Cleaning an Apartment with my Princesses

I talked to my oldest brother a few days ago about some tax stuff trying to get my taxes finished up for the year. 

My extended family received some inheritance many years ago and we decided to put our money together and buy an apartment complex near a university so that we could have an income after paying for the complex. We invested continually putting the rents back into the apartments and in the past few years, we have been able to start having a modest income which is how I am surviving currently. 

While I was talking to him, he mentioned that there were several empty apartments as students had moved out and each year, there are always empty apartments as students leave. They have a few months to clean up and get them rented to students for the next school year. 

He hires his children and wife to clean and maintain the apartments at a very good rate but sometimes other family members go and help clean and paint as needed. 

I called my girls after speaking with him and asked if they were free on Saturday so we could all meet at the apartment and work on cleaning it as my brother mentioned that the man who lived there was an immigrant and cooked everything in deep oil. 

We left home about five a.m. and drove the long distance to the apartment. The first thing I see getting out of my car at the apartment was a penny on the ground. I knew it would be a good day. My brother met us and gave us instructions and we worked non-stop until 11:30 at night. The apartment was destroyed. They shot bb's into every wall, ceiling, the fridge and into the carpet. It was terrible! 

They cooked so much with grease, the walls were covered with a huge layer of grease. The oven and stove top were coated with oil. My brother told me that the renters had already burned up a stove and that this was the new stove they had replaced it with. The floor, cabinets, ceilings were coated with yellowed coats of thick oil. 

They had melted the carpet by dripping hot oil onto it but it had food, paint, and other grime on it and all the bb's shots had black powder around them. All the carpet in the apartment has to be replaced. Every wall needs to be painted but we spent hours filling in all the dings, bb's holes, dents, chips and nail holes in the walls. 

He burned and melted the kitchen counter and it cracked and has orange and black burn marks on it. The bathroom towel rack and hand towel rack were pulled off the wall / bend and broken. The bb's into the fridge left holes but at least the fridge still works, but two of the door plastic shelves were broken out. 

The air conditioner broke due to grease I think and they just had to replace the furnace as he took out the air filter and never put one in so the air intake had no filter and all that grease was pulled into the furnace. The light globes were missing, the faucet was cracked down the middle and spraying when it was on, the blinds were all black with grease and broken, and all the window sill tiles were cracked so every window needed replacements which they no longer make so either we try and take off the old and fix part of the others and replace just one, or we need to replace them all. 


I wonder looking at all the damage to that apartment, having to put in a new furnace for thousands, a new stove, the fridge damage / ordering new parts, new counters, fixtures, a new air-conditioning unit, thousands in cleaning, a new faucet, light fixtures, blinds, carpet, patching walls, new paint and paying for all those things, it makes you wonder if renting to some types of people is worth it. 

It is amazing to me how some people live. The walls were all written on and stickers on all the doors, the sink porcelain was all chipped off, and all five of us worked non-stop with a sandwich / pizza break for five minutes for lunch and dinner. 

Even with all that work we didn't finish but all the walls were patched and ready to paint and the kitchen was clean except the sink and final mop of the floor. We scrubbed all the edges on the floor after soaking and scraped the goo out of the grout and scrapped the oil from behind and in front of the stove so the floor is ready to wash but at least the gross areas are cleaned and ready for a good mop. 

I have cleaned many dirty and gross homes and even hoarders homes. I have even cleaned a home of someone who cooked everything in grease and it took me hours to clean the kitchen of that home. I found that toilet cleaner helps get the grease out of the sink and off some surfaces but I hadn't taken any with me to the apartment. 

I couldn't believe that even with all five of us working and my brother in and out, we didn't finish it in one day of long hours. We only got one room completely painted because they color they picked to use was tan but the wall was white and we had to put two coats on to get it painted and the closets took lots of time with shelves etc. We worked until 11:30 at night and still had long drives home in different directions. 

We thought of staying the weekend with family and work into next week but I have lots of my own stuff at home needing to be done and with Corona still going around, I figured we had better get home and not take any chances as cases are going up in our state quickly. 

It was a good day to spend working hard with my girls and they worked straight through with no complaints or breaks. I have some amazing and hard working girls. I am glad we could take some pressure off my brother and his family and put some time in helping. I found money throughout the day reminding me to "Trust in God" which is always needed. The best thing was getting to spend time with my girls. I am blessed. 

Stay safe and have a blessed day!