3 bed house gone to rack and ruin - talk me through sorting it out

[doitanyways]

Long story, but my dads house is in a bad way.

I am moving into it in february to try and get it sorted.

Hardly anything works, apart from the shower. The oven does work but there are no lights in the kitchen

Carpets are filthy and smelly.

Fencing has fallen down around the garden. One toilet won't flush. Strong smell of urine on the floor of the other one.

Where would you start, bearing in mind it's going to be a slow job of getting it sorted - around six months, at a guess.

Thank you :)

Bless you bob, thank you

People ask what the renovations are for because they may recommend different things based on whether you are going to keep it, rent it, or put it up for sale.

Putting a house up for sale might mean more neutral work, and less expense in some areas, with more expense on things like fixtures and such, for example.

Up to you whether you want specific suggestions or general suggestions, based on the info you provide for the purpose of fixing up the house. No point getting frustrated with people that are just trying to be helpful, is there?

I'm not frustrated, but I did make it clear the house wasn't going up for sale and that my brother planned to live in it :)

You did say your brother was going to live there... in your 4th post. Sometimes people answered before they saw that. These things happen.

Yes, no need for confusion or bewilderment. I didn't ask for information. Jut put forward a possible suggestion that could benefit your brother, as he's not registered disabled and you, nor him, are probably swimming in money for you to need to move in to do the work.
It might be something you might not have considered and could possibly help.
What people asked was because doing up a house to sell, let or live in, or who was going to live in it, require different solutions.

I'm afraid you are putting people off helping you, yes.

Ok, well I've got enough to be going on with; I'm not here to argue but I just find going into the 'backstory' quite draining in an emotional sense and I didn't expect to have to do so in property/DIY!

Well no you weren't clear - you said you were moving in to begin with. Obviously you're not interested in considering whether living in this house is the absolute best solution to your circumstances but don't surprised if people ask that question, given what you've said. If your borther is disabled and unable to organise the repair etc of the house then wouldn't you be better selling the house and funding him in to some sort of smaller, easy to maintain and accessible home?

Northern, I am moving in.

Your questions above are the sort I'd hoped to avoid, being totally honest. It makes me feel like crying to talk about it.

As I'm sure you know, he can make those decisions for himself, at the moment he wants to stay where he is. I also doubt he'd be able to buy a smaller and easy to maintain home outright.

I think before you do anything to this house you and your brother need to get some RL support in making decisions together. I don't know the backstory to this but there's a big risk from what you're saying that you are going to be faced with ongoing responsibilities here and that these actually could be discharged in another way. I think, judging from your reaction to questions, that you know this too. I'm sorry this is upsetting for you. Please, give yourself a bit of time to think not how this can be done but why this should be done and if there is another way which is ok for your brother and ok for you.

Northern, please trust me on this: there is absolutely no real life support for single men who are coping, on the face of it, and even if there was, he would never accept it.

I've tried and tried to think of another way, and have posted on here a few times about it, and there isn't.

There are a few easy and cheap ways to make it habitable whilst you maybe save for full on repair.
Do have a gas inspection.
Do have the electrics checked.
Get the roof checked if there are signs of wet/damp on ceilings.
Check out all/ any attics and smell for damp, check for wet.
A coat hanger cut and bent can solve a floppy loo handle.
Don't waste time and money on cleaners etc for urine soaked floors, just get new floor boards or take up old and replace with mdf.
Rip up old smelly carpets and replace with cheap rugs.
Clean,if the decoration is crap cleaning down walls, floors etc with sugar soap will make a difference.
2nd hand cookers and electrical stuff.

We renovate houses and live in them whilst we work so need a enviroment that is ok.

Right I've had a quick look at a couple of your other threads and it seems from what you say there that he isn't coping. You are coping for him. What you absolutely MUST NOT do is move in to a house that isn't yours, spend your money, time and energy on it, all the time enabling him to continue not coping and using you as a mask.
You need RL support with this to help you disengage from being his safety net. He's an adult. He won't engage with any help but you - but you aren't help. You're his sister, you love him. that's your job. it's not your job to be his bank, landlady, personal assistant and housekeeper. I understand you are scared what will happen to him if you don't carry him. But what will happen to you if you do?

