mmmm cheap enclosure...think again

[Andrais]

Hello,
long time no post but i thought this one was a story to tell
Sure, we snap up a good bargin or two over the internet and usually when u find a good deal the price you pay is indeed a well worth travel, hunt or race to get it. Me and good deals have found each other many times and i am always happy with what i get, this time my good fortune ran out :|

Was desperately looking for an indoor enclosure for lili before i went away because dad would of had a nightmare looking after her as he isnt 'reptile' friendly material. Was looking about some classifieds for an enclosure and i found this...

Looks nice doesn't it? all clean and new and the price? well lets say it was 'comfortable' i didn't have to count my savings and figure out how broke i would be afterwards :lol: The enclosure was on the other side of town though, but i enjoy a good drive (even
though im not the driver) and well with a deal i just found it didn't really matter.
So we picked it up, and well because i was desperate i really had no choice, we got this...

I really hope the animals there were kept in this weren't kept in the state we got the enclosure in :shock:
Well so i got cleaning, i thought this was going to be easy, i'd gotten an enclosure before that was infested with mites so this one would be easy (actually it wasn't infested with mites, but it did have a colony of lice in it )

Yeh some of your are probably thinking, big deal, your cleaning out a yucky enclosure it wont take long. The crap,stains, dirt and lice were only the first of the many other hurdles i had to deal with getting this enclosure 'sanitary'. The thing also ponged with the smell of either ciggys or the smell of smoked drugs :shock: im not going to judge these people and call them druggos or what ever but the smell was certainly strong and a bit more 'tangy' or 'sweeter' in smell than just your average cigarette. It was so bad that whilst i was cleaning up the mess inside it i was constantly choking, gagging and coughing it was putrid to say the least, then i discovered that dad had a gas mask in his truck

6 hours later...

Well i cleaned long into the night, i was in cleaning mode i guess i didn't want to give up until i made sure the inside was totally as stainless and as spotless as i could get it. This was the finished product by 11:30pm...

annnd oooh great i cant upload anymore photos so the story will just continue and photos will come later

Well i hoped everything couldn't get any worse but it did. As i was testing out the lights, something went pop.... and i now had a broken heat lamp socket that set me back a couple of days to find one, buy one, find someone who has the time to wire it, and then turn it on. Another thing i also noticed while i was making my inspection was the glass. It appears normal, it looks normal but it is the most annoying little %$#@$% of crap i've had to deal with. It doesn't come out it made my life so hard, and because its so dirty some spots are really hard to reach to clean the glass i had to climb inside the enclosure which was floating with fumes and clean it from the inside :shock: its good that im a small person and the 4foot enclosure was very roomy and comfortable for me i can now at least tell my beardie that her enclosure will be comfortable as i've personally tried it out for her

Well i gave it a rest for a couple of days and decided to carry on working tonight. I started cleaning the top of it and noticed that the stuff i was spraying on it was not removing this round circle were a coffee mug had been placed and made a print in the dirt. I scrubbed as hard as i could but could not get it off. So i grabbed the scraper instead and when i pushed it along the top of the enclosure a spiral of black greasy, sticky kinda stuff came off the top turns out the whole thing is coverered in it and now i have to find a stronger clean to get rid of it as its probably been there a long time and its now like fused into the wood hahahhaha :cry::x

and so the chronicles of cleaning the dero enclosure continue, will post some pics when it is done hopefully i should finish up in the next 5 days or so. I guess the moral of the story is that your good fortune for bargin finding eventually comes to an end and just because its cheap doesn't mean its not gonna come with a whole mountain of costs later. Im gonna tally up at the end how much i spent on this enclosure fixing it up.

 

[Kristy_07]

You poor thing Although, it looks like it will be good once it's clean! You're beardie will love it all the more because of all the love you put into it

 

[nazza]

hmm thats making me think twice about the 2nd hand one I just found :S

 

[shellfisch]

I have this picture of you inside a 4 foot enclosure stuck in my head... :lol:

I can't see your face in my picture in my head, cos I don't know what you look like..... :lol:

 

[Kristy_07]

Just replace her face with a cute little beardie face :lol:

Can you post photos of you inside the enclosure???? Surely Dad took some

 

[Chris1]

lol, great job on the cleaning, i guess if the enclosure was that filthy the original owners are probably happy to live in filth themselves,..

reminds me of when i finally got a guy to give up his half dead diamond and enclosre, there was 4 years of crap to be scraped off the bottom, i ended up wearing gloves to clean it even though im not squeamish when it comes to reptile poo,..piles of green urate are gross!!

