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Posted by RayV on August 9, 2006, 8:46 am
pennsylady2002@yahoo.com wrote:
> This is a long post, so don't even bother reading if you're not
> interested in House Inspector-type questions. Every so often, when an
> unusual and inexpensive home comes up for sale on our local MLS, and
> since *someone* in our family is usually in search of a 1 or 2 bedroom
> place, I go to check out whatever's being offered. This time I've
> fallen in love with a home that is admittedly problematic. I would
> just like some feedback, 'cause I almost always get great feedback on
> this group.
>
> This early twentieth century home is located in an old Pennsylvania
> mining community. It sits by itself on the side of a very steep,
> irregular-shaped, triangular lot, facing, across the street, the side
> of a stunning, even steeper, pine forest mountain. The land takes up
> nearly an entire block of an antique street.
>
> Due to the heavy rains in the northeast this summer, the lot is
> overgrown particularly with "weed trees" (don't know the proper name
> for them) that grow almost webbed, in extremely close proximity, all
> the way up to (and even around) one side of the home. The kind of
> vegetation that surrounded the castle in Sleeping Beauty.
>
> A huge drainage pipe abuts the "point" of the triangular lot, at a very
> steep pitch, next to which sits one of the biggest oak trees I
> personally have ever seen. The township officials insist this tree
> belongs to the property, but the neighbors (most of them elderly or
> middle-aged) claim no one knows who "owns" the oak tree. The wisest
> among the neighbors says not to worry about it because it's holding the
> cliff-like terrain in place--at the bottom of which sits a decently
> cemented stone wall. The cement in the stone wall is almost all in
> place; it is not a Colonial-era stone wall (one round gray stone on top
> of another), but a kind of "mod" 60's wall, where the stones are flat
> and angular, and the cement looks almost like faux, VERY even,
> caulking.
>
> I've gone in to such detail about the exterior because on another
> recent thread, two exceptionally informative professionals (one was a
> house inspector, the other an insurance agent) advised avoiding homes
> where vegetation grows directly up to (or around) the foundation; and
> this certainly is the case here.
>
> Of more concern is a mysterious issue regarding the interior. Because
> this home is on the side of--well, a cliff, the "basement" is a two-car
> garage, very high-ceilinged, on a grade with street level. There is an
> oil furnace, no insulation overhead (in other words, under the floor of
> the first floor residential area). There is *NO* sign or smell of mold
> in this area.
>
> There is only one entrance to the residential area of this home (but
> two ways of reaching it): steep outside steps from the street and
> garage, and a high paved alley above the home, with shallow decrepit
> pressure-treated steps leading down.
>
> The plastered walls of the interior of the home are absolutely filthy,
> and in the bathroom and kitchen area, there are "blood-colored"
> "speckles" on the ceiling that I assume are mold. The mystery is how
> they got there.
>
> The second floor of the home, essentially a finished attic, is also
> plastered, filthy, and with absolutely no sign of the mold that stings
> my eyes in the kitchen bath area downstairs. Since neither the
> cavernous "basement"/garage, nor the finished (visually stunning)
> attic, show the least sign of mold, I do not know where this smell
> could be coming from.
>
> The realtor and a family member who went through it on a second showing
> with me were of the opinion that cooking odors and a poorly ventilated
> bath, in a home a least a hundred years old, could absolutely be
> responsible for the pungent smell. I thought perhaps an unventilated
> kerosene heater (since there is no insulation, and the home is on the
> side of a cliff, in what amounts, in the winter time, to a
> wind-tunnel), plus tenants who were cigarette smokers, might account
> for how acrid and unbearable these two rooms are. For what it's worth,
> the kitchen and bath sit the closest to the "cliff"; all the other
> rooms are high above the street and/or cliff.
>
> Finally, the roof is very old, and the chimney needs replacing. I
> don't have any difficulty dealing with problems I can see and estimate
> replacing. I have difficulty with problems I can't readily diagnose,
> and the excessively pungent moldy smell on "ground zero" really is
> impossible to diagnose, since the ancient filthy paint in higher rooms
> makes it clear a leaking roof is not the cause.
>
> Thank you for reading this. I've never wanted to go ahead with a home
> purchase more in my life, but if surveying costs,
> ownership/custodianship of a monster oak, and above all, this "burning"
> smell are overwhelming liabilities, then I'll pass. The quaintness,
> setting, and almost Alpine-like view made me decide to risk making the
> post and being laughed at. They're all too beautiful to pass up
> without getting some feedback.
Go with your gut as long as it is not Centrailia, PA.
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