The place was a fixer-upper, and we knew that going in.
When you inherit a house, and a piece of land, you can’t look that gift horse in the mouth.
This was a free house, one much bigger and nicer than the small condo where we had been living. It came with a lot of work, though, repairs and renovations that were long overdue. Whoever the previous owners were had been very odd people, and the more we settled in the more surprises we found hidden in the depths of the house. The first floor seemed normal enough, and although the face of the thermostat was blank, it just needed batteries. After the batteries were replaced, we were delighted to find that the central HVAC system turned on, albeit a little slowly. I set it to the heating mode, and then held my hand in front of an air vent to see the strength and the temperature of the air flow. I felt nothing come out of the vent, so I switched the thermostat over to cooling mode and repeated the process. The system seemed to be working, and yet nothing came out of the air vents! My husband took the grating off of the main intake air vent for the house, and we found that the air duct was jammed full of old magazines. I instantly felt so dirty, because there were thousands of old, damp, moldy porno mags jammed into the ductwork of this place! To clean out the air ducts would mean touching all those magazines, and I just can’t do that!