Need suggestions

Our house which was fully furnished in Garcon Point before the cancer spread to my liver was rented out. We had an agent who takes care of a number of properties and we never meet the tenants. Well the house is only eight years old and was a beautiful home....(was). Apparently, the tenant on the lease got sick and was in the hospital for two months. His father got sub tenants and paid the lease to our agents. Meth heads moved in and brought dogs and cats. The cats destroyed the beautiful wood frame on the king size bed in the master, and the dogs scratched the woodwork on the windows. The carpet was destroyed, the bathrooms destroyed, the furniture destroyed, but the worse part when we came into our house we were shocked, but figured we could clean, paint and replace the carpet in the entire house as we were going to take a 4k to 8k hit and only had a $1,600 damage deposit. However, as I was sitting at the kitchen table using my phone to get the garbage hauled off, I started to get covered with fleas......I mean covered. We had planned to sleep in our home but we had to get a hotel room for three nights and set off flea bombs in the house.

My question is does anybody know a good application for the floors which are plywood and are urine stained to take cat urine smell out of the house, and what is the best treatment for whole house removal of fleas and flea eggs? Any suggestions would be appreciated as we have never owned cats, and we have NEVER had an experience with fleas. I will be working today, but will check the internet tonight for suggestions. Thanks.

I believe it may take a few applications to kill the fleas completely... and I know there are products that claim to neutralize the cat urine but recommend replacing the sub floor. I had a similar issue with a rental in east hill and filed civil suit.

Aren't the realty agents responsible for that? I'll bet they didn't check out the sub lease tenants. Just get one of those flea foggers in a can and bomb the whole house. Now the cat pee is something else.Get a good blacklight and find where the pee stains are then spray them w/ straight vinegar which neutralizes the ammonia and then put a sprinkling baking soda on them and vacuum when it dries. You may have to do it a couple of times to totally get the smell out. My dog has a strong pee smell and I use a Bissell green machine to suck up the urine when my dog has accidents.

The house they evicted the lady from which was a couple of houses over from me was in the same shape. Only there was about 50 holes in the walls, the carpet ruined and a total disaster. It's going to cost the owners a fortune to fix that house.

Check with the realtor...ask who they are going to hire to make repairs. It is their responsibility.

Fleas can be killed but you have to treat the house several weeks in a row to kill the eggs that hatch. The yard has to also be treated.

Cat urine will be hard....if not done correctly you will smell it every time we have high humidity.

Pro-Clean does a good job....make sure they guarantee their work.

Carpet installer was great. He gave us great suggestions on clean up. He got all the carpet out this morning and by two this afternoon the smells were remarkably gone. He said the key is not to put the new flooring in for a couple weeks. He said for two days every three hours to use spray bottles with a pretty good bleach content and spray lightly all floor areas. This means about three sprays a day. When I got back from some business appointments at two I could not believe the difference. Having someone do a deep clean in the kitchen and bathrooms and I had began painting, but had a health melt down. When my hormones get high, my face turns red in what is called flushing. The hormones next attack the large intestines with a burning sensation and immediate urge to purge as massive diahrrea hits. The liver pain which I have not had for three months has gotten bad because the plan was for me to only sleep on a bed for one night, but I am now going on four nights and my tumors press against my rib cage when I am prone and I go haywire. My wife saw my face as I was painting and suggested I go to the hotel for three hours and rest. Two massive bathroom attacks, severe liver pain, and I did not bring my prescription pain pills because I have been handling the pain the last three month pretty well.

The worst part is that around my ankles I am swelling and I am covered with flea bites. I had made the decision to spend two months here and finish a business project and return to Northwestern for my shots, however, the waste haulers took out almost all our furnishings because I was NOT going to have a repeat infestation, and Joanie and Dreams are right....neutralize the cats and weeks to kill flea eggs. I will have this house brand new by November 15th, or I will be dead. My wife is a champ. We picked out some hardwood for the hallways and main great room and will NEVER carpet this area again, and will have three carpeted bedrooms and closets if after I pass she needs to do the carpet again. I am pretty sure we will never live in this house again, and I used to enjoy kayaking and running my pontoon boat in escambia bay and the blackwater river, but I think I have to be realistic....yes keep working and keep busy as the doctors have insisted get the best results with endocrine cancer, but over doing it ......well I need to be careful.

It is their responsibility.

