Beware! This posts contains some unpleasant photos.

I stood in the row of cedars and watched as the sheriff and officer knocked on the door. I scanned the yard, searching for a head poking out of one of the many trailers scattered around the house and shop. No one came to the door. A locksmith was working on the lock. The officer walked back toward the laneway and motioned my husband to pull in. I pushed my way out of the line of cedars, ran to the truck and hopped in. We pulled up to the house as the sheriff walked down the steps and met him by the porch. His first words were unexpected. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Nothing could have prepared me for what was waiting inside.

In 2018, I sold the house to someone I knew from decades earlier. My mother held the mortgage. The buyer--a women named Sam-- paid regularly—sometimes late, but she paid. Until she didn’t. As part of the agreement, she allowed me to bring my mother down to see the property and I had brought her out for a visit in March to walk around the pond, listen to the birds and chat about memories from the year they moved the house there. The yard was a little messy, but nothing serious. A couple of travel trailers, a work trailer piled with construction garbage, and some random vehicles littered the yard. The lawn between the house and pond was littered with cheap lawn ornaments and patio furniture. My mother enjoyed seeing the house and walking around the pond and I left feeling satisfied that the property was being somewhat cared for. Sam stopped making payments. In June, I had to start the repossession process which meant serving her. She had a 30-day period to make arrangements during which she made me an offer which was unacceptable. In August, we began the process of getting the sheriff to come and remove the locks. I was notified that she had been served and all seemed well. A few days before we were to meet the sheriff to change the locks, a police officer called me to inform me that they would be attending with two patrol cars and officers. Apparently when the sheriff served her, he pulled up to the parking area between the house and the pond and Sam was lying by the pond with a partner. They got up and sauntered to the car. Both were naked. The sheriff suspected drug use and possible trafficking so they called the police.

The sight and smell that greeted me beyond that unlocked door was almost incomprehensible. My brain refused to register it. The smell hit first. A physical force, almost knocking me back onto the porch!
The house was nearly empty—except for two fridges, a table piled with junk, and piles of garbage.
But the floor. Oh my gosh! The floor! Piles of dog feces covered the floor! Puddles of urine pooled between them. My father’s beautiful hickory floors—destroyed. Upon inspection, with my hand over my mouth to help me breathe, I found nearly every surface covered in it. Broad swipes of filth were smeared on every wall. Splashes of it were on the ceiling in places. My father’s beloved living room with hickory wood flooring he had made in his shop and lovingly installed along with the stone fireplace, barn beam mantle and pine built-in shelving was destroyed. Nearly every door had holes chewed through. Some of the kitchen cabinet doors had been chewed right off. Trim was chewed through. The vinyl window frames and doorknobs were chewed. We had to get out! We burst back out onto the porch gasping for breath. My mind raced! It was incomprehensible. The sheriff and police briefed us as to how we should proceed. The hardest thing for me to do was to call my nephew, who had moved to another province, and tell him about the state of the house. He had not totally agreed with us holding the mortgage but had given his reluctant permission. I sent him photos and he was very upset. He loved my parents who had often treated him as a son in place of my brother who is an alcoholic and had been abusive to them for decades. His memories were being destroyed too.

The attached 3-car garage was packed full of furniture and garbage, all covered in dog feces. The exterior door that my father had made in his shop… badly chewed. My husband cut the locks off my dad’s 36’ X 72’ shop that had a 2-story area at the back with all his woodworking tools upstairs. We had moved the tools out before the sale, but the shop also was full of garbage and covered in feces. The upstairs room with its wood floors polished from years of my dad and friends finishing woodworking projects, was covered in it. Even the small pumphouse building inside the shop that housed the pump and the well top, was covered. The inside of the metal door was badly scratched and the metal doorknob chewed into an unrecognizable shape. The well, we later found out was contaminated. Who would house dogs in a building that housed the well and pump? Who would subject their dogs to that kind of torment? When we first entered the shop to inspect it, we were met with hoards of fleas! I had to call an exterminator before we could even work in there.