Have had a busy Easter weekend, Easter is traditionally seen as a time of renewal, in the Northern Hemisphere it heralds in Spring and a time of growth & rebirth, so it seems somehow fitting that we begin the transformation of the Dog Box at this time.
The Dog Box is our latest adventure, a property Ian and I have bought and so named for the disgusting state and smell that pervades every corner. When we inspected it the first time the smell was so bad that we could not spend more than 5 minutes in it before the urge to gag and vomit overtook us, the vendors seemed oblivious and could not understand why no one wanted to purchase their house. Luckily for us, people were so put off by the smell that they could not see the potential.
A detailed survey confirmed what we believed, the house was essentially sound and the only real problem was the smell and general lack of maintenance.
A detailed survey confirmed what we believed, the house was essentially sound and the only real problem was the smell and general lack of maintenance.
First order of the day was for Ian to pressure hose the internal garage to remove the masses of urine and dog faeces, we then used a yard brush to scrub 2 bottles of thick bleach into the crevices of the concrete floor.
I set to cleaning the kitchen cupboards and work surfaces and then measuring the layout of the property (for new carpets and floor coverings) and all the windows for curtains. Callum who was with us cut the grass at the front of the property but was unable to mow what grass there was at the rear as it was a minefield of dog excrement.
Next was the removal of the badly stained and revolting smelling lounge carpet. When we removed the carpet and underlay we discovered a large number of urine soaked floorboards, the story was even worse in the laundry where years of grime, faeces and urine had left a thick layer of brown sludge !!! One has to feel sorry for the previous owners 3 dogs as they obviously never got taken out if the amount of soiling in and around the property is anything to go by.
Day 2 and we came slightly more prepared to cope with the conditions and plugged air fresheners into a number of plug sockets and lit a few scented candles, this worked for a while until they set off an asthma attack in Ian. My tasks for the day were to clean the laundry floor and work out if our plans for the property were feasible by taking even more detailed measurements. Unfortunately, I discovered that even though I applied neat bleach to the floor in the laundry and scrubbed it extremely hard, each scrubbing simply removed one layer of filth and left still more behind.
Ian encountered a similar problem in the garage, because despite pressure hosing the concrete floor and coating it with bleach twice, the smell albeit less intense, still remained. At this point we decided, the smell problem to lock up and call it a day and return home to search the internet and investigate the best way to remove the smell..
Day 2 and we came slightly more prepared to cope with the conditions and plugged air fresheners into a number of plug sockets and lit a few scented candles, this worked for a while until they set off an asthma attack in Ian. My tasks for the day were to clean the laundry floor and work out if our plans for the property were feasible by taking even more detailed measurements. Unfortunately, I discovered that even though I applied neat bleach to the floor in the laundry and scrubbed it extremely hard, each scrubbing simply removed one layer of filth and left still more behind.
Ian encountered a similar problem in the garage, because despite pressure hosing the concrete floor and coating it with bleach twice, the smell albeit less intense, still remained. At this point we decided, the smell problem to lock up and call it a day and return home to search the internet and investigate the best way to remove the smell..