I have learned not to sweat the small things. I can take care of those things which are in my control. The Ivan and Dennis damage to our properties was beyond my control. Here clearly the agents not only dropped the ball, they intentionally tried playing some games. They gave us a 5k repair estimate, but did not include half the things which needed to be done. The agent also suggested that we should now get rid of some of the furnishings and she would like some. I heard my wife talking to her when she suggested the same, and I said we had to immediately go down, because that was a clear breach of her fiduciary duty.....self serving is not what we need in an agent when we are nine hundred miles from our home. Well the neighbor caught at night a car coming to the house a week ago, and two men were separating out our furnishings, when she went over and asked them what they were doing. They said they were from the real estate office and were getting the good things before everything was taken to the dump. My neighbor tells them they better not take a thing out of the house because we own everything. They go OH.......and leave. Well when we got down here we had a hand painted beautiful folding screen which was close to 1k.....it was gone......monitors were gone......my computer was there, but one tv was gone. The Tvs and electronic stuff did not bother me. It was that beautiful folding screen which again was hand painted.

Now, I can put a ton of hurt on people.....done that my whole life. I can make people wish they never heard my name or crossed my path....it came with the territory, but when you are dying you really get that chit happens, and that what does not kill you only makes you stronger. I can get a damage judgment against the tenant, but the man was in the hospital for two months, lost his job, and it was his father trying to help his son who put the two meth heads in the house. A neighbor called us and said these sub leased tenants were bad news, but the agents said it was the only way the guy could make it with him losing his job.......we figured we have been fortunate and maybe let it go.....no good deed goes unpunished, and the agents never went over and inspected.....the meth aluminum foil was everywhere....bathrooms, bedroom floors, kitchen.....anybody doing a surprise inspection would have seen it and got them out. Our agents in Navarre do a surprise inspection once a month and take photos......the difference is enormous. So, I will probably not have them be the agent on this house again, and will return to the lady which left this office and who is now with another firm. The problem is that we have other homes with this agency, and we will have to decide to move everything or split our homes in the Milton area.....our agent in Navarre with their protocols and inspections will not drive over to Milton......so I may file a civil suit, but personally beating up a sick guy, or his father, or trying to get money from meth heads to me is just bone chilling stupid. Suing the agent would be easy.....but to what end......a few thousand dollars......I lost big on the way down playing poker in Harrahs in Metropolis.....should I sue the better poker players.....nope....chit happens, I have been blessed with a good life, and I roll with the punches.

Take it easy, please.

Seaoat can get a chemical pneumonia from the bleach.

16 0z Hydrogen Peroxide

1 Teaspoon dishwashing liquid (Dawn)

1 Tablespoon Baking Soda

Mix together and soak area, leave on till completely dry if a white residue appears it can be vacuumed or brushed away. You can not store this concoction.

Spraying a mixture of Dawn detergent on the lawn and flower beds will kill fleas.

I was really into properties until about 2004. I began to draw back because of the fed interest rate manipulations and the general decline in those that rented. Literally anyone could buy a house... renters became suspect and abused the homes.

Luckily I was out by 2006. I was out of the medical business during 2009... it pays to see things as they really are.

2seaoat wrote:Carpet installer was great.  He gave us great suggestions on clean up.  He got all the carpet out this morning and by two this afternoon the smells were remarkably gone.  He said the key is not to put the new flooring in for a couple weeks.  He said for two days every three hours to use spray bottles with a pretty good bleach content and spray lightly all floor areas.   This means about three sprays a day.  When I got back from some business appointments at two I could not believe the difference.  Having someone do a deep clean in the kitchen and bathrooms and I had began painting, but had a health melt down.  When my hormones get high, my face turns red in what is called flushing.  The hormones next attack the large intestines with a burning sensation and immediate urge to purge as massive diahrrea hits.  The liver pain which I have not had for three months has gotten bad because the plan was for me to only sleep on a bed for one night, but I am now going on four nights and my tumors press against my rib cage when I am prone and I go haywire.  My wife saw my face as I was painting and suggested I go to the hotel for three hours and rest.  Two massive bathroom attacks, severe liver pain, and I did not bring my prescription pain pills because I have been handling the pain the last three month pretty well.

The worst part is that around my ankles I am swelling and I am covered with flea bites.  I had made the decision to spend two months here and finish a business project and return to Northwestern for my shots, however, the waste haulers took out almost all our furnishings because I was NOT going to have a repeat infestation, and Joanie and Dreams are right....neutralize the cats and weeks to kill flea eggs.  I will have this house brand new by November 15th, or I will be dead.  My wife is a champ.  We picked out some hardwood for the hallways and main great room and will NEVER carpet this area again, and will have three carpeted bedrooms and closets if after I pass she needs to do the carpet again.   I am pretty sure we will never live in this house again, and I used to enjoy kayaking and running my pontoon boat in escambia bay and the blackwater river, but I think I have to be realistic....yes keep working and keep busy as the doctors have insisted get the best results with endocrine cancer, but over doing it ......well I need to be careful.

I am truly sorry for all your problems.

If you're going to use the house as a rental, ceramic tile throughout is the best long term solution.

Cat pee is a terrible problem as you well know.

