A San Francisco Bay Area influencer has warned that buying a home in the woods, no matter how beautiful, is a complete headache to maintain.
Laureise Livingston and her husband bought their charming 100-year-old home two years ago.
It was a dream come true – until they realized their roommates were rodents and beetles taking over the house.
“Just a PSA about buying a house in a wooded area: Just don’t,” Livingston says in a video posted on TikTok. Because their house is so old, there was “a lot of potential for issues.”
She detailed those issues in the video: “Rodents, bugs and beetles” have not only been a problem, but they’ve “eaten us alive financially.”
The surprising downsides of buying a home in the woods
One problem is Norway rats under the floorboards, Livingston says.
“Lying on the couch one night, we hear something scraping under our floorboards,” she says. “And what they’re doing is chewing through our HVAC ductwork, which is our heating ductwork. It’s the ductwork that blows all the air through our house, which is encased in asbestos.”
To deal with the issue, the couple had to pay over $4,500 for a treatment of their heating system. The other option was fumigation, which would set him back $7,000.
But mice being mice, they ate through the treatment that was applied and used it to make more nests.
“First we had to remove all the mice and then we had to remove all the HVAC ductwork,” she explains. “The whole process cost us about $10,000. We had no heat, no air, nothing, for maybe six months.”
Why rats were the least of their problems
Then, a termite company came to inform the couple that their neighbor had termites. The company offered them a free home inspection, which the couple accepted.
“Finally we run out of rats, we finally run out of rats and we’re like, ‘ahh no more problems,’ and then boom, Terminix calls us,” she says.
“So they come and the good news is: there are no termites,” says Livingston. “You have wood-boring beetles. My fiance and I have never heard of them. So we asked, ‘What is a wood-boring beetle?’ They say, ‘Well, they’re basically as bad as termites. They bite through the wood and lay small larvae in the wood. And then the eggs hatch. And then, those little eggs that are no longer little eggs, then go and bite into the wood until the wood is all in your house. So we said, ‘That doesn’t sound like a good thing. How do we fix it?’”
They were given two expensive options. One, set up the tent at home and remove everything that can melt, including “lipstick, makeup, anything that’s flammable,” for a $4,500 bug treatment or two. This would involve fumigating the house, forcing them to go out for four days for $7,000.
“And it’s poison,” Livingston adds.
The two decided to deal with the house for $4,500.
“At least the beetles are gone,” says Livingston.
How to avoid pest infestation
Livingston’s story is a terrifying lesson that homebuyers should try to check for pests before buying a home.
Pest infestations are often part of the disclosures sellers must make to potential buyers, so be sure to ask.
When in doubt, you can always hire a pest inspector to check the house or search for clues yourself. Here are some signs of a pest infestation in a home you may want to buy.
#Homeowner #warns #buying #forest #home #major #pest #problem #Theyre #eating #alive #financially
Image Source : nypost.com