Ugly House Photos

The power of social media is strong and quick.  On April 26th, I posted photos of termite tubes in a Sun City, Arizona house.  One of our readers realized she had termite tubes in her own house.  She called House Doctor Exterminating on the 26th.  They visited the house today the 29th and found that the base boards throughout her brick house were damaged by termites.  The owner is renovating the house and found the termites before remodeling was done.  The house will be treated on May 1st.

Here one photo of several from a post I did 4 years ago.  Termite tubes that hung from the ceiling.

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Termite tubes in Sun City, Arizona.

And on this wall too.  They need to call House Doctor Exterminating, my favorite termite & pest control company in the Phoenix metro area.

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My owners haven’t taken care of me.

They never seem to wash their hands or their dog.  This is my front door.

Thank goodness for the gap at the front door.  It lets in fresh air.

My kitchen is both beat up and beat down.

The edge of the kitchen cabinet.  I have termites!!  Long-term termites.  Like many, many years of termites.  My owners ignored the signs.

They started to remove things and then stopped.

Extensive termite damage.

They removed a closet.

They wanted the house to flow better?

This is the shower door.  It used to be clear.  It’s never been cleaned.

More termite damage.  How could they ignore this?

They got mad and punched me, then tried to patch it over.

This is the patio roof.

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Settling cracks in a Tonopah, Arizona home.  Not good.

Drywall damage in the same house.

And termite damage.

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You never know what you’ll find when you clean out your closet.  Store a cardboard box on a closet shelf and don’t move it for many years.  Termites enter the house, climb up the closet wall, poke a hole in the drywall, and feast on cardboard for months.

I showed this home on Sunday and chuckled imagining the look on the seller’s face when they pulled the box and it disintegrated.  My client was not amused.  We found termite tubes hanging down from the kitchen ceiling too.

My client wasn’t thrilled about the house from the beginning.  While I fumbled to get the key, he zeroed in on the empty beer can in a sack by the front door.

A bum used the front entry as a bathroom and left plastic bags with something wet inside.

My buyer was not pleased by the feces (black spot on right side) and the garbage.  Gross.  The termites were the the final deal breaker.

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This Phoenix home is block construction, but subterranean termites went nuts on the wood baseboards.  Every room of the house had chewed up baseboards.  The owner must have been hard of hearing and had poor eyesight.  How do you not see this?

The eaves are rotted too.

The wrong kind of paint was used throughout the house.  Add some moisture and you’re gonna have peeling paint.  This is the kitchen.

This is the bathroom.

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Now that you’ve seen the dirt and filth of this Phoenix fixer-upper, let’s look at how the house was neglected.

This is the laundry room.  There is evidence of roof leaks & water leaks throughout the home.  At one point do you realize the problem isn’t going away?  Do you just look down and ignore it while you do laundry?

Cracked ceiling in a bedroom on the other side of the house.  Hmmm.  We might have a problem with the roof.

Dirty hallway with spider webs.

Looking at it the other direction.  More water damage.

Wall damage in the hallway, plus more cobwebs.

Extensive termite infestation in a bedroom.  Termite tube on the right and a mess of termite mud in the corner.  Probably wasn’t noticed until they cleared out the room.

Structural damage in a bedroom.  Big crack from floor to ceiling.

Another wall crack in the living room.  And a bigger crack by the front door.

The living room had vinyl tile that had crumbled over time.  They scraped the tile into piles.

How much is this home going for?  It’s listed for $205,000!!  It is in a nice neighborhood, but homes in similar condition usually sell for $35,000-$45,000.  This is a near tear-down fixer-upper due to the cat urine smell, the extensive roof & ceiling damage, the structural issues, sanitation issues, poor landscaping, and lack of cabinetry.  It’s a $100,000 remodeling job at a minimum in order to have it match the neighborhood.

The current owners paid $170,000 at the foreclosure trustee’s sale.  I’d bet money they bought it at auction sight unseen.  We can only offer them our best wishes.  Caveat emptor!

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This horrible hovel with the roof leak doesn’t look any better in the bathroom.  The previous owners remodeled the shower themselves and did a terrible job.  Look how the shower floor looks wavy and uneven.  Cement and grout smeared everywhere.  And many different types of tile were used (leftover pieces from the bargain bin?).

What were they thinking?!

This is the roof of the shower.  Notice the different styles of tile and the lack of a consistent pattern.

The other bathroom features a jetted tub and more awful tile.

The kitchen.  Once the appliances were removed, the years of neglect were evident.  Termites chewed through the baseboard.  There is a hole where the cabinet meets the baseboard caused by a mouse or to run wire?  Plus more evidence of water damage in yet another part of the house.  The mold spore count in this house is probably off the charts.

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I checked out a hillside home in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix and found myself repulsed but then couldn’t leave.  There was something charming about the place and I could see the potential.
It’s a 3 bedroom 3 bath home, 1650 square feet, built in 1972 and it shows.  Extensive use of wood everywhere.
It went into foreclosure at the trustee’s sale for $429,000.  It’s under contract now at a list price of only $129,900.

Let’s take a tour.

To get upstairs, you must take a very narrow and shaky spiral staircase.  There are two bedrooms with identical ensuite bathrooms.  Wood paneling on every wall of the bathroom.  The counter is made of compressed plastic pieces (kinda like fruit Jell-O).  The carpet is blue & green sculpted carpet.  A real treat.

Downstairs bathroom with green corner toilet, green corner sink, & green bathtub.  The carpet was removed.  More wood paneling.  There’s something charming about it all.

The kitchen must have had carpet that got wet.  Notice the moisture wicking on the wood paneling.  The stove is a Jenn-Air, which was a very expensive top-of-the-line appliance in the 1970s.  My aunt & uncle got one in the 1970s and we oohed and aahed because it had a grill and an exhaust fan built into the range.  But why did they have an electric outlet above the oven door?

The living room with, you guessed it, more wood paneling.  Note the moisture wicking again.  Did they have a major water leak once?  All of the wood floors creak.

Water stains on the 2nd floor ceiling.

Termite tube in the garage which is under the house.

The garage door is broken.  There are two balconies with 180 degree views.

The balcony ledge is missing boards & in very poor shape.  Decades of sun damage & lack of maintenance.  Someone bought this home in late 2004 for the upper $300s and didn’t change a thing.  They took out a home equity loan or refinanced and did nothing.

Top level balcony that faces the hot blazing afternoon sun.  Looks like a ski chalet.

The incredible views are worth it.  Looking to the south.

The view to the northwest.

The view to the north.  The windmill comes with the house.

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I visited these two Phoenix foreclosure homes on Sunday and saw evidence of extensive subterranean termite activity.

How about this house?  Termites had a field day here.

Let’s pull back and look at the room.  Mold and mildew in the corner.  No wonder the termites loved this house.  They had a steady supply of moisture and wood.  What I don’t understand is how the previous owners had no idea this was happening.  They bought the house in August 2006 for $203,000.  The bank is now selling it for $47,500.

Another Phoenix foreclosure home with termites everywhere.  This termite tube in the living room is about 28 inches tall!  There were several other tubes in this room.

On the opposite side of the house, there were at least five more termite mud tubes like this one in two bedrooms.  It was as if the termite nest was directly under the middle of the house.  How do you not notice these tubes?!  They couldn’t all be hidden behind furniture.  And this is a brick house.

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