Cleaning up deceased MILs place

Today my nephew and I tackled the remains of the feelthy Norfolk Island Pine Needle infested shed.
When those needles break down it produces a nasty itchy dust.

All the tools and decent bits of timber had long gone.

A neighbour had then taken taken most of the remaining unwanted/unpainted timber to use as fire wood.
All that was left were 3 old benches, some rust metal shelving bolted to the walls, painted timber and weathered masonite and chipboard.
The was also a set of wooden shelves with jarrah shelves made of boards some 12" wide which I broke down and kept.
The benches and the shelving shown in the photo below RE going to a large farm workshop down south.
Nephew cleaning up the drive.
Attachment 464781.
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And finally here it is.
Bit of history here.
SWMBO and I lived in the little beach house the first year we were married and this shed was my first real workshop.
At that stage it was only about half full of beachy and assorted beach house crap but I had the other half to work in about 20sqm.
I put the shelves up, added a few power points, and welded up the frame for my own small bench from old bed frames which lasted a bout 30 years.
I bought a small combo machine and on the first day I used it I docked 5mm off my LH ring finger with the buzzer and was out of action for 6 weeks,

Today most of what's on the floor is crushed decomposed Norfolk Island pine needles.
The box on the RHS has spare house floor tiles in it and will remain in the shed.
All that needs to be done here is cover myself with overalls, boots, gloves and my Triton respirator and sweep it out.
Then I will repair the holes in the back wall.

Attachment 464782

The crap we took to the tip with my Nephews 1978? F150.
Best thing about it - it has a tipping tray!
Quickest unload EVER.
Sorry about the crappy photo - lens must have been fogged.
Attachment 464783

That is a really excellent repair. If you had not pointed it out it would not have been seen.
:2tsup:

About to start the shed sweep.
Attachment 464845

That shed is probably 98% asbestos....

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

That shed is probably 98% asbestos....

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Yep!

It turned out I didn't not get very far after I got dressed up in the PPE as shown in the above photo. I had swept up less than half the floor when the respirator batteries started to go flat so had to stop and as I had the charger at home could not do anymore until today.

Today I spent almost the day at the salt mine.

The main task was supervising the blokes in the Vinnies truck that came to pick up the residual furniture. Beds, tables chairs, outdoor settings, dressing tables, side tables, recliner rocker, etc They took about 80% of the furniture and all 37 boxes of "stuff" we had prepackaged for them. Now I have to find homes for a solid timber "bar", a decent king size single bed, a wall unit, solid timber wardrobe and 2 washing machines and a dryer. I think I have takers for the bar and wardrobe. The rest will probably go on GT on the the weekend.

Anyway we now finally have the amount furniture down to where the rest can fit in the garage along with the remaining 50+ boxes of crap that still need sorting by SWMBO.

With freshly charged respirator batteries I finished the shed floor sweep and bagged up the crap and was surprised to see it fit into 10 large green garbage bags which along with another dozen or so bags full of rubbish from the houses plus some odd and sods made for a worthwhile tip run but this time in my van.

I also found and wrapped up some 25 asbestos offcuts and was able to dispose of them in the recommended OHS manner at the local tip when I went to drop off the other rubbish- still cost me a double standard tip fee ($146). The asbestos had to be double wrapped in 200 micron plastic. I already had many metres of 100 micron plastic but the tip people would not accept quadruple wrapping or sextuple wrapping in 100 micron so had to buy some 200 micron especially for the job. Luckily I rang them to check their requirements. Packages of plastic wrapped asbestos had to be be abled to be picked up by me and transferred to a large loader bucket which there able to place right alongside my van so that bit was easy.

I reserved a couple of the asbestos offcuts to patch holes in the shed. One was probably a cricket ball hole that is some 40 years old. The other happened last weekend when the nephew put a plank through the wall.

While I was on site I did a few handy man jobs.
Looking forward to a rest tomorrow although SWMBO is threatening to want to go down - she still can't drive due to vertigo. I'm hoping her brother will take her down :)

My remaining tasks are a bunch of repairs - maybe a day at the most?

Hoo - BLOODY - ray.

A few years ago did a refurb' of a shed including disposing of asbestos sheeting at the tip. Carefully wrapped in heavy black plastic stacked on a pallet and on the back of my ute. Got to the tip and was directed to the assy disposal area to wait for the loader or forklift to come down and remove it from the ute. Bloke rocks up, loader won't start might have to come back later. The ramp down into the hole is pretty steep so I suggested I drop the tailgate reverse hard down the ramp, hit the anchors and parcel will slide off. Tip bloke agrees it'a a brilliant plan he'll give me a yell when to anchor. Took off down the ramp hit, the brakes, asbestos flew out the end of the plastic wrapper and scattered down the ramp. I asked the tip bloke what was the next move and he suggested we both leave the scene of the crime and he'll come back later when his loader is fixed.

