Free as the wind blows....

[mrissa]

Ista recently discovered that one of her grandmonkeys' floor vents contains a Cheerio from the previous occupants. So she decided to examine the floor vent in markgritter's and my bedroom. Humoring her, markgritter said, "What's in there, Ista?" and pulled the vent out for her to examine.

What was in there was a pair of extremely dusty and faded pieces of '80s soft-core pornography.

We were extremely amused. So markgritter checked the other vent, but it was, still to our amusement, porn-free.

Homeownership. It is a series of surprises.

Tomorrow the duct-cleaners come. Hee. Good timing, dog.

(I hear markgritter in the bedroom now: "No, Ista, we already checked in there." Hee.)

Comments

[greykev.livejournal.com]

LOL! man, all I got in my house was matching wallpaper rolls.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There was not nearly enough porn to wallpaper with, even if we'd wanted to.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Two moves in a row, I found that the previous occupants had left porn for me. In one place it was just a couple pin-ups on a shelf in the closet; in the other, it was an issue or two of Playboy (?--could have been Penthouse, I don't actually recall) stashed cunningly under the bathroom sink--wedged behind the u-bend--and I didn't actually find it for several months.

(We attribute this difference to the fact that the first place had had a bunch of college-age guys, and the second had had a college-age guy ... and his girlfriend.)

In the moves since then, it has become a ritual to Check For Porn. Haven't found any since, although the previous owners of this house left enough weird kitschy crap, and nails and screws in the walls, oh my god the nails and screws, to make up for it.

Also the desiccated frog. Although I don't believe that was left so much as remaining undiscovered.

[markgritter.livejournal.com]

We have a box in the attic we refer to as Uncle Charlie. I had thought it might be empty or maybe contain an artificial Christmas tree. But now the possiblities have opened up substantially.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Golly.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

If they left you a desiccated frog, that would be time to worry.

My grandparents' house featured a flagpole in the ground, and the previous owners tried to take it away with them. Grandpa wanted it. "But -- but -- that's Richard's flagpole," the woman whined. But installed in-ground flagpoles are on the list of things you have to list separately if they're going to be removed -- you can't just take out, say, the toilet and claim that it was Richard's toilet. So everything else we've found in houses since: "That's Richard's sewing kit." "That's Richard's mouse corpse."

I have to call my mom this morning and tell her about Richard's porn.

(My grandfather's name is also Richard. Not to be confused with the whiny Richard.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh if only Richard had wanted his ham radio tower!

Seriously. Amongst the detritus left us by the previous owners is a ham radio tower bolted to the front corner of the house. It is taller than the house, and we have been trying, for the past two years, to figure out how to take it down without, you know, taking out the neighbors' front porch or having mirrorthaw fall off the roof or any of the thousand and one disasters we can see just waiting for us.

Richard could have taken his ham radio tower and we would have given him cookies to go with it. Hell, I would have baked cookies.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Errm. I have no idea what we would do with a ham radio tower bolted to the front corner of the house. Probably leave it. Maybe hire the guy who's fixing the underside of the sun porch in the spring, see if he could take it down. Or the painters! As long as they're up there anyway.

Yikes.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah. You see the problem.

The other problem being that the thing is a blot on the landscape, and I want it gone.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

We had the "fashionable"* beveled mirrors in the dining room. They were installed between the wainscoting and the dentil molding. I called it "Federal meets Flashdance," and insisted that the first call post-closing was to a mirror company for "mirror abatement."

John (my husband) spent many hours spackling, sanding, and re-skimming that wall, but I was damned if I was going to let him try to take the evil things off on his own amateur lonesome.


* As (inevitably) described by the realtor's listing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I know that combination of problems all too well.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

When my family moved into our house, there was a big TV antenna on one side. Big, tall, solid... and encrusted with grapevine. We had all sorts of birds in there. About ten years later, a storm knocked the thing over and into a tree; we've been trimming back the grapevine ever since. Now I want a big tall antenna on the side of every house I own so I can put vines up it.

[ckd]

I have experienced no desiccated frogs, though there was the desiccated cockatiel incident (which I happily missed, being on the other coast at the time).

My younger brother had a pet bird; as sometimes happens, it got out of its cage and was never seen again. Well, never seen again until I was away at college and he wanted the bigger bedroom, that is. As the furniture in his room was being moved around, under a set of bookshelves was found the dried remains of Alvin. Apparently it was one of those spaces that's easier to get into than it is to get out of.

Alvin was interred in a Nike logo coffin in the flower bed, complete with cardboard headstone.

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

The previous owners of our house were several generations of my fiance's family, including four generations of fairly creepy Eddies. Thank goodness we haven't found porn. We would know exactly whose it was. But apparently Don's grandmother used the drop ceilings for extra storage; in the dining room ceiling, we found her Easter decorations, a giant ceramic fire hydrant, commemorative glassware, a vintage video camera, strange ceramic owls (and their ceramic perching-twig), and various other things which I will at some point try to sell on eBay, probably unsuccessfully.

At some point in the next month, we are going to venture up into the attic. It's crammed full of old family stuff. In the one glimpse I got during the home inspection (yes, we moved in in January and I haven't been up there since, it's dark and scary plus there's a live electrical wire stretched across the entrance), I saw bedframes and old board games and lots of mysterious boxes. Yay!

On an unrelated note, I got your postcard this weekend. It was full of the yayness. Yay! Thank you. :D [I was going to send you something in return, but no return address. :(]

[skwirly.livejournal.com]

And I promise I was not going to send you the giant ceramic fire hydrant. I swear.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sending address....

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Knowing exactly whose kipple you're picking through has some appeal until it gets creepy.

I knew some girls in college who used their drop ceiling to hide their cat when the RA or the CF came around.

Good luck with the live-wire attic. As markgritter notes above, the only thing in our attic is Uncle Charlie.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

Knowing exactly whose kipple you're picking through has some appeal until it gets creepy.

YAH, that.

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

hee!

All we have found is dried-up paint and very sloppily designed shelving.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what happened to me when I moved into my house in Miami!

We were painting the bedrooms, and my parents' boss came out of my bedroom closet laughing his ass off, and as it turns out there was a large pile of porn in there. Not just any porn, either. Hardcore gay porn. Titled, "Inches."

Maybe it's all a part of house warming?