Saturday, January 15, 2022

a tour of a run down rabbit warren of a house


Friday Pam and I went to, I hate to call it an estate sale because it was more like walking through an old abandoned house that had been ransacked. It was the second time around for this place so I have no idea what it looked like or offered the first time because we didn't go then. There were some tables set out with dishes and mugs and a lot of very nice wood bowls


and other stuff but mostly it looked like this. This was the largest room in the house and this is about 1/3rd of the room.

The house itself was a wonder and I don't necessarily mean in a good way. It looked like it started out as three rooms and was added onto higgledy piggledy, like a rabbit warren which I would have found to be fun if it all didn't look like it was put together with scrap picked up here and there. Many of the rooms had windows that looked into other rooms where a new room had been added on later. There were two long halls, perpendicular to each other and in our memory driving back home we counted at least 15 rooms, 16 if you include what looked like it might have been an enclosed attached small garage (can't remember if it was open at one end or not), 7 of which seemed to be bedrooms. We wondered if it had been a rooming house, either that or they had a lot of children. The old paneling in places looked like bits and pieces put up whichever way, another part of the house looked like the walls were wood planks, ceilings at least 10' with rows of storage space all the way to the ceiling in every room. One little bathroom and one of the rooms had hot and cold water lines so I assume there was a washer in there and as old and ratty as that house was, the water lines were PEX which I found oddly too modern.

From the biggest room you could get to this hall.

Off this hall were three bedrooms and at the end it opened into a mud room/pantry/store room (below) which is where I was standing when I took the picture above looking back towards the entrance to the kitchen and the first room.


The bedrooms all looked like this with a mountain of clothes? linens? blankets? fabric? who can tell? except for the biggest one at the end of the other hall which was mostly empty.


The other end of the first hall opened into a vestibule with the bathroom off to the right and the kitchen to the left. 

From the kitchen you could get to the dining room or maybe the original living room. 

It had a door to a bedroom on one wall and a short hall off another wall with a small room on the left full of boxes of fabric? and ending at the closed in garage like room which had a big box full of loose lace trims among other junk. Also from the kitchen was a doorway into another small room that I have no idea what it's function was but it led to the second hall with 2 rooms off to the right, the first of which had the PEX water pipes, a room at the end, and on the left closets (full of clothes) and a doorway to a bedroom behind the one you got to from the dining room.

There were also two run down small out buildings full of junk and trash and when we got there a woman was pulling dozens of square glass canisters with metal lids out of one of them. Another couple was digging up narcissus bulbs and iris rhizomes so Pam and I went behind them and pulled up the rest that had been loosened that they didn't take. I did find one item, a lazy susan that was very stiff and wouldn't turn but just needed to be taken apart and the ball bearings cleaned up and now it works fine.


Last night another cold front started blowing in with high NW winds and lows in the 30˚s and today's predicted high in the 40˚s. The last two days started out cool in the morning but warmed up nicely so I got some weeding done and got the narcissus and iris planted temporarily until I figure out where I really want them.


they don't look very happy right now



29 comments:

  1. Ewww what a grubby "estate" sale. I am sure it was mostly goodwill rubbish. Did you actually have to pay for the Susan?

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    1. Me too, but where I live in Oregon, there are also several St. Vinnies, which are a Catholic version of Goodwill, only a whole lot more interesting, especially for lovers of old books.

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    2. I paid $2. 75% of what we saw needs to be taken to the dump or burned. I can't imagine having to be the person to get rid of that stuff.

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  2. According to my careful calculations, either 84 people lived in that house, or else two people who were clothes hoarders lived in that house.

    I assume that the sale wasn't run by professionals. I love estate sales, but I would have been out of that one pretty fast. Ofc course, they do look a little rough on the second day.

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    1. Small town professional. I think maybe she was doing the son, it was his father's house, a favor. She probably took one look inside and told him besides setting the usable stuff up on tables that the rest of the house would be as is. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to go through all those piles of clothes or whatever and try to organise it, old and nasty as it all was.

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  3. Ugh. Depressing. But the lazy susan is really nice!
    Yes, I agree with Snowbrush that someone who lived there was a hoarder. The wooden bowls look so out of place in the midst of all the junk.

