Since winning a few houses in the Detroit tax auction, we’ve been working through the legal process to vacate the current occupants. It’s not quick.
Before filing a 30-day notice to vacate we had to wait for the deed. That took about a month in itself. Then we had to wait the full 30-days before filing with the court (nobody leaves the house during or after the 30-day notice). At that point, you wait for a court date, wait another couple weeks for the date the court orders the occupant to be out, and then cross your fingers they actually leave so you don’t have to file an actual eviction and have a bailiff out.
Basically, it’s the same process as a standard eviction. The only difference between vacating an occupied auction purchase and a rental tenant is you don’t have to file a 7-day pay or quit notice. You also generally don’t have a line of communication to the tenant.
In this case, we did have the latter. The week after the auction I left a note at the home, including my contact info. Ms. McCarty (she never gave me her first name, but we did later find it on a piece of mail) contacted me and I actually visited her at the home, and talked to her about potentially signing a lease agreement.
After several weeks of the eviction process coming to a head, and excuses from Ms. McCarty on why she wasn’t quite ready to leave the house and needed just a LITTLE more time, we finally took possession today without having to bring a bailiff out.
Ms. McCarty confirmed, over text, that she was fully moved out of the house and anything left was trash.
So I entered the house today with my friend and a locksmith. It wasn’t difficult given the doors weren’t locked. I went in the back door which opens to the kitchen, the gas stove directly in front of me had all four burners on high.
The power was out, and DTE has clearly removed and locked the electric meter. Someone was still living in the house, heating it with the stove. The house was trashed with enough stuff left behind to rival the abandoned property in our first eviction house.
Worse though… the mold. It’s everywhere!
Here’s a photo of one of baseboards in one of the corners of the living room:
The basement, once clearly beautifully finished, is a moldy mess. Ms. McCarty had previously informed me that water backs up every time they do the laundry. They never resolved the issue, and it’d been going on for at least 9 months. As a result, the basement is completely destroyed with water and mold having traveled several feet up the drywall. Don’t worry, I’ll have more photos in a future post.
As it sits right now, it feels like this house was a poor buy. I purchased it thinking it was a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom home, but it’s actually a 2 bed/1 bath. I’m going to take some time to wrap my head around this mess and figure out how we’ll proceed.
Luckily it’s in an area I really like and believe in. Now I have to go to a six-year-old birthday party at BounceU and drive to Pennsylvania.
What a way to start a weekend!