Here we are, full of hopes and dreams . . . I was seven weeks pregnant with Lila . . . and unbeknownst to us, we are standing in what we found out was essentially a giant litter box for feral cats.
The first night in the house, Sandy got fleas . . . and we realized the house was infested. The poor girl had enough on her plate with this move to a strange new house. Then we noticed some cats hanging around that we hadn't seen the two times we walked the house . . . and when we say, "some cats," we mean 30 wild ones, that our next door neighbor is feeding. The second night in the house, we awoke to sounds of a cat fight (one of the worst sounds in the world).
Here's a picture of one of them on top of our neighbor's roof, which we saw happen regularly:
Before I start, I just want to clarify again, that Justin and I like cats! We grew up with cats. Cats as pets, that were properly taken care of, and not running wild, that is. My cat Jasper lived for almost 20 years and he was the best cat you ever met. I loved that guy.
Of course, we were completely freaked out because of toxioplasmosis, a disease people can contract from cat feces, and it can cause pregnancies to abort. We had cat piss and pee all over our front and back yard. At any given time, we were chasing 5-7 cats off of our property. If I opened the kitchen window while I was cooking (which I had to do for awhile because we didn't even had a hood fan in that fancy schmancy kitchen of ours), a bunch of cats would show up and start meowing.
Justin, the amazing husband that he is, launched an all out campaign against feral cat colonies in our county, after learning that anyone can have a colony wherever they want, and there is no limit to how many cats live at the colony, and with over 520 colonies in our county, they estimate that there is 50,000 wild cats not truly being cared for. He met with the councilmen several times, attended hearings, and caused so much stir that a lobbyist group from DC (seriously, worry about your own area) flew people down to try to stop the county from banning feral cat colonies). Justin hasn't gotten them banned entirely, but the county did put a stop to any new colonies forming, and now requires that people get adjacent neighbor's permission if they want to start a colony. Indian Harbour Beach, the next town north of us, just banned feral cat colonies in public places, which was a huge step because they had a large colony in one of their beautiful public parks, Gleason Park, where tons of people take their children, go for walks, and ride their bikes. As for our situation, it turned out that our neighbor did not have a registered colony, so all of the cats were relocated, and after battling the fleas for about two and half months, we got rid of them and have been flea free ever since.
Lauren & Justin: 1, House 0.
THEN, when we had a particularly heavy rain storm, we learned that the back yard and pool deck had terrible drainage issues. How did we know this? Oh, when the water pooled up so much that it was starting to pool up in our sliding glass door tracks, which are a good four inches from the ground. Justin had to go out in the middle of a lightning storm and push the water away from our house with a broom. Safe, I know. You can kind of get an idea with this picture:
We did our best to work on it on our own, and Justin found this disgusting thing inside one of our drain pipes:
Justin & Lauren: 2, House: 0.
Being pregnant, your sense of smell is heightened. And boy, did I hate the way our house smelled. I decided it was coming from the grasscloth wallpaper that was pretty much in every room of the house. (The only rooms it wasn't in was the office, guest room, kitchen, and sun room). We had it removed, and then found out our walls looked like doo-doo. (Hey, this is a family blog. You know what word I really wanted to use). Here's a picture:
We couldn't just paint over them the way they were. We also noticed, once the wallpaper was gone, that there was 7 different types of trim (door, window and baseboard) in our house. We decided to do a cosmetic face lift: new texture on the walls, new trim, new paint . . . and get rid of this awkward column below, and open up the kitchen (the far right wall in the picture).
It was completely worth it in the long run, even though the renovations nearly killed Justin because our contractor was so horrible . . .
so I'm going to say again,
Lauren & Justin: 3, House 0.
See pictures of before and after!
Also, remember that front yard that we lovingly referred to as a giant litter box? Yeah, we had to do something about that too. And the jungle in our back yard. See pictures of our transformation here.
Lauren & Justin: 4, House 0. (I'm tempted to give us an extra half point for the yard because it looks that good . . . but I can't, because right after we laid the new sod, our irrigation pump broke and we had to replace it). Doesn't it seem like it never ends?!
I don't want to forget the saga of our wall oven either. We didn't have a working oven for the first 8 months we lived here.
Lauren & Justin: 5, House 0.
Then, the love of our life arrived, Lila, and it all came together. The battle with our house was pretty much over. Dad and Justin installed the hood fan and the rest of the doors got hung, and our beautiful threshold was installed.
Lauren, Justin & Lila: 8, House 0.
It's one year later, and we can honestly say, it was a hard transition, but we did it, we love our house, we adore our daughter, and now we can relax and enjoy living in Florida! To many more years here!
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