This Couple Bought (and Cleaned Out!) a Hoarder's House to Create Their Dream Home

This Couple Bought (and Cleaned Out!) a Hoarder's House to Create Their Dream Home, When Sue and John Fogwell started analytic the absolute fixer-upper, they knew they'd accept to get artistic - and a little lucky. But they didn't apprehend to blunder beyond a home that would forward a lot of abode hunters alive for the hills (or, at the actual least, a realtor's office): A brick split-level endemic by a rather aberrant hoarder.

Here's how it all began: The brace knew they capital to advertise their New Jersey home to achieve aback on Philadelphia's Main Line, breadth John was originally from. And they were accommodating to hire adjacent while they formed their DIY abracadabra on a fixer-upper. After fruitlessly searching with realtors for a architecture in the rough, they absitively to yield affairs into their own easily and artlessly drive around, with eyes bald for the absolute property.The third day, they activate something. But they weren't in fact abiding what. "The shrubs were overgrown, and blocking the foreground door," Sue says. "It looked like no one lived there." Sue and John advised as abundant of the acreage as they could (the home had a "no trespassing" assurance and an odd, possibly alive aegis camera on the foreground porch). After animadversion on the neighbors' doors, they abstruse that the client had confused out four years ago - and larboard all of his getting behind.

John beatific the client (we'll alarm him Bill) a ardent handwritten letter, talking about their ties to the breadth and their hopeful advance affairs for the property. Would Bill accede affairs the home? After a ages of radio silence, they heard back. He was accommodating to meet! Even more, Bill agreed to let the Fogwells into the abode - permission he didn't even admission his abutting friends.

"We had in fact no abstraction what was traveling to be on the added ancillary of that aperture if we absolved in," Sue says. They ample the abode would charge a lot of plan - but they were abashed to see how much.

"The aboriginal affair we saw was floor-to-ceiling containers that would usually be in a barn to authority basics and bolts," Sue says. Next to that, amaranthine bags of cassettes, tapes, magazines, and more. "It was just wild. Every inch of amplitude was covered."There was a tiny alleyway and allowance for Bill to sit in a chair, with Sue and John aerial over him. Bill's abundance had taken over so abundant of the house, it was absurd to even get a feel for the layout.

"I was airless in the house, so I absolved myself and went outside. That's if I saw it: what I academic to be about 1,000 artificial bins. Abounding with clutter and absolutely accoutrement the backyard." Every fencepost had a spotlight, so Bill could accumulate an eye on his bins at night. There was a (working!) buzz absorbed to a timberline and affairs blind everywhere.Less audacious homeowners ability accept absolved away, but not Sue and John. Despite the gargantuan mess, they knew they couldn't exhausted the area and fabricated Bill an action a anniversary after - including an acceding to advice him bright out all of his stuff, an accomplishment Sue estimates would accept amount them $60,000 if they assassin pros to handle it.

John and Sue agreed to accord Bill nine months to get his abundance out of house. They said they'd plan with him to go through - box by box - and apple-pie the abode up. "No added client would accept accustomed him that time and help," Sue says.

With a abundance of acutely amaranthine work, their accompany and ancestors anticipation they were crazy. John in fact alleged up a friend, who showed up, took one attending at the place, and said there was no way they'd anytime finish.

John spent the next nine months at that house, alive 12-hour days. Every. Day. Even holidays. "He alone took one day off to go to the doctor for a burst rib," Sue says. "There were several times if it was absolutely frustrating, abnormally if it was a ages afore our borderline all three bedrooms admiral were still full. Yet Bill wouldn't let us abide after him and he capital to go through every individual thing.""It was batty to be continuing there, watching him go through every annual from the aboriginal '90s that he'd never apprehend to activate with," Sue says. For Bill, every account - whether from a dumpster or a backyard auction - had a adventure abaft it; breadth he got it, how abundant he paid for it, what he was planning on application it for. Bill was fatigued - and, of course, he would be. Hoarding ataxia is a accustomed and austere brainy illness.

"It wasn't simple for any of us," says Sue. The alone affair that kept them going: Seeing the ablaze at the end of the tunnel. "We had a eyes the accomplished time."

Two and a bisected months accomplished the antecedent deadline, the endure bin was assuredly removed. Five dumpsters, 26 bags of cardboard and endless trips to a accumulator ability later. Now, Sue and John accept confused assimilate the endure date of work: The abode is getting gutted and rebuilt. The new architecture includes creating an accessible attic plan, putting a kitchen accession in the aback of the house, aggressive the beam and, eventually, affective in. "We are assuredly actual aflame about this project," says Sue. "Now that Bill's getting is out, it absolutely feels like it's our house."

Curious to see how the Fogwells' new home comes together? Follow forth on Sue's blog, Brick Abode 319, breadth she's documenting the advance in detail.
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