Flooring, Sandblasted Rims and R.O.U.S.

The Transformation begins!

My parents have a nice sized property in Springville CA; an area at the base of the Sequoia National Forest. Like most children who make irrational purchases and have no place to store them, my parents were happy to share their homestead with the Bago. My dad even went so far as to grade out a parking spot near the base of the hill near a gate with easy access to their driveway.

We start opening up compartments, and I found out where the smell has been coming from. A huge ball of insulate and rat turds. Rats have been living next the the water tank and water heater. This is all located under the futon which explains why stray dogs were so interested in the rancid mattress pad. The damage to the area and the thought that I might take a shower with water that is stored in proximity to this horrible mess is frightening to say the least. I imagine that the rats, and I say rats because the volume of poop is impressive, had a lot of time on their hands.

The rats probably looked something like this and smoked unfiltered Lucky cigarettes. Even though we were able to vacuum most of the rat mess from every crack of the Bago, the smell is still there. We turn to bleach, simple green and a whole lotta elbow grease. I surmise that the term originated from someone on their knees scrubbing rat stains until their elbows were themselves stained with rat droppings.

Cleaning Rims and Adding flooring

Once clean and smelling nice, we are able to start on the linoleum flooring. We chose a walnut wood grain which compliments the rest of the wood paneling inside. All we need is denim curtains and we've got a Canadian Hyatt. If you click on the photo slide show you get an idea of the process to lay and trim the flooring. It was a painful realization that we were not able to salvage the original orange flooring. Let that be a lesson to you you you carpet pushers! Earlier in the week we had the old tires taken off the rims and sandblasted. My dad primed them with gray paint and we had the tires put back on and balanced. Considering the blow out on the trip up to central California, we'll need to look into new tires soon.