I have been thinking about this thread and first of all I want to very genuinely apologise if I have caused any offence to anybody as I didn't intend to do this. In my mind my emotional offload was the other day and this was my practical, lets-get-this-sorted-thread!

While I completely understand what you mean Northern and there are limits to what I can do, but the truth is if I stop doing the (really quite small amount) I am doing, he will die. Not immediately and it would take five, ten even perhaps, years, but he would fall into a sort of half life where he would be preyed upon by societal chancers - the drug dealers and the mentally ill and the alcoholics.

How do I know - it's happened before and he came back by a thread.

The bathroom stops working so you stop washing; the kitchen stops working so you stop cooking; the toilet doesn't flush so you urinate and defecate outside. All the time being in all day every day creates a void so big and you think about your life and go on Facebook and compare it to others and that unhappiness grows and grows and grows.

I will be letting go. But I need to let go with things in an even footing as it were. Like sending someone on a journey equipped with a map and a torch and food. If they then lose them then so they do but at least you can look yourself in the mirror and say 'well, I did my best.'

I'm sorry you are in this difficult situation . I understand that you want to support your brother, whatever his problems are ( I've not read your other threads ) .

TBH the house sounds like it's in a bad way and will need at least 10k ( very rough guess ) to make it habitable, assuming that's it's structurally sound and roof, heating and plumbing are ok. That's just kitchen, bathroom , basic decor , floor coverings .

If it needs rewired, replumbed, new boiler , repairs to roof or windows, replastering - you are looking at more. Lots more .

If it was that easy to buy a house in poor condition and do it up easily and cheaply , everyone would be doing it . I'm sorry, but that's the reality. It takes time, money and hard work and it's a lot of hassle . Especially if you want to project manage it or live in it while the work is going on .

Do you have that kind of money ?

If you don't have the skills to manage such a project, can you get them ?

Can your brother live there while this is going on ?

Once it's in good condition, will your brother be able to maintain it in a reasonable state ?

Of the answer isn't an enthusiastic " yes" , You might be better to think of selling it , as a PP suggested, and buying a small easily managed modern flat. Or to think of some other options .

The problem is the alternative Samantha which is to sell it (assuming we could find a buyer!) - he still has to live somewhere; where?

Gradually the work can be done and I don't think structurally the house is too bad - I'm no expert but it's more general mess and things that have fallen into disrepair due to not being looked after.

Doit,

The point is that the ultimate aim of the renovation, and how much you have to spend on it, have a really big influence on what you do and in what order, and the approach that you might take.

So for example, when we moved to this house (wreck) we knew no-one was living here for 3-4 months, but that it then needed to be liveable in for a family of 4, and that we had the budget for all the 'structural' renovations to be done by 3rd parties without waiting to save money in between. However, we had no extra for a project manager, or a temporary move out, or for anything cosmetic to be done by anyone other than us.

Out of that set of constraints, I constructed a project plan (big structural works first - wiring, plumbing, heating followed by replastering for safety, then room by room cosmetic makeovers, with bathrooms and kitchen done in series so that there was always 1 bathroom useable and a temporary kitchen space in an already partially renovated room but without damageable floor covering). We also based the budget for individual items on 'what would last us for the long term', because it was worth it as we intended to live here until the children left home.

However, had our budget and constraints been different - e.g. a rapid total makeover for sale, to rapidly recoup a loan taken out for the purpose, none of us to ever live there - our decisions, timescale and project plan would have been different.

Apologies for massive cross-post.

I would get in a general builder / renovator that you trust or is recommended, and ask them for a ballpark figure of what it is likely to cost to get the house up to scratch (you don't have to use them to do the work). And I would also ask an estate agent to come round and estimate how much you would get if you sold it pretty much as is minus rubbish. And take it from there.

