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Anne Glancey has lived in her home in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, all of her life, but she is known among her neighbors as a notoriously private person, rarely venturing outside. Her home, on the other hand, was hard to miss.
The rundown house had accrued dozens of violations because of its peeling paint, overgrown shrubs, an abandoned car in the yard, and more. Anne was facing fines of up to $3,000 a day for code violations from the city. With little money to her name and no friends who could lend a hand, the reclusive woman was doing her best to deal with a pile of fines and a deteriorating home—that is, until one New Jersey couple's act of kindness changed her life.
Adam and Kristin Polhemus have been living next door to Anne for the past five years. "Until my wife and I moved in, no neighbors had a conversation with her. She had no relations with anyone in the neighborhood," Adam, a New Jersey state trooper, told People. "We formed a friendship."
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While the couple had approached Anne about helping her with renovations in the past, she would never want to talk about it. But things took a turn when Anne received the violations notice and shared it with her young neighbors. Without hesitation, Adam and Kristin decided it was time to take on the massive renovation project.
The couple reached out to family, friends, and their local church and formed a group of 25 helpers, who worked every weekend for the entire summer in order to give Anne back the house she's always loved and get rid of those troublesome violations. Together, the neighborhood cleaned, primed, painted, landscaped, and completely transformed the home's exterior. They also donated that rusty car to the Purple Heart Foundation.
In total, the repairs would have cost $10,000 to $15,000, estimates Adam. The best part of the whole situation? Anne is a recluse no more. During the renovations, she came out to distribute orange juice and homemade treats, and she's also started getting to know more of her neighbors. And those violations? As confirmed by Hamilton Township, they are long gone, and Anne's home looks better than ever.
"To see the joy on our neighbor's face, I think the biggest thing is Anne's happiness and her kind of restored life," Adam told People. "Her outgoingness to other neighbors is based on her house being improved."
(h/t People)
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