More than 15 years ago when the 12m long back fence (timber frame and asbestos sheet) blew down during storm so I discussed thiswith the prickly bastard neighbour. I got a couple of quotes for a new fence including the removal of the old one but they wanted over $500 to remove the old fence so I said I would do the disposal as long as the neighbour paid for half the costs. I carefully double wrapped each sheet and carted them the 30 km to the asbestos waste disposal place in Kwinana where they weighed the van and then I followed a VERY dusty track up onto an asbestos hill about 100m high where there were heaps of mostly unwrapped asbestos pieces just laying around and a D9 dozer running back and forth over the piles crushing them down. I held my breath dumped my sheets and ran for it.

BTW the wrapping plastic and gaffer tape cost about $60 and the disposal fee was $45, and although the mongrel neighbour paid for half the replacement fence he never paid for half the disposal cost of the old fence.

Another day at the salt mine mainly spent delivering stuff to people.

This morning we had a sofa, King single bed and base, wardrobe wall unit, 2 washing machines and a drier to find homes for.
A washing machine, the drier, bed and wall unit went as freebies on GT - I delivered these for a fee in two trips with my van.
I took one of the washing machines to a relatives place, a neighbour took the sofa and now there's just a wardrobe left.

At the last minute a sheet of ceiling plaster in the beach house decide to develop a 1m long crack and drop a couple of inches down from the ceiling. I injected half a tube of Liquid Nails through the crack and Acro propped the sheet back into place. I'll see if that worked tomorrow. One of the glass panes in one of the beach beach house windows is really loose so that will get something applied to it tomorrow.

So almost there.
In my van are ~6 bags and a couple of boxes going to Vinnies.
Still in the garage there is about half a van load of crap SWMBO wants to sort through at home (DOH!)
On the drive is a ratty bed base, a delimited plywood dresser, and a half Utes worth of rubbish all destined for the tip.

Cleaners come in tomorrow.

Meanwhile our place looks more and more like a tip.

Well, I thought it was all done and dusted but it turns out we need to go back one more time.

The ceiling crack repair with liquid nails I described above has failed so will need to go back and nail/screw the plaster board in place.

The main reason we need to go back is the cleaners did not do a good job on some of the carpet stains, they reckoned they were too ingrained.
SWMBO is dynamite with these so she wants to have a go just to prove the cleaners wrong.

Meanwhile, as I already said, our place looks like one of those hoarder TV shows but to give her credit SWMBO is methodically working here way through the monster sort of the 50 odd boxes/bags of stuff still inside our house.
Yesterday I did "milk run" with the van taking 5 boxes/bags of stuff to Vinnies, 4 bags/boxes of "craft stuff" to the woman that runs the craft sessions at mums dementia care facility, and dropped off more stuff at various relatives and friends place. Sometimes I think I should get a "StarTrak" sign for the side of van.

We also got rid of 4 green garbage bags of rubbish and SWMBO came up with a clever way to get rid of some useless "bric-a-brac" by making up a bunch of funny "lucky dips" which she took to her Book Club's Xmas function last night. Apparently it went down a treat and she came home with an empty bag.

Yesterday was supposed to be the last day on this job as the house will be made available for inspection as from Wed this week.

However, it looks like we will have to go back one more time mainly to do a bit more on the garden. Personally I think the garden would need many dozens of hours to make any significant difference but SWMBO reckons she can do something with it. I will go down with her and do a few odd jobs but then probably take the dogs to the beach.

The beach house ceiling repair worked this time with a half dozen plaster screws and a bit of white bog. The ceiling repair scattered paint flakes and plaster dust everywhere so that room needed to be vacuumed. I ended up vacuuming the whole beach house as the walls were in places spotted with fly poo so that had to be swept down and vacuumed up.

To make them easier for the neighbour to move I dismantled a set of crappy looking rusty metal shelves still sitting on the drive way

To stop the grandies from leaving lights on, FIL had a propensity for covering some half dozen light switches with layers of sticky tape. The tape had long since fallen off but most of the adhesive was still there and looked really grubby. I attacked these with "Dissolve it" and elbow grease.

Meanwhile SWMBO spent 5 hours on her hands and knees on carpet spots in the main house and used up 3 bottles of carpet cleaner with mixed success. The most remaining visible issue is the carpet has lots of unbleached patches and substantial dents in it where furniture stood for 30 something years and there's not much that can be easily done about this. SWMBO managed to fluff the carpet back up with a steam cleaner but the underlay is probably permanently crushed underneath so the dents are still visible.

There are also half dozen black spots on the carpet that need further attention using something stronger tham regular carpet cleaner. These would not be so bad if they were more out of sight eg in a corner, but they are right at the top of the stairs so are sort of in your face as you step off the stair landing.

The wardrobe in the garage still needs to be disposed of and I want to make sure the neighbour removes the work benches and shelves from the drive otherwise I will take these to the tip.

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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I agree, although I then would have to listen to SWMBO rant and rave on about it for the rest of our lives.

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Originally Posted by BobL

I agree, although I then would have to listen to SWMBO rant and rave on about it for the rest of our lives.

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Agreed! Its excellent fun. She'll be envious she didn't get a go :)

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Originally Posted by woodPixel

It would have been easier to rent a bulldozer for 2 hours....

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...and that's when the fight started.