Managing real estate is a tough, tough job. When I had a number of rentals, I used a management company. A good management company is really, really hard to find as well. I know of one, maybe two really good management companies in our area.

May God bless you.

Seaoat, you can afford to hire people to do the work for you. Spare yourself.

I work. I started working when I was 15 and paid for all my college and graduate school. We have paid people to do things I usually do, hauled out furnishings, had a person do a deep clean, and had somebody tear the carpet out.....I always did those things, but we had no idea that our house had been destroyed in nine months from when the neighbors complained about folks subleasing. It is great to have good neighbors. We loved our neighbors and sadly we put methheads right into their neighborhood because we trusted our agent who we thought was looking out for our interest. I do not care if I fall over from my aorta bursting or the cancer finally doing me in, I just am hard wired to work and I like the independence of being able to take care of my family without depending on anybody and sadly I will be making an appointment with my pulmonary doc, because it is pretty obvious now that I may have another obstruction in what is left of my lower left lobe. They have been focusing on the liver, and I have not been getting a lung cat scan but once a year. I am hoping it is a simple infection but my breathing is getting more labored.....No big deal, but working gets really hard, and I have been rendered to mostly advising the wife how to do things and some of our projects she is now doing more than half.....I use a chair when painting, but I am convinced that with this cancer if you just lay in bed, you will not get back up....the doctors have all but told me that, and I have followed their advice....work is good.....too much work with the breathing issues is not smart. A week more of work and rest will be good. We have decided to put the different concoctions on the floor Sunday, and probably one more night at the hotel, and I will simply stay away until Monday and begin painting.....Sunday should be a day of rest anyway.

Seaoat.....you don't need to be around the fumes.

Just sell the damn place.

2seaoat wrote:It is their responsibility.

I have learned not to sweat the small things.  I can take care of those things which are in my control.  The Ivan and Dennis damage to our properties was beyond my control.  Here clearly the agents not only dropped the ball, they intentionally tried playing some games.  They gave us a 5k repair estimate, but did not include half the things which needed to be done.  The agent also suggested that we should now get rid of some of the furnishings and she would like some.  I heard my wife talking to her when she suggested the same, and I said we had to immediately go down, because that was a clear breach of her fiduciary duty.....self serving is not what we need in an agent when we are nine hundred miles from our home.  Well the neighbor caught at night a car coming to the house a week ago, and two men were separating out our furnishings, when she went over and asked them what they were doing.  They said they were from the real estate office and were getting the good things before everything was taken to the dump.  My neighbor tells them they better not take a thing out of the house because we own everything.   They go OH.......and leave.  Well when we got down here we had a hand painted beautiful folding screen which was close to 1k.....it was gone......monitors were gone......my computer was there, but one tv was gone.  The Tvs and electronic stuff did not bother me.  It was that beautiful folding screen which again was hand painted.

Now, I can put a ton of hurt on people.....done that my whole life.  I can make people wish they never heard my name or crossed my path....it came with the territory, but when you are dying you really get that chit happens, and that what does not kill you only makes you stronger.   I can get a damage judgment against the tenant, but the man was in the hospital for two months, lost his job, and it was his father trying to help his son who put the two meth heads in the house.  A neighbor called us and said these sub leased tenants were bad news, but the agents said it was the only way the guy could make it with him losing his job.......we figured we have been fortunate and maybe let it go.....no good deed goes unpunished, and the agents never went over and inspected.....the meth aluminum foil was everywhere....bathrooms, bedroom floors, kitchen.....anybody doing a surprise inspection would have seen it and got them out.  Our agents in Navarre do a surprise inspection once a month and take photos......the difference is enormous.  So, I will probably not have them be the agent on this house again, and will return to the lady which left this office and who is now with another firm.  The problem is that we have other homes with this agency, and we will have to decide to move everything or split our homes in the Milton area.....our agent in Navarre with their protocols and inspections will not drive over to Milton......so I may file a civil suit, but personally beating up a sick guy, or his father, or trying to get money from meth heads to me is just bone chilling stupid.  Suing the agent would be easy.....but to what end......a few thousand dollars......I lost big on the way down playing poker in Harrahs in Metropolis.....should I sue the better poker players.....nope....chit happens, I have been blessed with a good life, and I roll with the punches.

You know it's against Fl. landlord Tenant laws to do surprise inspections. You have to give 12 or 24 hrs notice. I don't think I would put up w/ that as a tenant. Just sayin.

Seaoat.....you don't need to be around the fumes.


