I cleared the sides and the backyard too. Demolished the ugly shed and pulled the huge propane tank out the woods.

Clearing the yard was another hard undertaking. Piles and piles of branches and trunks. There was no way for me to be able to haul all of it to the landfill so I called the city waste collection department and asked if they could come pick it up little by little. It took me a while to convince them to do so, but eventually they have picked up all of the branches. As for the trunks, I posted an ad on Craig’s list as free wood and believe it or not people actually came to pick most of it up. Whatever was left I hauled in the woods. Then I called some local guy with a stump grinder to remove all the stumps for me.

Then I rented a mini backhoe in effort to fix and level all the yard. I needed to level the back yard after the pool got removed, dig trenches for the french drains and build a pathway at the front of the house towards the front doors. The standing water at the front of the house been ongoing problem. The soil was always soaking wet and soft. So that’s why I needed to implement a french drain under the gravel path as well to divert the water away from the house towards one of those creeks.

With that rented backhoe I created even more mess than what it was before and it was not in my capabilities to fix it. After my attempt the yard looked like a Fort Bragg bombing range. So I had to call professionals to fix it for me. So they came over and brought a few truckloads of dirt and heavy machinery. And I told them: “Hey guys be careful with that heavy machinery because the ground is really wet and soft down here”. But even despite my warnings they got stuck in the mud pretty bad with their $100 thousand Dollar bobcat even with the tracks on it. They had to call over couple of heavy vehicles to pull it out the hole. Big crane and cistern.

And just like that it was suddenly summer 2017. I finished and tweaked all the details. Got new carpets stretched in. Painted the front door red. Restored the original railings. Got the dual zone heat pumps running. Luckily the flood didn’t damage the pack unit. I just cleaned it up and it worked just fine. Had some local guy to weld, evacuate and fill the copper pipes with coolant of the second split unit for me. This older guy been recommended to me by my neighbor Al. He had such severe arthritis that he could barely move. And I had him crawl under the house and in the attic to weld the pipes. It was hurting me just watching him barely moving around. But we got it done.

As for the money. I ran out the van money pretty quick. Of course the 15 grand wasn’t enough. At first I started selling stuff like the dump trailer and lawnmower. But the money I raised wasn’t enough, so I ended up selling my house #8 anyway. I sold it sometimes in May 2017 for pretty much the same money I paid for it and moved back to the hotel for a while. So at least I saved some money on rent during the 15 month of ownership. After my project house became habitable I moved in.

By the end of July 2017 I had everything done. The house, the yard. Everything. Finally. After 22 months of hard work delayed by all sorts of complications, the masterpiece was finally done. I turned this ruin into a mansion. I even threw in some “smart” gadgets like smart switches, smart garage door openers, front door lock, smart water heater, smart thermostats, even the Ring smart front bell and Wink smart touch screen. Turned it into a “smart home” and put it on market the first week of August of 2017 for $360k as FSBO. I invested almost all my money again. After finishing everything I was left with $12k.

I sold that goddamn piece-of-junk truck and bought a used Taurus instead. Mostly because I got pulled over during my last trip to the landfill when one of the empty paint buckets fell off the bed right at front of a police car driving behind me. And the cop said if he sees me driving this truck around again with my New Mexico driver’s license he will have my DL suspended. And I didn’t wanna risk any problems potentially getting deported so I bought another vehicle to fly under the radar.

I also bought a bicycle and started riding it around Fayetteville and to the Planet fitness gym to rehabilitate my worn out body. And I waited and waited for a buyer who would be interested in this beautiful house sitting in a flood zone.

So I moved all my tools and junk to the storage unit again and moved in the house to live there till it sells. During following months I had number of showings and I’ve been reducing price periodically, but the flood insurance cost was being major deal breaker. And that’s when I started plotting my trip back to Czechia to apply for investor’s visa. Long story shot. I told myself if I won’t have a buyer by the end of October 2017 I’m gonna go ahead and execute on this crazy plan. The rest of this history I covered in episode 1 of my blog so feel free to follow up with it back there.

I even dodged yet another bullet in the form of Hurricane Irma that hit the area in September 2017. Shortly before I left the country. I remember watching the news in horror when Irma’s been closing in. I even purchased dozens of sandbags to place around the crawlspace openings to protect it from another flooding. The storm was supposedly bringing in lots of rainfall again but thankfully this time it missed my house completely. Total of 3 hurricanes in 3 consecutive years hit the house before I sold it in October 2018. Sold it for $270k, breaking even. Hurricane Florence hit in September 2018 bringing in some rainfall as well but not as severe as the hurricane Matthew. The water rose some to flood the backyard but not enough to reach the bottom of the crawlspace door. Dodged the bullet again. But I already covered this story in my previous blog posts and also in my YT videos.

So this is it for “All my previous houses” series. Stay tuned. Peace.