Home Ownership And You!

@steveinaz asked for some pictures a little while ago.

Since I'm sitting here with a respiratory thing going on due to what is likely a reaction to a mold allergy (which I have), I was thinking that maybe I could get some photos together. I have been doing tons of work here so I'm not photo dumping. I figured I'd tell stories and post accompanying photos.

Quick background on the property: In May/June of 2017, went looking at houses with Jackie, the better 3/4ths. We found this property that was pretty shabby but, roughly 4 acres of land, has a lake contained completely within the property line. The property is also very old. Boundary lines for the plot were drawn out in, like, 1830. It was a farm back then supporting the town up the street which was a mill at first and then became a paint factory. Prior to that the land space is tied to a royal grant that goes back to when England acquired the settlement of New Sweden from the Swedish and turned it into a "Proprietary Colony of England" called the Province of New Jersey. The land was part of a royal grant given to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley of Stratton by the King of England after the land was taken from Sweden. The plot was part of a survey for the Province of West Jersey which was eventually sold to the Quakers (William Penn) due to governance conflicts with East Jersey and New York. The house that is on the land was built in 1925, a year after the town was officially incorporated as a town in 1924. Prior to that, the town surrounding the Lucas paint works and the Hilliards Mill was basically there for the workers who worked at the mill and paint factory. So it was a "company town". Hilliards Mill was established by guy named George Matlack in 1714 who owned the mill and surrounding land he bought from the Quakers. He sold it to Joesph Hilliard in 1744. That's who the mill is named after and in 1766, he sold some of the property and the mill to John Matlack, a nephew of George Matlack. John Matlak died and left the property to Hannah Matlack Gibbs, his daughter, who renamed the mill The Gibbs Mill. The Gibbs family rebuilt and expanded the mill on Silver Lake and the surrounding town subsequently expanded and became an unincorporated town in Waterford Township in Gloucester County. In 1812, the Gibbs family sold the 500 acre estate the town and mill were on as well as the mill to John Clement. My property plot is on the edge of that 500 acre parcel which was broken up in the early 1800's and was part of a farm that one of the Gibbs family members ran until it was parceled out even further in 1852 when came to town, bought just the mill and the rest of the parcels were broken up and sold off. The property boundary has been in place since at least 1852. Prior to that when it was part of a much bigger parcel that included the gun club and all the frontage properties as well as the cemetery on my street, it was marked off in surveys as far back as 1766 which were the records used by the new government after the creation of the State of New Jersey. The property parcel actually spans two towns, both of which were incorporated in the early 1900's, long after this parcel's lines were drawn up. So yeah, aside from the lake, this plot of land has been either farm or forest since before NJ was a thing. I'm pretty sure the house is a Sears house too.

The lake is a sluice lake controlled and created by a small sluice dam. Yes, I own the dam. The lake was dug out and dragged in 1929 or thereabouts and the records show the dam in place by 1930 and the lake was created in 1931 and on the list of local waterways.

The lake is part of two tributaries that make up the headwaters of the Cooper River in NJ. So not only is it partial flood plain but it's protected watershed for much of the property. That's important to remember as I get to the stories about the illegal dumping from the previous owner.

The property has 3 neighbors. A frontage property to one side that only goes back about 175 feet. On the other side is a large baptist church. We are separated by a stream, though. Behind me and behind my neighbor is a gun club that owns the property as a "buffer zone" which is A-OK by me. Beyond that is a nature conservancy and then part of a small town and the Wharton State Forest.

So aside from my one neighbor who is a pack of arsewholes I'm on a lonely plot of land with my own lake. The lake has an "island". I use quotes because someone once dug a trench across a pennisula and made an "island". But the previous owner didn't maintain it so it's filled in and has become a bug farm.

We got in to this house because we got it for a song. Mainly because of the condition the property was in. But this isn't beyond my capabilities so I was ok with getting in to it. It's still not beyond my capabilities, there's just a ton of work to do which is, again, fine with me. There's just an aspect here that needs explaining to understand the frustrations.

Previous owner has been referred to as Captain Halfass. Because everything here that has been half-assed has his fingerprints all over it. There's two kinds of problems at this house. Old house problems which I fully expected and am equipped to handle. Then there's Captain Halfass problems. Those are usually stupid stuff added to "remedy" an old house problem that makes things 10 times more difficult than they need to be. Like, for instance, my first set of pictures.

This was how the kitchen was when we took possession of the house. Well, not completely, there were a couple cabinets and an old range hood in the space of bare plaster board above the stove. I can't find those pictures right now, if I do, I'll post them. The reason why is because the kitchen "update" was done without permits and not to code. The stove was too big for the space and it was actually burning the cabinets that were there. Previous owner, instead of listening to the inspector, remedied it with a new electric stove that still didn't pass code. So none of this was inspected until the day of closing. I had to leave the stove off and unconnected to be able to get the ok for the sale to go through otherwise I was gonna lawyer up. I got a 30 days extension to be able to fix the problem before the rest of the fam could move in.





So I had a bunch of fixing to do. Also, those cabinets on either side? They were scorched on the bottom because they hung over the stove top and were too close to range top. The stove was actually burning them. With the state of the electrical behind it, I have no idea how they didn't set the house on fire.

So after getting an electrician friend to come over and help me with figuring out the mess and having a plumber fix the gas line, this is how it looked. What we did was my father and I built new cabinets to mimic the cabinets in the rest of the kitchen that would be code for the new stove. We installed a microwave /range hood as well.



When it was all done, I went and bent up some stainless steel filler panels and made a stainless steel backsplash.



This is all temporary until we get the kitchen redone. It has to be gutted, unfortunately. Captain Halfass didn't remove anything when he put new granite counter tops in and new flooring. So things like the dishwasher are tiled in to place and there's 4 floors underneath that tile. Also, the "refinished" bathroom off the kitchen has none of the plumbing done right and the sink leaks because the vanity and vanity top are not secure to the wall or floor or even each other for that matter. Also, as you can see in the pictures above, the vent duct for the original range hood? Doesn't go anywhere. I'm pretty sure there is a godfosaken hell behind the cabinets because the vent just vented into the space behind the cabinet header. Oh, also, junction and outlet boxes were buried behind the cabinets. That's not only a big code problem but it's a big fire hazard. So yeah. Full. Gut. Job.

Can't wait.