Sheriff Won’t Go Inside The $180,000 Auction House Because He’s Only 90% Sure The Squatters Left, Then Flipper Finds Three Abandoned Cars And What Looks Like A Dead Cat

Real estate investor @JesseStolz has flipped plenty of houses, and he says that in all those years no sheriff had ever refused to walk into one of his properties. Then came a 1920s four-bedroom bought at auction for $180,000.

A dusty abandoned room with old furniture and a piano, like the auction house in the story

The house came with squatters. His team took the case to court, won the eviction, and waited for the sheriff to clear the place out.

“I’m 90% Sure Everyone Is Out,” The Sheriff Told Him, Then Stayed On The Porch

The call that followed was not the one he wanted. The sheriff said, in his paraphrase, that he was “90% sure” everyone had left the house.

When Jesse asked what that meant, the answer was plain. The deputies had stood at the front door and called inside, nobody answered, and the sheriff was “not exactly comfortable” going in. They told him to send a locksmith, change the locks and call it done.

There was one more detail he only remembered later. When officers first opened the door, three dogs came at them. They took two of the dogs away, but the third would not leave, so they left the door open and hoped it would wander out.

The locksmith found no dog. Jesse admits he was not sure the man had checked every corner, so on walkthrough day he went in ready for two worst cases: someone who had snuck back in through a cracked front window, or a hungry, cornered dog.

Three Abandoned Cars And A Smell That Cut Through A Full Respirator

From the street the house looked better than he expected. The exterior was not the worst he had ever seen, and the neighborhood looked well kept. He also spotted three vehicles left on the lot and hoped for a quick win.

Up close, the picture changed. A Chevy Equinox had five years of moss on its side but a fairly straight body and a decent interior. If it fired up, he figured it was worth about $2,500, and about $1,000 for scrap if it did not.

A locked Buick had a sagging headliner that hinted at water damage, and he put it at $1,000 running or $500 as scrap. The late 1980s or early 1990s Ford F250 was the worst of the bunch because its cab was stuffed with trash. Together he figured the cars could add up to roughly $2,000.

The trash did not stop at the truck. The back porch was piled so high that the back door could not be opened, and a heap leaning on the house stood taller than a 7-foot fence. Cat litter had been dumped in the yard, and the siding and door were streaked with grime he did not want to think about.

The garage held some treasures, including a three-ton floor jack, five yard gnomes he says can sell for $100 each, fishing nets, coolers, a bench grinder and a full toolbox. It also held an unplugged freezer that he believed was full of rotting meat, and the smell was strong enough to reach him even through a full respirator. “Fresh air has never smelt so good,” he said when he stepped back out.

Inside, He Spots What Looks Like A Dead Cat Upstairs

Inside, the house had the look of a place where three dogs had run loose. Cat litter, flies by the hundreds, black residue on the walls and so much junk that one room was blocked by four feet of it. A broken back window suggested animals had been coming and going.

There were small bright spots. The ceilings are nine feet tall, which he liked, and the kitchen cabinets were dirty but intact. “I was expecting this to be way worse from the kitchen standpoint,” he said. He also pulled a DVD of the western Open Range off the floor and decided it was coming home with him.

Upstairs, the half bath was tight but there, and one bedroom wall was splashed with marks that looked like dark purple paint or something worse. In the third room he jumped when he saw what looked like a dead cat. Then he realized it was a stuffed animal, and he laughed that he had braced for it to attack.

The fourth bedroom looked like the worst of all, with the door handle chewed or broken off, which he guessed was where the dogs had lived. He rated the whole place a nine out of ten on the horror scale, though still not as bad as it gets.

The Math: $180,000 Plus A $100,000 Rehab And A $350,000 Exit

Back outside, he ran the numbers. The house is 1,600 square feet with one full bath and one half bath, and he figured it needs new siding because of dry rot, plus new windows. The roof, which he forgot to check at first, looked to be in good shape, and avoiding a new roof would be a huge saving.

He pencils in about $5,000 for the trash-out, a landscaping bill for the overgrown yard, and a total renovation budget of $100,000. With the $180,000 purchase price, that puts him in at $280,000.

His conservative sale price is around $350,000, and if the market cooperates he thinks $375,000 is possible. He called that a decent gross profit but not a great one given the size of the job, with the left-behind cars and tools adding a little to the bottom line.

What To Know Before Buying An Occupied Auction Property

This story is a good reminder of what an auction purchase can involve. A winning bid does not mean the keys are in your hand, and an occupied house can mean a court case, an eviction and a long wait before anyone is allowed in.

Even then, a sheriff clearing a home is not the same as a guarantee that it is empty. Jesse’s approach was sensible. He went in with a mask, a respirator, gloves and a plan to look for both people and animals before touching anything.

His other advice is to price the worst case up front. He assumed full siding and windows, budgeted for a trash-out and counted on the roof only if it proved sound. A buyer who pencils in the ugly numbers first is rarely surprised later.

Finally, look for value in what is left behind. A few cars, tools, a floor jack and some collectible gnomes will not rescue a bad deal, but they can take the edge off a cleanup bill that is already bigger than expected.

Willow and Hearth