I don’t know why, but I’ve always pictured that I’d buy an old school bus and it would just be… clean. Not sparking with the smell of Pine-Sol, but swept at the very least.
It never occurred that our new bus would come prepackaged with trash crammed into every corner and over twenties years of layered on grime.
Literally, every crevice had empty Caprice Sun packages jammed into them. Disney princess pencils, graduation hat charms from 2005, stickers, and deformed erasers were littered everywhere.
On top of school nostalgia were hundreds of bolts rolling around everywhere left over from when the last owner unbolted the chairs.
While the litter was mildly gross, it was only the start. There were a few things I just wasn’t mentally prepared for.
Insects
Looking around at the ceiling, my 8-year-old niece was quick to point out all wasp nests looming from the ceiling corners. Luckily these nests were empty!
Since wasps are extremely territorial, they won’t build their nest next to another colony. Leaving these empty wasp homes created a great deterrent from finding new busmates.
While pulling up the rubber flooring at the front of the bus, I discovered that paper wasps weren’t the only insects who once called our bus home!
Mud Dauber nests spotted the underside of the rubber flooring and created a crusty coating under the dashboard. I couldn’t have imagined cleaning out a bus with active nests, but yet again, we were lucky that these tiny nests were abandoned!
I ended up just peeling up the rubber with all the attached nests and throwing the whole piece away. Any other mud dauber nests that caught my eye, I braved it out (with gloves on of course) and tossed them out by hand.
Since we reside in Georgia, Daddy Long Legs love crawling into our field of view and giving us the creepy jeepies!
No matter how many times you try to scoop these spiders up and throw them out, they always find a way to escape by twisting and tangling their long hair-strand like legs.
The VHS
While removing the door-side heating unit, I came across an unmarked VHS tape. Intrigued by the mystery, I brushed the dusk off and pocketed it.
After asking around for a VCR, my sister thought it was the appropriate time to bring up the plot to The Ring.
A horror film about people watching an unmarked VHS tape that shows a blurry video of a well. Moments later, a grotesque girl with wet dripping black hair covering her face crawls out of the well and inches her way up to the TV screen where she literally breaks the fourth wall by jumping out of their TV Screen to kill them.
While my inner scared 3rd-grade self was telling me not to watch the tape, my curiosity got the best of me.
Finding a working VCR proved harder than I thought. After three days, I finally found a VCR to borrow only to discover that the tape was just some old bus security footage from 2006.
The only creepy thing about the video was that the bus driver preaching her Jehovah Witness beliefs to elementary kids.
Messes, Messes Everywhere!
Demoing the inside of your school bus will be incredibly messy!
Pulling up the basically disintegrated rubber flooring left our hands sticky and black and filled bags and bags of contractor bags. While pulling out the heating units, we managed to spill red coolant everywhere. Peeling away walls exposed wet and moldy insulation. Removing old plywood from the floors spread mold spores in the air leaving me with a nasty face rash!
So, what have we learned from all this?
Basically, your school bus is going to be a big fat lump of coal. It’s going to take a lot of polishing before it starts resembling anything close to a diamond.
What do you think?
Do you think building a skoolie is worth dealing with all the gunk and bugs? If you’re building a skoolie or already built one, what things have you had to overcome in the process? We love to hear from our readers, so comment below!
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