I think the painting will be fine, but I am not going to be around when the subfloor is treated with first vinegar......then she will use the peroxide concoction later. A second vinegar before she leaves for the night, and then we have talked to people who are telling us NOT to use the enzyme treatments for cat urine, because it eats into the plywood, and we have confirmed that some of the earlier enzyme treatments had people falling through subfloors a couple years later. The thing which makes the most sense from the carpet guy is sealing the floor with Kilz primer after all the bleach, vinegar, and peroxide treatments. He says that if you really want to seal the sub floor put the latex Kilz on and then use an exterior porch paint which is a great sealer. He says the rooms look great and it seals out all smells. I also like that idea because if we rent it again, you could have a cat or dog make a mistake, and this time the moisture will stay in the carpet and not be absorbed by the wood.

You know it's against Fl. landlord Tenant laws to do surprise inspections. You have to give 12 or 24 hrs notice. I don't think I would put up w/ that as a tenant. Just sayin.


Our agent has that covered in the leases in Navarre. Once a month they give the 24 hour notice and do an inspection. The folks in Milton have no such provision, and after the neighbors called in January, my wife asked them to check if there were sub leased tenants in the house......they made no arrangements to check, and one neighbor is not talking to us because the meth heads let their dogs run free and poop in their yard. I will talk to them before we leave and apologize. When we have wanted to do work on our houses, they always give the tenants 24 hour notice, but the surprise is when you give the notice. You really need to make sure the tenants understand that there will be weekly drive by with phone calls if the exterior is not maintained.....one agent was a sweetheart with the pride she took in these inspections.....well she left this agency and we will be hooking back up with her once we get this train wreck resolved.

I know that good tenants do not get the visits after a few visits. This gets complex because of the man's hospital stay......any one of us could have our world turned upside down with health issues, but an agent's fiduciary duty does not change. Maybe a will pick my fan duel five buck team and win........and and let the loss slide.....my wife is not wanting to do that....she is piszed because she feels like there were lies involved.

I'm not sure I'd let the agent get away w/ costing me that much. In fact, I know I wouldn't.Judgements are hard to collect. The woman and her boyfriend who let the pullbull out to attack my dog last year and then harassed me are really wishing they didn't do that now. They were served an Information Sheet ordering them to list all their assets, bank accounts, cars,employment wages and tax forms.The boyfriend calls me up and says he's going to pay the money and make payments to me but he's only working two days a week and starts telling me all his problems. I said " I really sorry about your problems but I'm going to have to take your truck. It's been a year and you made no effort to pay the money" Silence. Besides you weren't too worried when you were riding past my house everyday shooting me the bird, revving your motorcycle, cussing me out in Walmart and saying your not going to pay me nothing and then deliberately parading that vicious dog past my house everyday. How many miles to the gallon does your truck get? Silence. Oh I'll find out anyway." Then I hung up. I'll probably never get the money but it sure is fun making him sweat.

He probably owes more on the truck than it is worth, but when people are real jerks, I let them abuse me after I get a judgment, and I wait......then I do a non wage garnishment and attach a bank account that they think nobody knew about.....then the phone calls come....please, I need to pay bills and the money in the account is my only means and it is frozen until the next court date......I simply say politely, you should have though about that before you decided being rude was an option when you owe somebody money. The best part if you do not collect the judgment, a person cleans up their act and calls you five years after the judgment and needs you to act NOW, or they will lose a house they were suppose to close, and the judgment search showed up.......if the people were polite......I will get that for you in the morning. If they were not......I will be able to talk to you a week from Tuesday........That is why I do not like beating people up.....payback is a bitch, and if you treat people with respect and are friendly, it works better than being a bad asz......unless needed.

They started the harassment right after I called the animal control and filed a complaint about the dog. They lied to animal control and said their kids accidentally let the dog out of the back yard so they wouldn't get a ticket. I saw the dog come out the front door.That's when the animal control did nothing and I went house to house on my street looking for witnesses. I found several neighbors who wrote affidavit's as to the viciousness of the dog and one who witnessed the whole incident but didn't know who I was to say anything as I lived around the corner. They knew the dog would go after my dog. By the time we got to court they stopped saying the kids did it and didn't offer up any defense. After that they continued the harassment saying there weren't going to pay anything. They got evicted from their rental house when they brought the dog back after the landlord told them to get rid of it which for a month they did. During that time they got a big tax refund and sold the motorcycle and bought a truck outright,according to the neighbor next door. I really restrained myself during this time period when they were harassing me because I didn't want to go into court looking like a redneck in cussing them out too. I told my story including the harassment and they said nothing.They wouldn't agree in mediation to pay the court costs and I wouldn't agree to drop them as the mediator asked me. The judge said " you will pay the court costs" and it was over. So it's not really about the money now. It's about people thinking they can do that to people and get away w/ it. She's in jail right now on a contempt of court charge and never filled out the information sheet. He did but they are not together now. When she gets out in two months I'm going to file another contempt of court on her. She is on probation.

I'd still put a barrier down for the wood floors.