probably not a bad idea to TOD it just incase it is infested with mites, geez, i feel so sorry for some of the critters out there,...

anyway, i hope lili knows what a lucky beardy she is and appreciates ur hours of toil! ;P

 

[Daryl_H]

well you get what you pay for dont you! could always learn how to build your own. works out heaps cheaper and you get more than ya pay for then

 

[Andrais]

i was building my own, well was trying too dad was keen (for like a day) i was really into it and well he said he orderered the timber and they cut it up blah blah blah i never saw this timber or never heard about it again hahahah kept pestering him about it for like a week and then i gave up

that wasn't the first atempt to build my own enclosure 0__0 i can do it by myself, i know how to work power tools and a table saw etc etc.. i just dont have a car or a trailer and all the other stuff that comes when u are an adult parents just dont have time i guess, well thats there excuse anyway

 

[Andrais]

I have this picture of you inside a 4 foot enclosure stuck in my head... :lol:

I can't see your face in my picture in my head, cos I don't know what you look like..... :lol:

hehehehhehe shellfish i have a picture coming for u special request

 

[Pythons Rule]

hmm youu didn't have to buy it ya know lol and ya probably would of been able to pick up a descent glass terrarium at pet shop for same amount of fixing it up lol. but beggers cant be choosers I spose. you've done a great job though and should go the hole nine yards and get a fake rock background for it.

 

[LadyJ]

Well, my cheap investment's falling apart around my poor shingleback (don't take that as though she's in danger, it's just completely rotten at the bottom and front panel...).

I really do feel your pain - although I'm sure it will look amazing once up and running!

 

[Andrais]

hahahhaha thats a bad pic of me ahhh well i was never really photogentic thanks guys for the support im gonna need it the background idea is a good one, i will invest that might be my chirstmas present perhaps

 

[burger]

haha, i saw this on gumtree, and almost thought about getting it myself! glad i didnt now...

i know i now have the benefit of hindsight, but I thought it looked a bit dodgy in the ad, which is why i didnt go for it. that, and I kind of actually want to make my own one up

hope it turns out okay for you in the end!

 

[Kristy_07]

View attachment 160987
hahahhaha thats a bad pic of me ahhh well i was never really photogentic thanks guys for the support im gonna need it the background idea is a good one, i will invest that might be my chirstmas present perhaps

Bahahahahahaha! :lol:

 

[Sel]

Hope you have some f10..id be f10ing the crap out of that before putting my animals inside..

 

[Andrais]

nah im not using f10, its way to expensive. i would if i could afford it! dont worry my dads in the building trade so im using a floor stripper just the clean the gunk on the outside but i wont use it in the enclosure as im not to sure its completely safe for animals. Here is a list of the stuff i have used...
bosistos eucalyptus spray (my major cleaner im using its safe for animals)
gumpton (this type of white paste gets anything clean!)
URS vivaruim cleaner (i dunno why i bought it, just another thing to get cleaner with)
bleach
window cleaner (for the glass)
bi-carb soda
when im happy with how many times i've cleaned it i'll make sure i have washed out any left over chemicals on the surface and make sure there are no fumes left either just so u all know the beardie is completley safe, i've done this before so i know all these chemicals arnt' harmful provided they are used appropriatly and washed out properly

 

[Kristy_07]

Good on you - though I'd ditch the window cleaner for good old white vinegar and water and newspaper, much cheaper and no chemicals!

 

[slide]

Looks like your beardies are well loved, lucky little fellas! As Chris1 mentioned previously, a dose of Top of Descent would be a wise investment, you dont want to possibly inherit someone elses mites and prevention is much better than cure. good luck with everything, Slide.

 

[Daryl_H]

i was building my own, well was trying too dad was keen (for like a day) i was really into it and well he said he orderered the timber and they cut it up blah blah blah i never saw this timber or never heard about it again hahahah kept pestering him about it for like a week and then i gave up

that wasn't the first atempt to build my own enclosure 0__0 i can do it by myself, i know how to work power tools and a table saw etc etc.. i just dont have a car or a trailer and all the other stuff that comes when u are an adult parents just dont have time i guess, well thats there excuse anyway

yes but whe i was your age i got my olds on board to go a week in advanced to go to the timber yard and second hand building supplyer and picked up all the stuff in half an hour and got enough stuff to build a 1200x1200x2100mm tank and built it my self in a weekend... dont let em stop you book in a time

 

[dickyknee]

If it was that bad that you need to start a thread about how bad it was , why the hell would you have brought it ??

If mixed correctly F10 is not expensive at all .