Second impression.

So, after a night filled with anxiety and worry, we quite easily concluded that the smell of smoke was the most acute problem there was. Apart from the sewer smell that we told ourselves would go away if we just used the bathroom, there wasn't actually big problems around the house. Aesthetically displeasing, yes. Real issues? No.

After we checked closer and saw that that window does shut properly but the handles don't, we tore off one of the TWO isolatory rubber strands stapled around the front door so it actually shuts (seriously people, how effin lazy are you? Couldn't just REMOVE the old one and replace it?), changed the lightbulb on the porch, tore the leftover closets to pieces and threw them away, adjusted the toilet upstairs so it doesn't have water running 24/7 (SERIOUSLY, HOW LAZY ARE YOU?), put back the fronts on the bathtub because they could apparently not work out how the hell to put them back, fastened a loosely hanging cable on a wall (s.r.s.l.y.), brushed all the cobwebs off of everything, oiled a crazily squeaky door (I mean come on people) scraped paint off of fixtures and everything, adjusted another door that touched the floor so it didn't anymore, and then it was time for the wallpapers.

Those damn wallpapers. If I don't have to see another roll of wallpaper ever, well I'd be quite sad, but in theory, I'd be happy. There were layers that probably dated back to the 80's, haphazardly smeared with plaster that we still can not understand. When we sanded that damn plaster down, there was nothing on the wall witnessing on why they've done it. No joints, no holes, no tears, no nothing. Just meaningless plastering that made it impossible to remove that wallpaper. All but one layer came down after days of going directly to the house after work, leaving way too late, sleep, work, repeat. Along the ceiling all of it came down in chunks that were no longer at all attached to the walls (years of not gluing around the edges properly?) and in the hallway, I could just break the entire shell down. I was left with the bare original board wall, with no effort. Right. When I scooted around on the floor, scraping off that damn plaster that was everywhere, I suddenly felt a discreet breeze. WTF?

I put my hand up to confirm what I thought to have experienced, and I had been correct. There was actually air coming through the seams of the wall where it met a vertical beam. Air? Where did that air come from? Upon closer inspection, that air smelled of nicotine and cigarettes. WTF? Was it so infused in the walls that the space between us and the neighbour actually fanned nicotine winds into our house?

Two days later, after we plastered that shit up (I have finger-plastered every damn conceivable corner/seam downstairs) and painted it with a silicone cover-that-dead-body-in-your-wall-up-paint, we realised where the smell came from. The neighbour. Sitting in his kitchen, smoking away. Yuck. But you know what? Not even a hint of the disgusting smell since then. He's been smoking away in his disgusting house and we haven't felt a thing. HAH! Everything felt so much better.

Then, we moved in.