Why "...this ol' crackhouse?"

"We can't ride in that shitheap" - Joey "the lips" Faegan

This week we have a guest poster at the Ranch. I figured ya’ll (see…we're getting all southern and shit) were getting a little bit tired of hearing me wax on , so I asked the woman to write a ‘lil something. If everyone likes this it may become a thing from time to time. And now, a word from the esteemed Mrs. Duck….

Welcome to our fixer-fixer-upper. It ain’t much, but it’s home and it’s got that Kryptonic real estate term “potential” going for it. Which is nice. That’s what we keep telling ourselves. Well, I do. RubberDuck just keeps calling it a crackhouse.

We are John Galt. RubberDuck, Wife, three big kids, and FarmDog® that is.

Yes, we picked out this gem, As Is with the garbage and the curiosities we discovered throughout the buying process. It’s like an adventure. The tales from locals of car crashes and death most likely involving meth, the smell, the pool ladder with no pool, the holy smoke-damaged interior, the missing and broken windows filled in with osb and 3/4 inch round, the weathered and bleached cow skulls hung for decoration from the trees, barrels and barrels of half burnt metal and crap along with various burn piles of box fans and beer cans gave us pause long enough to deduce both, that the persons living here were most likely on shitty drugs and that we should probably get all kinds of inspections. Before decisions and negotiations.

Also, we’re living on a dream and some prayer… We saw the shop and envisioned RubberDuck’s mastermind rolling out some incredible builds with dimension lumber and 3D plastic filament spools. We saw the house with bay windows slung low under a metal roof in the Missouri elements with oak floors and thought that this is a place we could live in and renovate and stretch out a bit while we built up our dream(s). We experienced the incredible weather and climate for growing more of our own foods and saw the space for our gardening ideas to grow and thrive. We noticed there was a functional well providing the prime material for life, clean water. All the trees for all the things, like trails and exploring, privacy, and firewood… saw-milling and live-edge baby;):) The sun and the water and the trees and the rocks our children required for a childhood well lived are all here. Maybe under some garbage and nicotine staining, but we got spit, grit, and duct tape. And simple green.* Shout out to Mom and amazon delivery.

*If you’re interested, get some simple green through the RubberDuck Ranch amazon affiliate link. We are legally required to let you know RubberDuck Ranch gets a small commission this way and your item remains the same price:)

So, what is the dream? To live as independently as possible and build a homestead that insulates us from some of the grossness that is rising in the machine and culture. No mortgage. Get our businesses going, build real local relationships with other people that want the same things, see our family and friends more, participate in a community that doesn’t suck, and have a blast living life. That’s RubberDuck’s job to update y’all on living life and having a blast doing it.

Back to them inspections and negotiations and, meth…what?

This here is Ozark County, and things like buying and selling a house, especially As Is, are different than in more heavily regulated and zoned areas of the country that we were used to. Requesting things like septic inspections, water tests, and in some cases home inspections is sorta not expected. But we did these things. Which helped us understand more of what we were getting into. There are some caveats here; we shoulda done some more pushing and investigating when things weren’t readily provided or they were obviously concealed. That’s okay, we’re still learning and growing and finding what’s been concealed. And we have a legal affidavit stating there was no meth consumed, used, or made on the premises, what have you. That’s good right? Snicker, snicker. Let’s just say, we were able to negotiate it down to the top of our price range.

o yeah, upon moving in, it quickly became obvious that a gang of criminals lived here, not a family. They left everything here. Including the medications and criminal background paperwork along with their drug paraphernalia they were too rushed to grab. I don’t think they cared. They took the money and ran. And anything else they thought they could get money for. It’s been a series of unfolding for us.

That first night in late July we spent hauling all the crap they left in here out and cleaning to such a point that we could camp inside the house. And the next day. Over a few days we managed to clear out the house and unload the 26 ft Uhaul into our new living room. Oh boy. Speaking of Boy, he found the crawl space cover in his room, the addition. They, the folks that sold us the house, covered that up during the inspection. We discovered some very interesting plumbing and scary joist spacing with obvious termite damage. This be the caveat I was speaking of. Our bad.

In the first few days, Terminex was on the scene, you know what I mean…

I digress, they took care of those nasty red ball faced wasps and sprayed the under carriage of the house with some bug killer and primer for when we can get down there and sister it up and sturdy it up. It’s like a trampoline in here in some spots, y’all. Sorta fun and annoying at the same time. We got our work cut out for us there… future updates on those plans and blueprints from RubberDuck.

Almost everything left behind was trash from so much smoke damage either from cigarettes or chimney smoke and whatever else they were smoking up in here. Oh, and the smell of rat poison in every nook and cranny. We took to hauling it up the hill and making a trash pile on top of the 8 old burn barrels that were there. RubberDuck rented a 16 yard dumpster and we over filled that sucker just to get it more manageable. In that first two weeks, there was probably another 16 yards left to get rid of that couldn’t just be burned. We shortly found the nearest dump and have taken over 3000 lbs of garbage in at this point.

In the process of clearing out all their stuff, RubberDuck discovered criminal records. It was at this point we decided to test this place for meth. There was lots of prayer and anxiety at this point, for us and the real estate agent. The place tested negative.

Here we are almost a year later. Almost all the walls have at least been washed, or primed. The wood stove has been refurbished to the point that it fires beautifully and is now on a ceramic tiled hearth and has a properly sealed chimney. Heats the house, mostly. The garden is going and feeding the family. RubberDuck is rolling out cool stuff. I’ve done some sewing. The Boy has made friends and influenced people, cut trails and is still climbing mountains. The Girl is ambitious and found friends she likes, who like her too. The Youngest Boy is a fisherman through and through (like his older brother and his old man); he’s been fishing, hiking, swimming, and gardening all summer.

Amen

Till next time… Sunshine out.