I hire out 80-90% of the work that my rehab houses need. With the fixer upper house I bought yesterday, there is a job that needs to be done that is so disgusting that no one on my crew will do it. Not even my plumber who is accustomed to seeing these type things. This is a job that someone has to do and today that person will be me.

I bought this house from an amateur burned out landlord whose former tenants had their water disconnected for non-payment. These tenants continued to use the toilet with no water to flush it until the day they were evicted. Fast forward 30 days to today. I will be wrapping duct tape around this toilet and taking it to the landfill.

My question to you is: what was the most disgusting job you had to do yourself? Can anyone top what I am about to do today?

"Can anyone top what I am about to do today?"

Personally... nope, and for that I am glad!

The most disgusting job ever done at one of my units was a lateral sewer line that was plugged with #2 and feminine hygiene products. One of my contractors had to disassembled it under the house, clear it, and reassemble it. I think THAT job would top yours, because they actually cleaned it out vs. just wrapping it up. Sooooo glad I took the tools out of my truck long ago!

People are disgusting sometimes.

Sid,

I remember helping my dad with one of the houses he bought. People had thrown their dirty clothes in the basement which had some moisture issues. When we went to clean it out, we had to use shovels because the pile of dirty clothes had maggots.

That same house had rat issues. Me dad had me run water into its underground tunnels outside and he waited by another tunnel exit. When the rat came out, my dad hit it with the shovel to kill it.

I had a tenant simply unplug and leave a freezer about 3/4 full of food- mostly meat. They left the door open so the maggots were incredible. That stink soaked into the drywall throughout the house.

Ended up selling that house at auction as I could get rid of that smell. It is one of two houses where I lost money on when I sold.

I've got one. I was a tenant but it counts.

I lived in Lowell Massachusetts and there was a garbage strike. I lived in a beautiful old house converted to rooms, I had the only true apartment on the first floor, everyone else was upstairs.

Tenants began piling their garbage bags in the extremely large front hall - I think the original living room? But basically right outside my front door. I had my garbage in the back yard but I was the only one with access to that.

One night I flipped on the light switch and the entire floor appeared to be MOVING. I stopped my kids (we were leaving to go somewhere) said GET BACK IN THE HOUSE and checked it out. It was MAGGOTS, millions and millions of them, covering the entire room...

I grabbed a broom and bleach and went to work pouring bleach all over the (beautiful, old, original) hardwood floors. I scraped up the dead maggots using a broom and dustpan, and moved EVERYONE'S disgusting trash bags outside. Let the city fine the landlord I didn't care.

Took me HOURS and HOURS and HOURS.

Bought a bank owned home that sat vacant for 3 years,

with no ventilation.

You could smell the house from the road.

The neighbors told me about the residents.

3 chain smokers,

3 dogs,

2 cats,

several birds,

Pop / beer dispenser on main floor,

full size Kidney shaped adult jetted tub on main floor,

jumbo sized community pool in back yard.

Animal house to say the least.

DOWHATYAGOTTADO !

Over the years, I can remember a few really bad ones we cleaned up. I kept some pictures.

I wouldn’t have the strength to life a toilet with water and feces, so attempting to carry it would be a disaster. What I’d probably do is buy a large soup ladle at Goodwill, and bring all the buckets with light fitting lids. Wearing a respirator mask, splash shield, tyveck suit, vinyl gloves, scoop solids into buckets. Seal those up and haul those off.

And, if Methylene Blue is available , open a bottle of that. That’s what nurses used in the OR when the docs were doing a perirectal abscess. Stinkiest infection, possibly most foul smell. Peppermint oil in methylen blue isn’t available.

I still might have to trash the toilet just cuz. Ewwww. I just can lift an empty toilet, would make a disaster out of a loaded one.

Busy and any others who would scoop the poop out, I wish you all had there and saw what I saw. The bowl was almost filled with poop. You would change your mind quickly about scooping it out. That dirty job is over with now. I called my plumber and told him to bring a new one over.

Ken- I think the brains splattered on the wall is the job I would not have done under any circumstances. I would draw the line at that point.

NE might have "won" but his wife sure didn't!

The brains on the wall made me think of the cute house I passed on at courthouse auction, I knew what happened inside but had not had a peek at inside so I did not buy at 40k.

We just went through the toilet filled with feces thing. Handyman had an appointment to replace the toilet. Turned off the

water . Told them not to use toilet. And they did!!

Handyman told them to clean out the toilet so that he could come back and replace toilet.

Sid,

No, I should change the name of this post to: 16 reasons to keep your day job and not become a full time landlord. Without tools in my truck today, this job would taken at least a week of valuable rehab time (my time) in trying to get someone else to do this dirty disgusting job. I did it in 45 minutes and that included driving the commode to the county landfill just 3 miles away.

Vee,

Roy, I think how you handled it, quickly and efficiently, was best. Get that stink out as soon as you can. I 'm just a short lady, and though I 'm fairly strong, for me, lifting a loaded toilet would have been too heavy. I can safely lift an empty, but its pushing my limits. Didn't mean to imply you should done it my way, only was mentioning how I'd have gone about itfor all the others who search the 'net and might be wondering how to deal when they aren't as strong.

Roy,

Congrats on hiring most of the work!

Me? I'm concerned about a plumber or handyman that would not put a bag over the toilet and toss it in the dumpster.

Golly, I have too many to mention here because I had a DREAM and a BURN to be FREE!!! I look back and laugh! What would YOU do to be FREE!!!

Ken reminded me of scraping brains, hair, and sticky coagulated blood off the vinyl floor at the frying pan murder apt.

Poo shrinks when it dries but there was still a volcano of poo HIGHER than the rim of the toilet. They had to stand on the rim to make a deposit!

Foreclosure with 5 5gallon buckets or urine. Must have be hydrating!

28 cats in a studio apt. They like to do their biziness in the corner so it was stacked 6" high. The res simply laid more newspaper over any piles on the floor so there were several layers thick.

Long term res moved out. Cat urine stench. We realized the ENTIRE carpet and pad was "squishy" with urine. Floor vent boots had puddles of urine. We set the carpet outside, it rained and the runoff killed the grass.

A res thought they were gonna "get me" by pouring potato flakes in the toilet. They expanded and mushroomed over the rim. We took a stick to break it up, hold it back, flushed three times and viola! The flakes actually CLEANED the bowl!

Brad20K - You always have the best war stories. If any LL has seen it all, it is definitely you.

Had a tenant leave a dead dog in the basement. Had been there so long that it didn't smell like death.

This past summer bought a foreclosure DWMH. The sewer drain under the master bath was laying on the ground. It had been completely broken off for YEARS. You could look down the toilet and see...what used to be the ground, but was now an enormous pile of poo. We poured lime down the toilet hole, and a week later dragged a tarp under the house and re attached the sewer pipes. The tarp is still under that house!