Concerns about mold have to be moderated by the facts. First, mold is rarely harmful to anyone who does not have a pre-existing lung condition. Second, if mold resulted from a roof leak, repairing the leak destroys about 90% of the mold. Mold cannot live without moisture. this from the EPA website.

Thanks for using the wooden lattice, rather than the plastic stuff which gives a “doll house” effect.

I just heard today from my cross-the-street neighbor that an artist friend of his has bought the white house on the corner of Knowles and Pleasant, right next to you. This is great news, because I’ve met the buyer and I’m sure this is a good development for our neighborhood.

The gray house two doors in from the corner of Pleasant, on the up side of Camp, foreclosed in January and I’m pretty sure an inside deal happened; it sold before it went on the market. I can only hope the agents who bought it will do it justice, because it’s a very fine house that just needs love and a good paint job. If these guys do nearly as good a job on it as Moreland did to 7 Knowles, the whole neighborhood is going to be happier for it; it’s a “key” house. We’ve already got a great neighborhood, and if we get more like Moreland and fewer half-assed “investors”, who’ve made a lot of money here but set the neighborhood teetering over the last ten years or so, things’ll get better for everyone here — including, at last, a lot of families who’ve lived here since the 60s or so, and have seen the worst of it all, and are some of the best neighbors you could ever dream up.

So yeah — this is really quite a forgottenprovidence success story, innit?

Ya hear, Stump? Thanks for doing it. Consciousness — it spreads…

Cody

I am actually the owner of this property and I used your site in great detail before I bought this place (along with HUD inspection reports among others). Also, I do have to admit I’ve been quite amused watching you talk about it for a while now. What you don’t see is the incredible detail remaining inside, especially when it comes to the floors. Amazingly, there was next to no mold, water damage, fire damage, or anything. I had an extremely thorough inspection of all kinds done to be sure of that, including mold testing and thermal image scanning. Don’t get me wrong; there are issues still to contend with, but what do you expect with a 105 year old house?

Stump, feel free to e-mail me and I’ll send you a link to some pictures. Cody, feel free to stop on by sometime and say hello!

And thanks for doing a lot of background research for me. It helped me out a great deal in the buying/negotiating process.

-JP

Then Moreland came in and did a thorough and good-looking rehab, even keeping a lot of the original interior details, which, from the “before” pictures above, you wouldn’t have expected to be intact or even worth saving, but they were. Moreland didn’t just come in with a down-and-dirty vinyl siding job, either — they replaced the shingled siding and turned what had been the neighborhood’s worst eyesore into a really attractive house. At some point in the past few months, they turned it over for $171k. After a decade of seeing this neighborhood raped and pillaged by “investors” who’d do half-assed renos and then flip for a sizable profit, it was a surprise to see Moreland come in and do the great job they did bringing 7 Knowles back to life. I’d consider it a stroke of luck if they should get hold of the house that just went vacant next door to mine, and do a similar restoration there.