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I walked through a foreclosed house in Gary last Tuesday and counted 9 dead appliances | Appliance Repairers - Discusd

I walked through a foreclosed house in Gary last Tuesday and counted 9 dead appliances

I do work for a realtor who flips bank owned homes around Gary and Merrillville, and she had me walk a place on 5th Ave before she made an offer. The second I opened the door I could smell it. This house had sat empty for over a year with the power still on, and the fridge was running the whole time with the doors open and nothing in it. The compressor was so hot I could not hold my hand on it for more than a second, and the ice maker line had been dripping into the freezer until the bottom was a solid block. The dryer had a nest of some kind in the vent, the dishwasher was full of standing water, and the washer drum had mold growing on the seal like a science project. I wrote down every model and serial anyway, because sometimes the boards and pumps are still good even when the unit is toast. What got me was the water heater, the anode rod was gone and the tank had rusted through at the bottom, so it was leaking onto a concrete floor that nobody had looked at in 14 months. Do you all bother pulling parts off abandoned units like this, or is it not worth the drive to strip a house that has been sitting that long?

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1 Comment

clark.lily25d ago

That ice maker line detail hit home. I stripped a place in Gary two winters back where the same thing happened and the freezer had basically become a giant ice brick, took me 20 minutes with a hammer just to get the door open. The water heater story kills me too, I once found one that had rusted out so bad the whole thing was leaning like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, floor underneath was stained orange in a perfect circle. I still pull parts when the house is close, mainly because the control boards on older units are getting harder to find and people on marketplace will pay decent for them. Past a certain drive though it stops making sense, gas money plus your time adds up fast. That said I always grab the copper and any brass fittings, that stuff pays for the trip by itself.