Yeah, literally.  Some hay, a few wood pallets, some diesel fuel and a lighter..... Oh yeah, the fire department was the ones doing it....
 

 

 
Some of you may know that my wife and I bought a farm a few months back. Well, we've been working on it ever since. Mostly me.
 
So, I got a new shop building up and ready to go, built a new safer 200a electrical service, reclaimed a bunch of wood from the old house on the land, had the well checked out.... and here's where we're at.

Waiting on the power company to come and plow in the feeders to the new service and turn it on. Waiting on the well company to come and dig the well 100 feet deeper..... it's only 70 feet now and pulling surface water that looks like weak orange juice. They're going to seal off the old section and get us into new clean water.
 
Last night, we had 3 fire departments come out and burn the house down.  The place was disgusting. The former owner lived in there with 8 dogs, all of which used the inside of the house to bathroom break.... and the lady never cleaned it up. Add to that the possibly hundreds of mice that infested the place, and at least 2 black snakes getting fat on the mice, and whatever else.... plus the fact that she never used the bathroom or the kitchen (just let that sink in for a minute)...... and fed the dogs straight off of the floor..... plus the roof leaking and carpet with clothes, dog feces, and everything else ..... yeah.... burn it and start fresh.
 
So now, we let it cool for a few days and start the cleanup.  The walls are cinder block so they're still standing... but they are cracked and I will be taking them down. The fireplace survived pretty much intact since I asked them to spray the bricks to keep them cool and they did.  In the pic above, they had just been spraying the interior bricks.  We plan to use it as an outdoor patio fireplace. since it's all on a concrete slab.
I'll be updating as things are getting done...  a new recording studio is also in the plans...... currently, it's a 16x16 building in the back yard.... lots of work is needed to make it a studio.

What a great time!

Wow Herb......I still can't get over the so called "living" conditions those people lived in.....  

Mesh
Wow Herb......I still can't get over the so called "living" conditions those people lived in.....  

The stench was unbelievable.  The day I was helping get her stuff out, I had double masked and gloved up before I touched anything. It was hot that day but I had TWO masks on.  She filled a U-Haul truck with her stuff and then I filled 2 construction dumpsters to overflowing.... and then used my pickup truck to carry 10 loads more to the landfill.

Downstairs the stench was difficult to handle. But in the heat of the afternoon, the upstairs was intolerable. The ammonia from the urine of mice and dogs made it nearly impossible to breathe. 
 
She lived there like that for years. The back sliding door was broken out and she simply hung plastic and blankets over the hole. Winter, summer, didn't matter. Bugs, flies, mice, snakes, ants.... and dogs... all could come and go as they pleased.

All of that we kind of knew going into this deal. The realtor told us up front and discounted the cost/value of the house from the deal so that we paid only for the land and even that was a good amount under the tax value. So, while we have a huge task to get it back into good shape (talking about the entire project) it's well worth the price and the hard work we put in so far and the rest that's yet to come.

The house (speaking of this one and our new one) is 900 feet from the road and can not be seen from the road or the neighbors places. We have a  two streams and state/federally protected woods along the streams, so no one will ever be able to build there. To the north, we have small farms bordering our woods. It's quiet back there and absolutely gorgeous.
 

Guitarhacker
lots of work is needed to make it a studio.

Uhhhhhh, duh! There's literally nothing there, right?

Guitarhacker

 

Why is it that when I see that pic I think of Dave000?
 
I miss that poor old sod.

I have a friend who flips houses in upstate NY. He posts photos of some of the states he finds them in. You would not believe some of them. People are literally wading knee deep in their own filth in some cases. And yes that ammonia pee smell is very common. 

I'm just here because   a) I'm waiting for my song to export to a .wav     and  B) I remember your post last year when you bought the place, holy cow seems like fun in the back of beyond! I'm not surprised this thing was a burner-downer   rather than a fixer-upper.  Well done!
 
Would love to see pics of the new studio when it's done. I bet you have plenty of banjo players around. Will you have a front porch for the front porch music?
 
Song's done!
 
cheers,
-Tom

bapu

Guitarhacker
lots of work is needed to make it a studio.

Uhhhhhh, duh! There's literally nothing there, right?

No.... there's a 16x16 building with a concrete slab floor there. Even with the house burned..... there are 3 other buildings out there now. The 16x16 shed (future studio/office), a pole barn for agricultural use, and the new 24x30 metal shop/storage building.
 
It was  a shed in the back yard and that was not burned. In fact, a few weekends ago I ended up putting a new roof on it.... OSB sheathing and new shingles.  Much of the siding from the house we just burned, as well as the front porch with it's wood, was salvaged before we burned the house. It's all in good condition and will be used to rehab the building and When it's done, it will be a home office and music studio.

This thread has some very heavy duty house cleaning going on in it ..
Fire is some heavy duty stuff for changing and bringing back the Mojo of a place ....
Congratulations Herb for bringing your new home / base up to an old school type of solution ..
 
Kenny