What a crazy amount of damage to deal with!
Five washing machines?! Are they mud people? Five doesn't even make sense.
Best of luck clearing all of that up, it looks like so much work!
What a crazy amount of damage to deal with!
Five washing machines?! Are they mud people? Five doesn't even make sense.
Best of luck clearing all of that up, it looks like so much work!
I don't have time or capacity to cope with it, and I got a relatively good offer from the renovation master - he will remove all the floor while he's at it, dig the whole basement a bit deeper and make a new floor with modern insulation. It will then be possible to make a small apartment with proper height under the ceiling. Though, we will probably need to borrow even more money to complete it.
On the five washing machines ... actually, six ...
There are like two separate apartments. I don't remember very well, but I believe the previous owner left two washing machines, one for each apartment. They even have separate electrical outlets, connected to the meters of the respective apartments. (The water is not metered). I find it a bit silly with such an arrangement, the biggest reason for having the laundry room in the basement was that washing machines were expensive things, and that one washing machine typically was sufficient for several apartments. When I was a child, we were eight apartments sharing two washing machines.
One of the washing machines left behind by the previous owner is a really old model - I think it has certain qualities, not possible to buy such kind of washing machines anymore. I sometimes think that if a thing has survived several decades and still works, it has proven to be of superior quality and shouldn't be exchanged with a brand new product of unknown quality. Anyway, the tenants disagreed, they didn't want to use such an old model, so we appointed that they would drive it away for us. Though, they never did, they just moved it out of the room.
I believe each of the new tenants brought with them their own machine - so that makes three washing machines in the room and one outside.
As for the two extra machines, I can only guess. One reason could be that there was a breakdown and that they just threw in an extra machine without bothering to throw the old one. Actually there were three machines connected to the water, so it could be that they considered they needed more capacity than what was offered with one machine. It could be that I have it wrong, and that one or two of the machines weren't washing machines but drying machines.
I do know that the Polish tenants in the first floor has a tendency to collect lots of "junk" and that they are also selling quite many bikes. It could be that they are doing arbitrage trading - if having a car and the skills to lift and carry washing machines, I believe it's quite easy to get a washing machine for free here in Oslo. It's also possible to buy them dirt cheap. If it's a good machine and if having some patience it can be possible to sell it for a higher price. Second hand stuff also typically have a higher value in Poland than here in Oslo, they have a van and they usually fill it up before going to Poland.