By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-11-19 15:19:24 | Updated at 2024-11-19 17:31:27
2 hours ago
A young couple moved into an abandoned hoarder home and embarked on a stunning renovation that revealed the dark past underneath the piles of trash inside.
Influencers Drew and Becky Bidlen bought the 1894 midwestern home just 12 days after their daughter, Aurora, was born in 2023.
The couple have since tackled the piles of trash and discarded belongings to transform the troubled wreck into their new family home.
After moving from South Carolina, they have been documenting the DIY process of redecorating the home including the horrifying before photos of the disheveled interior.
The pair also discovered the 'dark past' of their old home, which included hauntings, arson and rumors of a cult.
In one of their videos, Becky said: 'We're Becky and Drew, and we bought the craziest fixer-upper we found. We're deep in the renovation; but here's a flash of the before. The place was a trash out, but we saw the potential.'
Their vision was able to pierce through black mold, water damage, collapsing ceilings and mountains of trash, and the pair saw what could be.
'One of the most common comments we've gotten so far is "Wow your house is horrible, I hope you guys at least got a good deal". We paid $150,000 for this house "as is". It's 3,000 square feet and on a half an acre,' Becky said.
Drew and Becky Bidlen bought the 1894 home just 12 days after their daughter, Aurora, was born in 2023. The couple have since tackled the piles of trash and abandoned belongings to transform it into their new family home
The pair received many people telling them the job was too big and that their house 'is horrible', to which Drew said: 'While the house looked and smelled horrible at a glance, it was really obvious to both of us that the bones were incredible'
Their videos show the rooms with so much junk you couldn't see the floors, and the pair talk about the dead animals and mold found amongst the rubble
'While the house looked and smelled horrible at a glance, it was really obvious to both of us that the bones were incredible,' Drew added.
Their whole process is on their TikTok and Instagram pages, where they show each step of their work.
In their latest TikTok, the pair discovered damage to the drywall while installing insulation, and their slow process is paying off as they announce that 'it's *almost* time to decorate... Ok, we still have a long way to go, but I don't think it's too soon to make the mood boards!'
The pair have been fixing the house up since December. As they prepared to 'trash out' the hoarder house, they geared up in full protective gear and Drew carried Becky over the threshold.
They said that they had been quoted over $10,000 for a professional service, so instead got friends and family, who are 'as crazy as they are', involved to help out.
A 40-yard dumpster was filled in just their first day, but as people began criticizing their choice to renovate a house in such disrepair, the pair were adamant.
It was no easy task, and definitely not for those with weak stomachs. Their videos show the rooms with so much junk you couldn't see the floors, and the pair talk about the dead animals and mold found amongst the rubble.
Their clean-up process, however, also comes with its perks. They have also documented the 'treasures' they've found along the way including jewelry, a marble table with matching chairs, a silver platter, lots of old coins, and much more.
Just as an old home comes with buried treasure and remnants of a racoon family, as this one does, it also comes with a fair deal of history and mystery.
The pair have made huge strides with the home with major clear outs of the rooms, gutting one bathroom to completely remodel, as well as installing new flooring and fixing holes in the walls
They said that they had been quoted over $10,000 for a professional service, so instead got friends and family, who are 'as crazy as they are', involved to help out
The pair have been fixing the house up since December. As they prepared to 'trash out' the hoarder house, they geared up in full protective gear and Drew carried Becky over the threshold
'The last owner mysteriously left everything behind,' Becky says in one video. 'The home sat vacant for two years before we bought it, but the neighbors told us it looked vacant for much longer than that. They hadn’t seen the lights on for years'
The pair also dove into detective work to discover the 'dark past' of their old home, and they learned many different tales, including that it's haunted, it used to house a cult, and that it was unexplainably set on fire - twice.
A neighbor filled them in on the ghost stories surrounding the home and stoked the fire by telling them they saw eyes in the attic. They were given a book of ghost stories by the same neighbor with a chapter about their new home.
The story was centered around one young woman who lived there as a child and knew the house was haunted. The family had described childish mumbling as well as a pillar of black smoke that disappeared when it was looked at.
The woman later returned and asked the groundskeeper if they had ever seen a ghost, and they said they had seen a little boy with a ball in the window.
Becky set it upon herself to uncover the history of the home by exploring all possible avenues.
She found out through their renovations more and more about the previous owner, as well as knowing it had been abandoned from when they took on the challenge.
'The last owner mysteriously left everything behind,' she says in one video. 'The home sat vacant for two years before we bought it, but the neighbors told us it looked vacant for much longer than that. They hadn’t seen the lights on for years.'
The family of the previous owner had taken nothing from inside the home within those two years, they had just taken the car.
The pair have made huge strides with the home with major clear outs of the rooms, gutting one bathroom to completely remodel, as well as installing new flooring and fixing holes in the walls.
Their renovations have a long way to go, as they uncover new problems, like covered up archways and more rotting wood, but Becky and Drew hope to be able to move in by February.
