Whos the new guy???
CCLINBRADSBACK

can i rent a room from you guys??? it might be cheaper than paying for gas !!!

She has boobs....you don't.....

I'm not back. I'm taking a 30 minutes break before I get back to work.


B

Mueller.. it is 10 minutes from your office right off of 880/84

If you want a place to stay a few nights a week.. I'm sure something can be arranged.


B

b&l, enjoy your new stinky apartment . you taking the bart and bus to work brad?

kevin

I drive the 10 minutes to work now in my truck. I hope to buy a 4cyl 914 for commuting before summer. I figured out today that I have 4 stop lights between the stinky house and the shop.


B

Why not just "test drive" all those customers cars to your apt?

Lyrissa & Brad,

Sorry to hear about the mess.

Stain. On the stain, if it goes away after one washing, you are in luck, but if it does not and it smells like cat spray or hamsters then, yes, I agree with all the other posters that have suggested that you need to pull the carpet, the pad and scrub the base board. I've personally had this experience with my cat, and absent pulling the carpet there's nothing else that really works. Natures miracle, the enzyme clenser is awsome but it only works, (1) if you apply it immediately after the stain is created, and (2) only if you have not previously washed the stain with some other clenser (the other clenser sets the stain and then Nature's Miracle worn't work).

DIY That said, at this time you should absolutely not do it yourself. Most rental contracts specify that if the tennant performs repairs without notice and consent from the landlord then the tennant cannot recover her costs. Things change once you have provided notice and the landlord fails to act, but for now costs for any repairs you perform you will have to eat.

IWH. Interestingly I successfully sued by last landlord on, among other things, the implied warranty of habitability because of a permanently stinky room that they could never fix. I'm happy to help you guys. Just pm or call me and we can discuss a plan of action. But for now: no more contact with your landlord except in writing. And no yelling.

Douglas

With the ratesso low tell your land lord to fuck off and buya house

They are in Silicon Valley where houses are still incredibly expensive!
Plus you need a downpayment...

Says the guy that can buy a house and an acre of land for 50K.......



You can't even buy a condo with a 50K DOWN PAYMENT.

The average house price where I live is 900K....condos start at 600K....

MY POS 400K fixer is now worth 1.5 million.

WOW!!!!!!! I feel like a dumb ass. Ifailed to look at your locations my appolagies. Here in the Kansas City area the average sale price is 175,000.Guess I kind of take that for granted

I am sure the taxes aren't too bad on that 1.5mill piece of property.

Geoff

I've already added my what to do about the floor/cleaning $0.02 worth...so I'll just type a antic dote.

A buddy of mine drive truck. He also raised bassett hounds (3 of them). Has 2 teenage boys. He goes on a road trip. This is when his ex decides to pack her stuff and move. She figures the boys will look after the dogs. But the boys decide to stay at friends (both have hockey and are in different tiers). Nobody tells anyone what's happening. (lack of communication) So 3 Bassett hounds are left alone for three days with a 50 lbs bag of dog food and 3 huge bowls of water. And they drained the toilet bowls in a 2000 sq ft country style house. (3 bath) Dogs being dogs, they peed on every corner in the house and deposited the 50 lbs of digested dog food wherever they felt like.

The pee turned the drywall to mush which mixed in well with the brown stuff on the green carpet. Get the picture....

My friend come home to this and after shoveling the carpet off calls me. I used to install carpeting (my dad feed our family this way and I learned it from him). So I drive out there. I walked in the door and was almost knocked out by the smell. I tell him the only thing I could suggest is to rip out the carpet and underpad. Tear out the drywall and door casings, then wash everything with bleach. So for the next few hours I give him and the boys a hand doing this. After several washings of bleach over the next few days the floor still smelled. Only thing that would get rid of it was painting the plywood sub floor with aluminum paint.

He sold the dogs and they payed for about 1/2 of what the renovations cost.

Hey mike,I'll make you a deal sell your POS house for 1.5 mill move to K.C,I;ll set you up with a 6000sqft home on 30 acres and you would have enough left over for a Carrera GT and then some!!

Housing prices here have not come down at all. We pre-qualified for 650k but after my "adventure" we have nothing for a down payment. We need to save money for about a year or so before we can buy in this area. 550k will get you a decent house that needs work with a one car garage in a "ok" neighborhood.



B

KEY-Riced man, you could get 20 acres and a 4 bdrm 2 bth house in the trees & be able to piss out either door in broad daylite up here for that kind of money! AND, if you opened a shop you'd be covered up with work. It might not be on just 914's but you'd make a kill'n!

.........b

It rains here 3 months out of the year. The other 9 months it averages 72 degrees. It rarely gets below 50deg. It gets over 85 deg. maybe 5 times a year (SJ is a totally different story) and we have 4 full blown race tracks to choose from all within 3 hours of the bay area.

