What do you do with a negative asset?

My family lost a house to Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Completely flooded, over two feet of water, and the house was basically a total loss.

We are still paying taxes on it, because my parents adamantly refuse to sell the property--even though the house was completely hollowed out by volunteers not long after the flood waters receded.

For that matter, we still have to maintain upkeep on the exterior, or we'll be fined--signs have been put in the yard and everything. It's backbreaking work to rake the magnolia tree leaves and cut the grass with a 50-year-old push mower that keeps breaking down. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother raking--picking up the bigger sticks I get, but they demand EVERYTHING wooden down to the smallest piece be removed from the yard before even thinking about starting that old busted mower.

That house is nothing but a millstone around the necks of our finances. I've been begging them to just sell the damn place to a flipper, just to get it off our hands--but they won't, because they want to fix a huge crack in the floor from when a bedroom was added over 30 years ago...a crack we had no idea was even there until we ripped up the waterlogged carpeting. Turns out the place had been improperly built back around 1990, and now they want to fix it, or at least somehow cover it up, before they even think about selling.

It's been six years. They won't do it. And that fact drives me up the wall.

And on top of it all? The house was insured...but not for flood damage.

Forgive me, but I needed to rant tonight.

What do you do with a negative asset?

My family lost a house to Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Completely flooded, over two feet of water, and the house was basically a total loss.

We are still paying taxes on it, because my parents adamantly refuse to sell the property--even though the house was completely hollowed out by volunteers not long after the flood waters receded.

For that matter, we still have to maintain upkeep on the exterior, or we'll be fined--signs have been put in the yard and everything. It's backbreaking work to rake the magnolia tree leaves and cut the grass with a 50-year-old push mower that keeps breaking down. Sometimes I wonder why we even bother raking--picking up the bigger sticks I get, but they demand EVERYTHING wooden down to the smallest piece be removed from the yard before even thinking about starting that old busted mower.

That house is nothing but a millstone around the necks of our finances. I've been begging them to just sell the damn place to a flipper, just to get it off our hands--but they won't, because they want to fix a huge crack in the floor from when a bedroom was added over 30 years ago...a crack we had no idea was even there until we ripped up the waterlogged carpeting. Turns out the place had been improperly built back around 1990, and now they want to fix it, or at least somehow cover it up, before they even think about selling.

It's been six years. They won't do it. And that fact drives me up the wall.

Forgive me, but I needed to rant tonight.