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    1. I know right? They were very nice, different shapes and sizes. I don't know about being a hoarder but the old guy definitely outlived the house and everyone else who was in it. Probably had dementia wandering around in there.

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  4. Strange house. Possibly a no tell motel! I think I'd have lasted no time looking there. Not exactly an estate sale.

    But the lazy susan is nice, so you came out ahead.

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    1. It could have been a very cool house if it had been built out of good materials and a loving hand and had been taken care of. Its maze like quality was a little intriguing. I'd been wanting a turntable for the dinner table so that worked out.

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  5. I'm surprised that someone didn't try to clean the place up before having an "estate sale." That place is a crazy mess. You did find a very nice lazy susan, though. Well done!

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    1. It would have taken weeks to clean that place up and not much money in it. Most of it should have been shoveled into a dumpster. She didn't really advertise it as an estate sale, more like a picker's sale.

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  6. That house sort of reminds me of my occasional recurring dream where I'm wandering through a house with many different rooms (often with different levels - steps up or down) & can't find the bathroom. Ha!

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    1. OMG!! You too??? ROFL here... it's my most repeated dream/nightmare? And I wake up, realizing that I need to go to the bathroom! Unreal...

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    2. I just found your blog so this was an amusing introduction! I had to comment when other commenters mentioned it reminded them of their dreams. Me too! Except that mine aren't about going to the bathroom. I just revisit this house very often, and the layout reminded me of that house (although my dream one is well made and ocean front). Great post.

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  7. The House looks quite Old by the Fixtures and Flooring, it wasn't uncommon to keep adding on. We lived in a Historic Home that was very Mazelike due to that, but I loved how quirky the place was. This Home looked like Hoarders lived there and it does look like it had been abandoned and could be a prop for a Horror Movie. Hope you scored something worthwhile, sometimes places like that can be a Gold Mine for Junquing forays.

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  8. How sad, the house. I cannot imagine living there.

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    1. There was a guy there hanging out that someone said the house had been his father's. I wish now I had chatted with him a bit to find out more about the house. I wonder if he grew up there.

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  9. Wow. With the exception of your lazy Susan and the wooden bowls, most of that stuff needs to leave via a front loader.

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  10. I remember the wooden bowl craze from about the 1960s. I mostly remember my mother insisting that our wooden salad bowls never be washed: wiping out with a damp cloth was the ticket. As for that house... I'm not sure I could have stayed as long as you did. Whatever the reason for that disaster, it had to be a sad one.

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    1. We have two hand turned small fairly shallow wood bowls that have never been stained or varnished that I bought at some art fair before I even met my husband. We use them for salad bowls and never wash them. Just a hot water rinse, maybe a swish with a dishcloth, and then put them in the dish drainer to dry. The oil from the salad dressing keeps them in good condition.

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  11. That house sounds interesting. I wish I could have toured it. I wonder what the history is of it. I'm thinking it was a rooming house at one time because of the two hallways. I would have bought the dog shown in your 2nd photo:)

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    1. That's what we thought, a rooming house maybe. I'd like to know more about that house.

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  12. Utterly bizarre... have to been hoarders, unable to release anything they came in contact with their entire life. As Tabor said, depressing. And I look at the stuff we've collected that we're going through in an attempt to downsize before moving and realize I'm not that bad at all. LOL

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  13. Wow! My sister's house looked a lot like this the last time I saw her alive. She was going through chemo for breast cancer and still working full time. I yelled at her son about it and asked if her doctor knew she was living in such filth with a compromised immune system. Didn't change anything. I wish I had stayed and cleaned it up. Well, sort of!

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  14. As my daughter would say, "OMG"! It makes me want to wash my hands a couple of times over. I do like the bowl selection though.

    ps had to look up rabbit warren.....learned something new today!

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  15. Could be made into one of these semi documentaries on horror/historic crime cases.

    When we were young and innocent, we, ie eight people full of ideas and low on cash, bought a terrace of three adjoining houses built in the early 18th century, and almost killed ourselves and each other trying to renovate it. I can laugh about it now but it did look a bit like that house, ceilings were higher though and no toilets or bathrooms to speak of.

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  16. Dear God, what a mess. I think I would have loved it, though! I could have pawed through all that junk and found a few items to "save." LOL

    Glad you rescued the irises and narcissus! (Narcissi?)

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.