It would be tough to live anywhere else.

The wife has to be close to big business.


B

I hate to say this, but I too, was a carpet layer in a prior life; payed my way through college doing carpet and vinyl flooring and learned that manual labor SUCKS! Anyway, grab a pair of pliers and go to the corner of the room and pull up the carpet. If the padding underneath is jute, trash it (you may want to trash the pad even if it isn't jute)! If the floor under the pad is wood, it will need to dry out before proceeding any further; the wooden "tackless" strips that hold the carpet will probably also be stinky and rusty but they're cheap if they need to be replaced. The most efficient solution, assuming the damage is limited to one room, is to go to the doorway seam and cut the carpet at that location. Fold the carpet into maybe a third of the width of the room and then roll it up. Take this mess to a carpet cleaner who can wash it and then hang it up to dry; this process will take a week or so. After that, have some carpet installers bring some padding and their stretchers and re-install the old/clean-(er) carpet; it will definitely need stretching as the washing and drying will shrink it! If the carpet was too old to begin with, it probably will not stretch, but instead it will tear or shread! Now this solution is not perfect and the carpet will probably look faded compared to the other rooms, but it should work and will be cheaper than replacement. While the floor is bare, you may want to spread some baking soda around to help with the smell. This is a much better, long-term solution to the problem because there is just no way to clean it right without removing it!

It sounds like you settled things with the landlord already. But I recommend you get 2 books from Nolo Press in Berkeley about rent laws in California (check their website). Can't remember the title of the series but there's two volumes - one for renters and one for landlords. I used the first volume when I was a renter. Now that I'm a owner and landlord I use the second volume. These two books should be in your local library. They spell out the rights and responsibilities of both renters and owners.

Mike

P.S. I got rid of the smell of cat pee by squirting lemon juice on the spot where the cat had sprayed.

I don't know why this country doesn't build a Maglev bullet trains following the major interstates.

If they built the concept 700 mph maglev train along I 80, you could live in Elko Nev, and work in San Fran, with a 40 minute Train ride.

If you want to think of it as a 4 1/2 hour train ride from San Fran to New York if your mind works better than way.

It would really change our country, in relation to where you live, and where you work.

Even if such a technological marvel was in place, cat piss would still make carpets smell though.

no, we need those flying cars that would land in our driveways that were promissed when i was a sprout. a just under the speed of sound train ? i would worry about an ejection seat malfunction a one way run to ny would prob run $3k.

kevin

Quit peeing on the carpet Brad.

LOL!!! I love all the posts. This was worth a great laugh this morning.

Well, the carpet cleaner guy came out yesterday morning and cleaned it up. It still has a small smell but not enough to smell unless you put your nose in it. I don't plan on doing that after I put up my bed... 8^)

Thanks everyone for all the advice...I think we're good to go now.

WOW!

Mike you could sell your house, move to Canada and buy a new 3000sq/ft house and retire in comfort.

I bought my house in '96 for $151,000 Canadian (guess about $115,000USD), it was 18yrs old and came with 23 acres of land, 450' frontage. I built my 1500sq/ft shop myself for $18,000. I don't what it's worth now, but a fairly small newer house w/double garage on 1 acre sold for $239,000 just down the road. A 2-acre lot just sold for $55,000 so prices are going up.

I live in the country 30min from 3 smaller cities, 1 hour from Toronto.

Mosport racetrack is 20min away, Shannonville is just over an hour and we have 3 oval tracks within a half hour. Lots of twisties, 10-20 minutes from 2 ski hills, 1000's of miles of trails at our doorstep, lakes fishing, lots of jobs, etc. to keep one amused.

You can keep cali, I'll put up with winters.

Hey there,

Sorry the new place was a pain. . . If it makes you feel better though, I recently cleaned out one of my parent's rental apartments. . . guy had a heart attack in it and he was discovered there by the police after some of his classmates from a junior college class noticed he wasn't showing up to class.

DA's office kept the keys for 2 months because they wanted to take anything of value to offset funeral expenses. I guess they couldn't find any relatives (fairly old un-married man).

Power was out and the DA's office didn't bother to clear out the fridge or other perishables while they waited for their people to clear the place. When I walked in for the 1st time after 2 months, the smell was so bad it felt like you walked into a brick wall. There were fruit flies and bug eggs everywhere covering everything. I removed about 1/2 a garbage can of black liquid slime from the refridgerator. . . and then tossed it into a dumpster. . . didn't even bother opening the freezer, just tossed it into the dumpster.

Had to remove the linoleum and put tiles in. . . put new carpets, paint, put new appliances and finally the unit is for rent again.

IF anyone's interested in a 1 bedroom apartent in San Mateo after that story. . .