So I've been taking care of foreclosure properties for my bank for the past 2 years. They take them back, and then as an employee I go in and clean them up/repair them to the point where they become ready for sale. Some require heroic efforts, while others are pretty straightforward. My best results to date have been a property the bank had a loan of $140,000 on. First offer before we did any work was $150,000. We passed because the appraisal the day we took it back was for $189,000. We put $7,000 into it, and it closed on Tuesday for a sales price of $188,000. The bank now comes to me when there are foreclosure properties that need to be turned around in our area.

Without exception, on every foreclosure property, there has been, THE item.

The first property I did was a 24 room motel in Hoquiam, taken back after the health dept closed them down. While checking mattresses for suitability, with the most stoggy female banker in my bank, I found THE item. I lifted up the mattress, only to find a home made dildo. I dropped the mattress and told Janice to look away. She wanted to see what I found. Two sticks with string wrapped around them to "corn dog" size, then covered with a condom, and a ziptie and string holding the condom on. How resourceful. That was the first item. BTW, the motel was cleaned up and sold within 30 days of us taking it back. Unfortunately at a loss, but we got most of our money back, about 90%. Unfortunately the picture of that item was lost on my old phone.

The second property was a home. Guy just plain flaked. Timber related business went sideways and we got the home and 3 acres back. Cleaned up the home, and in the attic we found THE item. In a seashell covered box I found a picture of a random 30 something dude, shirtless, leaning against a tree. Long hair, 70's style, along with a sweet flavor savor mustache. Wasn't the previous owner. No idea who it was. I'll have to post that tomorrow. The 6 tons of scrap steel was a nice little bonus.

Third property was pretty sad. Husband died due to and overdose of methadone. Wife followed a few years later after retreating into a bottle of booze and a steady diet of hard drugs. Nobody in the estate wanted to redeem the property. We asked, they let it go. Trust me when I say this, but we do everything we can to not take back a property because it really is more of a pain to own it, than to have it paid off. So we clean up the property, which turned out okay. Then we headed into the shop. We cleaned it out, rounding up 2 tons of steel, and half a ton of extruded aluminum. We checked out the shop after we had it cleared out, and we noticed that there was a room in the back, about 8'x12'. We open the door, and we step into an area roughly 8'x8'. Hmmmm...... Look at the cabinet in the back of the room. open the door and we find a 4'x8' grow room, complete with electrical upgrades and venting. No plants. Inside the grow room was the item, a VHS tape titled. "My first time, volume 7." That one had me scratching my head. Think about it.

Cue the current project. Regulatory changes in Washington state directly lead to a business closing their doors. Smoking ban screwed them. Good folks, but..... We get the property back. We bent over backwards not to get this back. Anyway, today one of my buddies finds "THE item". He has worked on other projects with me, so he knows what up. He was so happy that he had found THE item. On a 12"x12" mirror written in some sort of colored glue we find this.


Speechless, as well as a bit jealous.

The next project is an old car wash. Not much to see, really, concrete block walls, crappy roof that needs to come down, more scrap steel. Might be to early to call this one but I did spy a 1986 Playboy in the maintenance room. Did you know that women had hair on their V-J-J's back then? I had plain forgotten.

LOL. I've appraised quite a few repo homes but I haven't found "the item" yet. Just lots of trash. My Dad did come across an item similar to what you found under the mattress. This one was attached to an old music stand minus the section where the sheet music would sit.

you should let me have that...;)

You bet. Just let me know which item. The dildo, the picture, the video, or the mirror? Hunter has dibs on the Playboy.

the mirror fool LMFAO!!!!

We have the mirror saved. We're thinking of putting it under glass, along with other items from the property, and presenting it to the guy who originated the loan many years ago, as a belated retirement gift. He'll get a sweatshirt with the property logo, 2,000 chips (de-milled to meet the state gaming regs), and 20 or so de-milled decks of cards.

I can see Andy standing there, eyes wide, saying WTF.

Great stories Andy!

"Priceless........."

Sounds like "Fanny, May I ?" foreclosures.

Sounds like your bank needs a trophy case in the lobby. That would give the folks something to talk about while waiting to see a teller.

I love hearing about these types of things. Over the years, it seems that REO homes are only second to evictions for finding fun stuff. Not every home has the "item" but enough do to make it interesting.

A few of the Items I have found.
The 18" dildo a brother of an evicted tenant held up and asked his sister about.
The approximate 10,000 aluminum busch beer cans the owner left behind. Out of all the cans, only about 5 cans were something else.

The world war II photo album with incredible shots, including one shot of a native head hunter showing off the two japenese heads he had scored.

Scrap metal seems to be common thread, as do jars of change.

We found an active lab once and ended up naked and being sprayed down with a fire hose in the middle of the street.

Last eviction we had the owner walked out and left behind an entire home of brand new items.


Please keep us updated, I love this stuff.

"ended up naked and being sprayed down with a fire hose in the middle of the street."

This usually costs extra...so I've heard and you got a freebie?

Previous THE item from another job.



I think it is all about the "WTF?" factor that determines the winner.

I'm worried about you Andy.

you should get rid of that picture... some dude might find it in YOUR house and get the wrong idea

I wouldn't worry.
He's prolly going to have his own TV show before you know it.

Coming this Fall.....
"Andy's Attic" on the Discovery channel.

Foreclosure Wars. I can see it now.

These items just call out and say, "Look at me, I'm THE item." I don't find them. They find me.

I have no use for the items. Like that big fat oaf on Storage Wars says, "It's all about the WOW factor," well, THE item is all about the WTF factor.

Damn.
Would have been cool to see a vintage pelt.

Nice!

Ow!

Andy,

My boss had his office cleaned out last year and I was the lucky employee who ended up with his play-boy collection from early 94 thru mid 95 so I took a look,no not on company time..........any way's they really didn't start trimming up the jungle until the mid 90's as lots of them nice lookin ladies had what I would call toupee's down there including May 95 of Nancy Sinatra...............just sayin thought they started landscaping before then and was shocked to see this.Good luck,
SZ

man you guys are acting like you never saw a twat before... lol...

Just reminiscing about past beaver hunts.

I think I need a cigarette.

yeah some of em deffinately looked like Kenny Loggins... dont be fooled tho, they are still around...

That's a hide.

no. Todd's was the place where they found the pic of the "flavor saver" dude...that was awesome!