I also think the risk of 'gradually' is that the problem will 'close in again behind you' as you move on to the next task / area. If you genuinely do not have the time or money to do a significant amount of the work in 1 go, then embarking on it at all, over and above simply clearing out mess, will take money and won't improve anything.

We had a similar problem with my BiL. But the house keeps being put back into a good state of repair, for it ultimately to go down hill as he is unable/unwilling to keep on top of it.

It may be that your DB would be better in a more manageable flat, as the maintenance charge would take care of a lot of that for him?

DFIL paid a bomb to get a wetroom downstairs for DBIL due to his disabilities and it's wrecked so I understand what you are saying about wanting to keep him at home but it may be that a different home is best for him?

Initially though I'd get a proper structural survey done and then you can see where you need to start. The roof in our case.

As it stands the house would probably be worth less than £70,000.

He definitely wouldn't move into a flat and he'd also have to pay the maintenance charge.

Oh, and having read one of your other posts, the other person / organisation I would be taking round the house is social services, and probably your DB's GP. If you disguise the issue by spending your money to enable your DB to trash the house again, then the full extent of what actually needs doing will be disguised, and no help will ever be forthcoming. At least take photographs of it as it is at the moment and send them to the relevant authorities.

He's an adult; there is no way his GP would listen and I know there's more chance of a cold day in hell than him engaging with SS!

I hadn't, tbh, considered that HE would engage with them - but that you, as a 3rd party standing outside the situation and being able to judge the situation more dispassionately and logically, would report him to SS and, as you will be living in the house from February, take them round.

Exactly as my DM engaged the help of the relevant support services for my very elderly and frail GPs, who would never have considered it for themselves, but who could no longer manage alone.

(Though they had a very supportive GP practice, who proved absolutely brilliant at smoothing the path for the team of helpers against the resistance of my outraged GPs....)

OP I did something similar with my father on a house we bought together. You start one job and then you take off wallpaper and lift up carpet and find another. This depends very much on whether the previous owners used bodge-a-job trades people or were clueless in their own DIY.

For example we needed to replace the bathroom. We took the bath up, and I put my foot through the floorboards because they were rotten. So that meant whole new flooring. We stripped the wallpaper to reveal that part of the old chimney was still there being propped up with awkwardly placed wood. It needed fixing. Old lathe and plaster batons broken and wallpaper basically kept the plaster on, all to be replaced. The plumbing was all old, the electrics were all old. In that one room we could count on just the ceiling being ok. That was not expected.

Would I do it again? Yes. We learned a lot, and we enjoyed it doing what we could on our own on a shoestring. But if I did it again I think I would pay a RICS surveyor to come and do a thorough survey. Tell them they can lift carpets and be a bit more in depth than a homebuyers survey. Go round with them and ask questions and advice. I have always gone round properties I've wanted to buy with my surveyor (with sellers permission) and asked questions about anything and everything.

The report should tell you what's urgent, what's to be done in the mid-term and what you don't need to worry about and is just cosmetic.

If it becomes too much to cope with and you do decide to sell it, you can use the report as a guide as to what you can perhaps tick off before going on the market, and don't waste your money on doing jobs that won't affect price. For instance if you buy a new bathroom suite but you have damp, old CH, old electrics, old plumbing and wood worm any buyer is going to crucify you regardless whether the bathroom had a green avocado or white one.

Personally I have always gone with the theory that you make your house weather proof first and then fix inside. No point doing new electrics if water can run down the wall. And you may not know this because it's hidden from immediate view. So first jobs for me would be, roof, brickwork repointing, damp proof course, and Windows and doors. You can sort out loft insulation at same time and make the house keep warmth buy having new windows. Nothing worse for your health than a cold damp house full of mould. After that I would replace or install CH, electrics, and plumbing. Old electrics can be a fire risk and can affect your house insurance.

Good luck, and don't expect anything to be just a small job. Assume the worst and you can only be pleasantly surprised.