The New House

We are officially settled here in Iowa City. All boxes are unpacked, pictures are hung, and we believe that this house is now habitable. I write that last part because, for a rental house, it was a lot of work (and money!) to make it acceptable. I don't know where to start on the house...the positives are that it has a bigger yard to play in than we previously had, there is a beautiful screened in back porch, and the kitchen is completely new. The negatives...the entire basement stunk of cat/dog urine (!) - and I mean it was so overwhelming that it knocked me over when I first walked into the house, we had so many wasps flying around it was scary (we found the nests and took care of the problem), there is a large mouse nest outside, the bathrooms are teeny, and the owner of the house is a bit of a do-it-yourself-er who should consult help from the Yellow Pages more (there are holes everywhere in the house - walls and ceilings from who know what).

Here is the house after all of our hard work to make the landscaping not look like a weed pit.


My poor dad. He has visited two times, and each time has been nothing but work. The basement had carpeting in the hallway and playroom. The first visit, he, Joe, and my mom ripped up the hallway carpet thinking that that was where the urine smell was coming from. Turns out that ALL of the carpet needed to be removed, and that plus installing new carpet was completed on dad's second trip. I wonder if these two doctors secretly enjoyed the manual labor, though, as you can see that they look very proud of themselves in these pictures.

The new carpet. In case you didn't know where it is, the two are pointing it out for you. Now we can actually play in the playroom without holding our noses.

Conquering the carpet of urine. Right now it is sitting in our driveway waiting to be hauled away. The only problem is that Iowa City has had highs in the upper 90s lately so it is now stinking up the entire neighborhood. I hope it is hauled away soon!