Having completed the move into the house, the immediate problem was the eye-watering smell from dog urine. Malcolm's younger son William came to stay at the first weekend and hired a carpet shampoo machine and cleaned right through the house. By Monday it was clear that the cleaning had not been enough so Malcolm took up all the carpets and threw them out. That revealed a further problem with the chipboard floor below. Not only had the urine soaked into it but also the shampoo from the carpet cleaner had wetted the boards making areas soft thus dangerous to walk on. Malcolm treated those areas with a strengthener then coated all the floors with a sealer which finally did the job. After that it was a case of new carpets and flooring.

The next urgent problem was the bathroom which was not comfortable to use having a broken WC pan and grubby bath and basin. A plumber was brought in to install a new suite which included a bath specially selected with side taps to enable Brenda to sit at the top end due to her limited mobility. Whilst the work was going on, it was clear that the bath trap had been broken and leaked which explained a damaged patch on the kitchen ceiling below. The overflow pipe was also found to have been broken off inside the wall so water had been running down inside the cavity and blown plaster off the kitchen wall behind the cooker.

Having seen to the urgent work, Malcolm set out to redecorate the house. The woodwork was in poor condition and thus very difficult to put right. All the old wallpaper was removed but with difficulty as the plaster underneath was of very poor quality and liably to come off. Malcolm also replaced all the internal doors putting in glass panel doors in most of the rooms downstairs to give more light.

Having got the house sorted out, Malcolm turned his attention to the garden. The front garden was very uninteresting and the back garden was completely overgrown.

More to follow.