Hi guys. This is going to be long and stupidly detailed, probably, but I'll try to keep it brief. I'll do it in timeline form, as well, to make it easier to understand.
I'm 31, I live in NJ. I have 2 kids, my wife, and my mother who lives with us. My wife's family gave us a downpayment gift. I'm a tradesman. Wife and I make $85k combined. My mother is essentially the third roommate in what she tries to pay, but I plan for my wife and I as the only income, in case my mother can not chip in anymore. We don't need her to, but she does anyway.
September: Had been house hunting for 6 months. NJ inventory was/is crap. Finally found a house. Built in 1928 (you can see where I'm going). 3 bedroom but a finished attic, so 4 bedrooms, which is one more than I'd get at my price range ($350k). Outside was in great shape. New siding, newer roof, newly enclosed porch, and then the finished attic. The inside was not as a nice, but doable. So I thought. The basement needed some work on the foundation walls, but wasn't structural. The bathroom needed to be redone. And it needed a new boiler. Other than that, some spackling, painting, and the floors were in need of refinishing. The kitchen was awful, but functional with some new appliances.
We started with an inspection. $500. Worthless. Said the steam pipes in the basement were wrapped in asbestos. No biggie. Keep them by taping them up or get them removed. Said the crumbling in the fieldstone foundation was no structural and just needed some concrete work. That was about the most info he gave me. So, I had a structural engineer come in ($250), a chimney guy $200), a plumber ($100), and an asbestos abatement company (free quote). $1000 in inspections. But nothing seemed to be a deal breaker. I consulted with a few friends, a contractor buddy, and gave the structural engineer the third degree. They all said it's a house with good bones. So I went ahead with it.
November: We close on the house. We get $12k in concessions from the sellers. They are getting divorced and just want to get it over with, it seems. So, my contractor friend is going to: Demo the old finished basement, remove the asbestos (convinced me NOT to let the abatement company rake me over the coals), and scrape the old crumbling fieldstone, pin it with rebar, and re-parge it, and then building a 4 foot high, 4 inch thick wall all around the basement, just to be safe being that he was already doing concrete work. Quoted me $7,500. Convinced me to redo the bathroom (as it would be awful to redo a single bathroom house while living there). $7,500. Found a phenomenal boiler guy to install a new boiler, with a new electric line, and vents, cleaning etc. $7,800. So, $22,800, all in. I budgeted for 20% more. Or about $27,000. Minus the $12,000 concession, and I was going to put $15,000 out of pocket. Which was fine and doable. We had a nice emergency fund -- $14,000. Were putting money in our IRA every month. We just decided to pay most of it cash, and then put the rest on a 0% credit card for a year, instead of dipping into any other funds.
December: Contract is delayed by 3 weeks, I have to pay another month's rent ($1,800). He found a corroded and cracked vent pipe from the basement up to the roof. Had to open the kitchen ceiling to get to it and the attic wall. 4x the amount of asbestos on the steam pipes (once the ceiling was open in the basement). And a few other odds and ends. Charged me an additional $2,200 for all of it. Had to be done. So be it. But then ... my contractor springs another $1,500 on me for higher end fixtures and tiles I went with. Note, I went with $4 sq ft tiles, floors, etc. Absolutely nothing high end except for the sink and shower faucets and vent fan. He also gave me the price of $7,500 with simply telling me everything was included. Then he turned around and told me that he thought the things that were NOT included were obvious. I'm a rookie with all of this. I hadn't the slightest clue. It is what it is and I learned my lesson. I duked it out with him for 2 days, screaming back and forth, telling him he was late by half the time, etc. It didn't matter. I gave him $800, or just about half. Figured I'd meet him in the middle and be done with it.
In the meantime, I'd had some blown-in insulation tested for asbestos. Because I was taking it, I decided to test the (terrible) drop ceiling tiles (they seemed to be from the 70s), some stucco texture from the kitchen, some other texture from the basement, and some plaster off the walls. That last one was a sheer hunch, as I'd read about asbestos plaster once or twice. Turns out, my hunch was right. I went ahead and tested plaster from the kitchen, the (now demolished) bathroom, and another part of the kitchen. All of it, aside from one wall, came back positive.
Now, I'm over-budget, I have asbestos plaster dust all in my new house, and I have 3 weeks to move in. My contractor cleaned everything "spotless" -- it was not in the least bit. I bought an air scrubber -- he didn't use it properly. HEPA filter for the shop vac. All that. So, I decided to just pay for an air quality test -- the more expensive one. With two kids, I wasn't risking it. $850 later (they charge $400 just to come out), I had every level of the house tested with 5,000 cubic foot pumps. The contractor blasted air into all the crevices of the house like an hour or two earlier (for the air scrubber). The tests all still came back negative. Thankfully. So, we moved in.
For a solid month, I worked with a $40 respirator (and countless cartridges), and cleaned every nook and cranny of dust possible. I painted all the walls in the house, except for the kitchen.
My mother gave us the gift of refinishing the floors. These are the original heart pine floors. Soft as hell. No sub floor. Gaps. Etc. They looked great, but I had no idea they were not worth it. More on that in a minute.
About two days before moving in, I found remnants of plaster under the old fridge and stove, in the radiators in the kitchen, etc. I lost it. Here I am, moving my two young kids into this fucking contaminated house in two days. Now, I've always been an anxious person, but this pushed it into overdrive. I posted in the /r/homeimprovement sub under a different name. All of them were insanely nice and supportive and reassured me that I was overblowing it, that exposure to the amount I'm talking about is negligible, so on and so forth. 100 replies, all positive, but everyone telling me to get some help with my anxiety (I have since). But I changed my account name because I felt like a nutjob at the time (and a few posters made me feel that way).
I cleaned up the best I can with a HEPA vac. Wipe down remaining stuff. Get everything into shape. And we move in. For 3 weeks after that, I mopped each room meticulously (7-8 times, still cleaning up dust).
Have lived here for a month, and the anxiety is worse than ever. A week after moving in, whenever the bathroom fan went on, I felt an ice cold breeze. Turns out the contractor never put metal flashing behind the recessed radiator. Just left it wide open behind. Had to have him fix that. The siliconing in the bathroom was a mess. Had to have that fixed. Still not perfect.
I've found that all the floors have gaps. Some that you can see (and feel) right down to the ceiling of the first floor (or, the basement if you're on the first floor). I can feel drafts from every inch of floor molding, some of the gaps, etc. I filled the bigger gaps with rope and wood glue, and even siliconed a few. I can still smell the inside of the walls/floors throughout the house. It's subtle. It's not mildew. It's just old wood and house. The problem is that inside of those walls is is asbestos plaster and dust, which I can just picture my kids and wife breathing in. I know it's a bit crazy, and I know the tests came back negative, but I know it's there. I can't hang pictures, demo a wall, hang pictures, etc., without a major process. I can't replace the floors because I'm broke.
The outlets are all two prong. I was going to replace them all myself, but now I can't do it without a process because of the plaster.
And now, the icing on the cake, is that I've found 9x9 asbestos tile, mastic, and vinyl under my entire kitchen floor, and under the stove, radiator, and dishwasher (exposed), and in horrible, folded, destroyed shape. It's also in the pantry. Now I have to have someone in tomorrow to give me a quote on abatement, as I can't do that myself. Here's to another $1,500-$2,000 at the very least.
All of the pipes coming out of the floors for the radiators have gaps around them, allowing air up. I can see the basement on the first floor (and little fuzzies I can only assume are leftover from the asbestos insulation. Most of it has been sprayed with Drylok (they Drylok'd the basement walls and floor after), but it's still there.
I'm done. I've had to spend $7,000 of my emergency fund, stopped contributing to my IRA for the time being, and am stressed beyond the point of living. Every single time I resolve something, something else pops up. The problem is that I don't think I can keep doing it. Whether or not I'm being rational, I'm going to have a stroke.
I can't do it mentally, I can't do it financially. I feel like I've fucked up badly. Put my family in danger. Destroying my financial future. I should've have done it and regret that day in September where I first looked at this house.
I haven't even kind of had the opportunity to enjoy this house or make it it my own. I'm constantly worried about everything. I will forever have asbestos in my floors and walls, surrounding us, and I just can't forget that. Forget lead and all that, I've stopped even thinking about all of it.
So that's where I'm at. I'm asking you, Reddit, what would be my best option to get out of this with the least amount of loss. I know I will lose something. I'm willing to accept that and walk away with whatever peace of mind I can get. Maybe I'm being insane, but I just need options, I guess.
I know that I now know about the problems, and I don't think I can, with any right mind, not tell someone about all of the asbestos and issues if I actually do sell this. Even if I didn't want to tell them, I'm sure it's not legal now that I know/it's on record anyway.
On top of the $356k loan, I've spent almost $30k, still owe $10k, potentially a bunch more for abatement.
I'm fucked, aren't I? I was just trying to do what was best for my family. I wanted to give them everything I didn't have as a child. I didn't know what I was getting into. I tried to research the best I could, but I have no family or direction otherwise.
I'll update this with any other details necessary. Sorry for the huge writeup. I just wanted to be thorough. Tried to limit the emotion.
*Edit: Thanks for the responses so far. I needed some levity and kindness. Been a rough few months.
Submitted February 11, 2018 at 05:47PM by accountilurkwith http://ift.tt/2nSHIUi
