Welcome To 202 5th Avenue in Kirkland

Health Hazard

Trudy is watching you

Umm, yeah.

Nothing is really square

World Class Craftsmanship

Illegal Sleeping Room 1

Illegal Sleeping Room 2

Really makes me wonder

No Permits, No Inspections

So Close!

Construction Materials

Spiders and drafts

Speaks for itself

Windows leak

Another video camera watching you

Permanently shut

Look out below. Seriously.

Insects and cold drafts

Again, so close!

Legal Correspondence

With the insect problem I found it handy to have a can of bug spray in every room, and repellent for sleeping. There are pictures here of where some of the bugs come in, but it's pretty much everywhere.

The pipes are rusty so you'll want to run the water for quite a bit before using it. Sometimes when you use the dishwasher your dishes come out orange. Pretty interesting.

Trudy put a video camera on the front and back entrances so she can keep track of who you have coming over, and when. If she thinks somebody is coming over too much, she'll let you know. My son is a student and he came to use my internet connection to do his homework. She had a lawyer send me a letter trying to charge me $500 more per month. Really.

No electrical plan was filed and no permits issued for the extensive rewire of the place, which also means there was no inspection as required by city code. And the guys who work on this may be properly licensed and bonded, it's not for me to say - but they never come in marked business vehicles like you see at other remodel sites. Oh, and the gas line that goes through the big "bedroom"? No permit, no inspection.

With finish work like this it should come as no surprise that the interior doors don't close. But you get to pay rent like they do.

Trudy Daly wants top Kirkland rent for this. There's grout or adhesive like this all over the place.

Kirkland code requires this emergency escape window be no higher than 44 inches off the ground, this one is 67 inches. It's supposed to be a minimum of 24 inches high and have a 30 inch net clear opening outside. This one is 16 inches high and has an 18 inch opening outside. The blinds are screwed on in a way that make in impossible to open the window, and that's obviously a problem. Can 202 5th Avenue be legally rented out as a 2-bedroom housing unit or is that, besides a violation if city code, also fraud?

Kirkland residential building code (2006 IRC) requires that sleeping rooms have windows for emergency escape no higher than 44 inches off the ground with 5 square feet of net clear space. This window is 56 inches off the ground and nowhere near close to legal. This photo makes the window appear larger than it really is; the opening is 16 inches high x 14 inches wide. So if the place is on fire, can you crawl through an opening the size of your computer monitor that's turned sideways and almost 5-feet off the ground?

Trudy has a company called Amplify Solutions that places contract workers at Microsoft. If these photos represents the standards for the workers she hires to work in her own home, I wonder if the standards for the workers she places at Microsoft are any different?

In the living area a load-bearing brick fireplace was removed. No permits for the projects were issued so subsequently no structural inspections took place. There is increasing cracking and sagging where the walls meet the ceiling. There is a new stone fireplace weighing several tons right over your head. What keeps it from falling on you is work not done to code, that hasn't been inspected, and was likely done by the lowest bidder. Something to think about.

The floor surfaces almost meet. It's that way all throughout the unit.

Just lots of adhesives, paint, grout, and spackle slopped around.

Cracks and crevasses like this are how so many insects and spiders get in the unit. I've seen species of spider I've never seen before.

This is phone wire, but know that no permits were issued, nor inspections conducted, of the extensive electrical work done throughout the property. And knowing this is the Trudy's standard for wiring, that can't be good.

Trudy was notified when the windows began to leak, and to her credit she had someone attend to it. Unfortunately it was young kid with a caulking gun that just made it worse.

In addition to showing you the camera watching your back door, you get another view of construction standards throughout the property.

The fan over the stove is one of those that just vents into the room so if you're cooking and want to open a window you can't. The window is painted shut and has a piece of wood nailed in to prevent it from opening.

This is the overhead beam that I hope remains "overhead". If a permit had been issued for this work as required by city code, the work and materials would have been inspected before it was allowed to be closed up. Hard to tell what's under there.

You'll want to keep a can of Raid near the washer and dryer for the little visitors that like to drop down from above unexpectedly. Is she still asking $1800 a month?

The flooring almost made it to the wall. Good effort! This is in the bathroom and seems to be a prime route for the spider infestation.

Just some of letters from her lawyers. Like contractors, she's had several. She tried to charge me $500 a month more because my son came over frequently to use my internet for his schoolwork. She tried to increase the rent during the lease, she used lawyers to blame me for shrubs dying. She told my family members not to park in front of the house (it's a public road) and pounded on the my brother's car window when he did so. Her lawyer responded that she was just trying to assist a motorist she thought might be lost. How rich is that?