Where's my stuff?

Have you ever seen a scene in the movies or on TV where a character is so shocked by something or laughs so hard he spits his water out? That was me today except fortunately I didn't have anything in my mouth. If you haven't seen the very early pictures on this blog, you may want to take a look. The guy we bought the house from, in addition to not cleaning, was a hoarder. Even after legal threats, hiring movers for him, etc. he still left massive amounts of stuff here in spite of the fact that the sales contract read "property to be delivered free of all personal possessions."

We dealt with that trash for months - days of picking up, dumpsters, trips to the toxic waste dump, more than 50 trash bags, special pickups, hiring a hauler, etc. The garage was FULL when we were inspecting the place prior to purchasing it, and I do mean full to the point that you couldn't even put two feet inside it so you could stand in it. It was packed floor to ceiling and front to back. He took most of the stuff from the garage and just left some trash for us to deal with. I was glad he didn't leave a lot in the garage since it was all big stuff.

The guy we bought the place from also led, shall I say, an interesting life. I found drug paraphenalia and a summons to drug court in the debris and heard stories of huge domestic blowouts from the neighbors. Also according to the neighbors, the police were regular visitors. We began our purchase of this house in Early October 2005, and it became ours at the end of December. We often wonder if one of his buddies would show up and knock on the door. After a year or so of us living here, we began to breathe easy and think it would never happen.

Imagine my surprise when today, 2 1/2 years after we took possession of the house, someone knocks on the door. Normally I don't answer if I don't know who it is, but with two barking dogs I felt safe enough to answer it. He introduces himself and says he is a friend of the former owner. (UH OH!!) "I had some stuff in the garage and was wondering if you knew what happened to it." Here's where I was glad I hadn't just taken a drink because it would have been sprayed movie-style all over the place. After 2 1/2 years, he didn't even know the place had been sold. He is a contractor and happened to be driving by and noticed the different (and operational) cars in the driveway and that the house looks (totally) different and figured it must have been sold so he knocks on the door.

I had to fight my very strong urges to make a smart-alec comment or to laugh in his face both of which I felt sorely tempted to do. First, this place was filled with filthy, moldy junk. The garage was so gross that the smell gagged me once when we were here in the rain (it's fine now). What could he possibly want that was there? Second, what could you possibly have stashed in someone's garage that you don't use for 2 1/2 years (and probably way longer) that you still want? Third, how is it that you are close enough to someone to store your junk in his garage, but not close enough to have spoken to him in 2 1/2 years or know that he went through a major move?

This really blew me away, but I'm glad it was one of his packrat friends and not one of his druggie friends.