Hi! Hoping someone can help me resolve this big problem. I recently bought a home and rebuilt an existing sunroom in the back. The workers left shards of broken glass and tons of rusty old nails and screws everywhere. To make matters worse, the yard is covered in pebbles and the nails and stuff just seem to disappear into the texture and color. On top of that I have a newborn and I am worried that in a few years when she starts running around the yard, a rusty nail is going to pop through the bottom of her shoes (happened to an adult friend at a BBQ at his house. It was not pretty... he was rushed to the emergency room for a tetanus shot...) Any suggestions how I can thoroughly clean the area? picking the parts up one by one as I've been doing doesn't seem to be a great plan. I'm also not in love with the rocks themselves, but don't have the budget to overhaul the backyard.
Thanks for any advice!

You call that company & tell them to have the workers come back & clean up the mess they left. And, tell them that you don't want the danger of your child being injured with all that junk in the yard. What nerve!!!

mgt- I could, and probably should, but I might be waiting forever for it to happen. Plus, I think a lot of the rusty bits may have been there before and I just didn't notice until I started looking. They just look way too old to have been sitting there for only a couple of days or weeks.

Plus, if clean-up wasn't specified in the contract...they most likely won't show.

Nails & screws you might be able to get most of them with a large magnet....my DH has one on the end of a pole that he uses at construction sites to clean up his own messes. Glass is another matter.

What I do is using an old cool whip container (I have lots of them ) I walk the yard first one direction like N/S covering about a 3' wide swath, then I walk it the other direction E/W.
For me, finding glass is easier in early morning & late evening cause the sun hits at such an angle that you can more readily see it.
With the cool whip container, if I have to stop I can leave it where I am so I know where to start again...it has a lid.
Doing this right after a rain is good...everything has been washed clean & shows up better plus the rain helps bring it up out of the soil.
Check your local hardware store for that magnet on a pole.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: old Karen,

a magnet! wow... sometimes the obvious is just well, not so obvious! Thanks for the suggestion.
i will definitely do that. The glass is easier, because of how the sun reflects off of it. when i have searched for it, I've been putting it into an empty spackle bucket. A cool whip container would be filled in 3 minutes with the large shards.
Thanks again!

LOL... Karen, you beat me to it.

You can get the magnets on a pole at any box store... they're cheap, too.

If your budget is tight, but you want to redo your backyard... start now! You really don't have to do it all at once, and your baby is still young. If start now and do a little at a time you'll have a nice place for him/her to play in a couple of years.

I'd start by getting rid of the rock and planting grass instead... You can do that yourself. It's alot of work to shovel rock, but, again, do a little at a time. Before you know it, you'll have it all cleaned up.

Roofers use a magnetic roller that zips along - you might want to sweet-talk one into letting you rent or borrow one for a day or two. The glass will be a problem - you'll just need to carefully brush and lightly rake the area to find it.

Or build a great deck.

My husband uses a metal detector to find nails in gravel.

Glass is so hard to pick up! I'm still finding bits and pieces from 6-7 years ago when some accidentally fell off a laborer's truck next to my driveway. Every time there's a heavy rain, I spot more sparkling bits in the dirt. Look from different angles to see them, also shine a flashlight on the area at night to reflect off the glass.

Thanks for the tips... meanwhile I've been too busy discovering all the other "shortcuts" these losers made in my house that were not apparent before I moved in. There should be a message board on how to spot shoddy work and how to handle it when you do (every faucet is hooked up with the hot and cold water swapped.... and that's only the beginning!)

If this is a new house they have to come back and repair what is wrong. If it is not a new house and the seller did not disclose things that they knew were wrong with the house, they are responsible to pay for the repairs. Check with your morgage company or an attorney.

You may want to use a wire screen to sift the rocks to get the glass out.

GOOD LUCK with all the hard work you have ahead of you.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pat,

It's not a new house but It's got a lot of new parts. The previous owners were here for 50 years and never changed a thing... the house had all it's initial "integrity" and that's why I loved it. The guys we hired were unfortunately too young to have the experience needed for a job our size and we were too young/inexperienced to recognize it early enough. My husband and I console ourselves that their naivete was the only reason we could afford to upgrade the house- they underbid and ate much of their losses, and we have a to spend a few thousand to have their mistakes fixed, but it still cost less than we could have afforded with a seasoned pro. ...Just lots of annoying headaches...

Sorry about all the problems you are having with the young workers. Sometimes the lowest bid is not the best.
I'm sure you will have everything fixed and cleaned up soon and it will just be a fading memory and no more headaches.
Have a new day.
Pat