Category Archives: property preservation

A Fleet of Lawn Care Professionals, At Your Service

Our spring lawn season is officially underway. The wonderfully mild winter (note: I am biased against the freezing cold) has stepped aside, and the trees are budding in celebration. Because we’re starting our lawn-care season so early this year, we … Continue reading

Three Abandoned Nerve Centers

We find computers in just about every home we service. It’s always interesting (at least to me) to see what role they play in a house. Here we have a messy bedroom with an old computer nestled amid mounds of … Continue reading

Is It Mexico? Nicaragua?

I look at this photograph and think about all the time I spent wandering the streets of Granada, Nicaragua. That city, Nicaragua’s second largest and the country’s undisputed tourism hub, is a collection of Spanish-colonial architecture set amid a torpid … Continue reading

Is It Really That Bleak?

Southern Minnesota still showcases smatterings of the bucolic rural ideal: a rushing stream amid snow-laden trees; brick storefronts on a small-town Main Street; German- and Norwegian-built homes that have withstood over a century of punishing weather, still proudly spewing smoke … Continue reading

Death on the Prairie

It has been a slow, agonizing, steady decline for many a small, windswept prairie town. The smattering of buildings where this house is located has seen its population dwindle annually for the past sixty years. There are only a couple … Continue reading

Daily Garbage Roundup

Here are some snapshots from a 1960s-vintage rambler in a first-ring suburb.      

Excessive Series: Holiday Edition

Dirty Dave and I went to check out a rural property. Here’s what we found:  

Transforming a Basement

Luke Anderson, one of our Regional Operations Managers, sent me these pictures of a water extraction. When we get a report of a flooded basement, we send out a special ops team to evaluate the situation, and then take action. … Continue reading

Pimp This Ride

First thing first: DuAll is back in the news. Twin Cities Metro Mag published an article on our trash art in the latest issue of the print mag. You can find the article online, too. Now on to today’s business. … Continue reading

On the Edge of the City, A Farmhouse of Abandonment

In the outward sprawling expansion of the Twin Cities, farmsteads like this one are being gobbled up. Instead of growing corn and raising livestock, this land will see clusters of McMansions and strip malls. While it’s still here, though, this … Continue reading