12 Greenoaks Rd Narara
We had to chronical the tidying up of 12 Greenoaks Road getting ready to list it for sale. Over 9 tonne of books in the large shed, not to mention several tonnes from the other sheds were moved via manual labour and skip-bins to the cost of approximately $12,000. We still have all the items underneath the house that need to be moved out by the end of the sale.
The house contract of sale is being drawn up for Friday 12 March 2021, with pressure from the real-estate agent, with prospective purchasers looking for renovation houses with 5-bedrooms.
We have already moved quite a bit of furniture out to minimalise the home for house inspections, and we have made room so you can walk around all areas including down-stairs, which took a bit of doing. We have many items left to be moved from underneath the house, and any furniture that is not listed as an inclusion or the purchaser does not want.
book sheds
There are three book-sheds on the top terrace, and two sheds on the second terrace, one being a converted bird-cage, and the other a lean-too. These sheds contained various amounts of storage containers and/or books. The newest, and largest shed on the top-terrace, the size of a single-car garage, was packed with books to the ceiling. The key was lost, so Ralph drilled the lock out one night and no-body called the police!
This was like a never ending night-mare. They have filled 3 skips so far, and a 3rd is showing up on 19-Nov-2020 and that still will not empty this shed. It's costing over $860 a skip to throw these books out at the tip.
The first day we had a working bee from Wyoming Anglican Holy Family church turn up, at the end of the day people had sore backs and were limping. Only Russell and Sharyn have turned up reliably to work on the book transfer ever since. Hillary appeared for a few hours the next weekend and help pack books into the plastic containers.
Russel and Ralph moved most of the books on the second weekend, with Liz and Hillary packing the containers. Ralph starts at 0630 and moves a few books before breakfast on the mornings he feels up to it, and between Russell and Ralph the 10 cubic metre skip bin is filled within two and a half days leaving Sunday afternoon for resting. This continues for subsequent weekends until covid-19 closed the borders at ACT. Russell and Sharyn kept moving things in Liz and Ralph's absence, for which we are most grateful.
It is just a matter of prioritizing what moves first. There is little point in moving furniture around when there is the massive impost of the book disposal.
Prior to emptying the big sheds Russell and I have been disposing of books from under the house, from bins, and out of other rooms in the house. At one stage Ralph came up for a visit and cleaned the mess upstairs caused by Mark, and many books were relocated then. In hindsight several skip-bins should have been ordered then too.
At the half-way mark, since Liz and Ralph were worn out, Ralph took a rest on a ledge of books 1 metre high, getting ready to photograph what was on the other side peering through the peak with the camera. More books, however, now they are stacked in boxes, and there is furniture, clothes and other junk placed on top of the boxes. After two weekends Liz, Ralph and Russell still have not cleared the loose books from around those boxes! Some of the junk on top has been dragged out, and the sheer volume of junk also presents an overweight and volume problem for the skip bins.
The carrying of books have been so onerous for Liz and Ralph as they too have arthritus, so much so that they have taken to mega doses 2 * 20,000 mg of Circumin and Pepperin, plus Green Muscle shell extract, Omega 3 fish oil and pain killers. Liz's knee is bone on bone contact, and Ralph has severely deteriorating arthritis of the spine, as well as knee problems.
Liz also caught sinus problems on the last move and Ralph flew her home a day early, scanned the admission paperwork and returned the same day to visit my doctors in hospital the day before discharge.
After the first week of loading that afternoon Ralph also could not stand (after a spar bath) due to cramps working in all directions, instead kneeling down in a prone position against the bed pressing his body weight on his neck via his head to "fix" his back, and he fell asleep. After waking more than an hour later he was able to struggle to his feet to get some dinner. That was the event that resorted in Ralph going to the Wyoming Chemist and purchasing $120 worth of "chemicals" and Liz and Ralph religiously take them every day to help rebuild the broken body parts.
It looks like there will be many more weekends necessary to dispose of these books.
Ralph and Liz cannot defer the book move to after the sale, because its going to take more than 6 weeks to just move the books (and everything must be gone within 6 weeks of the sale), and then there is all the furniture and materials and tools under the house to move out as well.
Note that the skip bins are filled to the edge with books; you are not allowed to overfill the bins otherwise they will refuse to take them away and will charge you rental until they are emptied below the brim and taken away.
Some household items are going to charity, and it will be a mad rush to move the white-goods and some of the furniture that is left after the house is sold.
Other furniture and things will be organised for kerb-side pickup, which seems to takes weeks, and could further detract from the sale of the house with things stacked-up on the kerb.
Steve, Tash, Phil and Fiona came to Narara and helped us clean up after the funeral, and Steve convinced me to purchase more skip bins, a chain-saw and to cut down some trees. We filled 4*10 cu metre bins over two days with house-hold rubbish, plus two green bins with bits of trees, thanks to the heavy lifting performed by the young-ones. What remains is quite large and will require many trips to the tip (or more skip bins).
family room repairs
Family room floor repairs. Some sagging was evident walking on the carpet near the TV table, and there was a deep sag and a gap in the floor underneath the Dinning Room table.
This was caused by water damaged chipboard, and old inactive termite infestation. The termites tracked in across the concrete, ate out a joist, and travelled between the cracks in the chipboard and started eating the chipboard and carpet strips, instead of the rest of the hardwood. They may have also infested the window sill, which has obviously been damp in the past. Water seeps into the concrete verandah extension and all the trenches near the family room footings are damp clay. Obviously water seeps in there when it rains, it can even be seen to have flowed out the access hole on the southern side.
Plywood was discovered in the bottom of the rabbit cage and white-ants had eaten out several plies from the bottom up. The original ant source is obviously from somewhere in the local neighbourhood. White-ants are attracted to paper books and any untreated wood left lying around on the ground and there have been infestations in the neighbourhood.
Ralph thought the worst part was the floor near the TV cabinet and underneath the dinning room table, but there was no joist underneath the sideboard where nobody was able to walk and only discovered because he had to move furniture out of this room.
It was devastating to see that white-ants had infested the house, and the true extent and the affect on the house property value is unknown. It depends on the inspection results.
Bruce Holland passed away
Dad passed away on the 27 Jan 2021 at approximately 1627. He has touched many lives.
A facebook tribute: