Spooky
Profunksticated is back in the DC area, ready to start a new gig this week. I’ll post on the job once I’ve been there a couple of days.
But let’s cover another topic, shall we? Last weekend, The Spouse, my mother-in-law, a cousin and I spent some time cleaning some stuff out of the house of The Spouse’s late godfather, Uncle F. This is a row house in Philly’s Germantown section, and it hasn’t been cleaned since F’s wife passed in 1990. There are layers and layers of dust. The house is hot and stuffy. Clutter is everywhere. Walls and ceilings are peeling like potatoes in an Army mess hall. The interior of the house, in short, looks and feels disgusting.
I wasn’t wearing a mask, and I literally felt sick from breathing the dust. But we got some nice stuff out of there, like dishware, ceramic trinkets, an old globe and some old vinyl records. The furniture includes a potentially valuable carved wooden bedframe that came with the house when F and his wife bought it 50 years ago.
Oh, did I mention that F’s son, who is something like 67, still lives there? I think this guy has some sort of mental problem. Remember, F cut his son out of his will, leaving everything to my mother-in-law. He did leave the son $1.
The son, who should have taken it upon himself to maintain the home as long as he’s lived there with his dad (since his own divorce nearly 20 years ago), continues to live amidst this filth.
He stacks two-week-old pizza boxes on the kitchen floor. He lines empty juice bottles along a kitchen counter instead of throwing them away. Copies of The Philadelphia Inquirer dating back to 2003 are piled on the floor in one bedroom. And he has a thing for porn. Photos of topless black female pinups adorn the wall of the bedroom he uses. Smut-laden VHS tapes and DVDs are everywhere.
My mother-in-law, being the generous woman that she is, wants to sell the house and give the son a portion of the proceeds so he can move out to California to be near his son, F’s grandson. But she has no choice but to hire someone to clean out the place and then sell it as is, which won’t fetch as high a price as it would had the home been properly maintained. As it stands now, potential buyers are spooked when they enter the house.
And speaking of spooked, I cracked up when my cousin hummed the theme to the 60s TV show The Munsters as we entered the darkened house. (The son was at work as we did our rummaging.)
The plan is to sell some of this stuff on eBay (you guessed right) and ensure the proceeds go back to the estate. I’ll let you know how it goes.
i loved that show
I didn’t appreciate The Munsters until I was much older for its turning pop culture on its head. Thanks for visiting.
Comment by rawdawgbuffalo — July 9, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
My parent are in Mt. Airy, 40 years this August! I love the old homes in Germantown. But I
can imagine that this one was just plain creepy!!!!!! Expecting Grandpa Muster to come out
of the basement. hahahaha
Naw the basement was full of dust and Grandpa flying around in the form of a bat. LOL!
Comment by onefromphilly — July 10, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
ohh my gosh… how can someone live in such a house…
okay i have a few copies of ‘The Guardian’ dating to a week ago, on top ofn my chairand felt a wee bit guity over there…
Shazza, welcome. We all scratch our heads wondering how this old dude can live like that when he didn’t have to. Newspapers and all the junk constituted a major fire hazard.
Comment by Shazza — July 11, 2008 @ 10:09 am
The son may benefit more from a visit to a shrink or a facility than a trip to CA.
A, The Spouse told me he suffered a head injury in a car accident as a youth. Perhaps the then-lack of proper treatment could be manifesting itself.
Comment by A — July 14, 2008 @ 12:10 am