On the house selling front, this past week was definitely full of a lot of … well, ridiculousness for lack of a better word. We had three house showings this week (bringing that total to eight in a month) but so far no bites.
Last week there were a lot of little details around the house we worked on as strangers wandered through and cast a judgmental eye, with a few more we still need to address.
We’ve been without a washer for a few months now and one, we were tired of either washing clothes at my parents (and feeling like we were inconveniencing them) or my husband going to the laundry mat. Two, we needed to get it fixed before we sell the house. So, this week I used my Christmas money to get it fixed. On the same day the repairman came, I decided to paint the front and back doors so they would look a little less like doors that have been kicked by children, run into by all ages, and scratched by dogs wanting to get inside from the cold or the heat.
The painting job proved to be more complicated than I had planned when my 5-year old daughter asked if she could help. I hated to have her simply sitting and playing on my phone all day like she has been doing much of Christmas break, so I told her she could, knowing I could paint over any strokes that went array while she painted.
I placed newspapers on the floor by the door so it wouldn’t get on our laminate because we had a showing scheduled for two days later. Unfortunately, I left the paint can lid on the newspaper and my daughter stepped in it, which caused me to freak out because I could see her running across the floor to wash it off and making footprints in paint from the front door all the way across the living room, through the kitchen and to the bathroom. I shouted, only to stop her from stepping on the laminate and in frustration at myself for leaving the lid, and she, of course, almost cried. That was a definite guilty parent moment so I carried her to the bathroom and we had fun splashing in the bathroom sink while I washed her feet.
She decided after a few moments of painting it made her arm too tired so she passed the job back to me and in the middle of painting our agent called and we scheduled another showing the day after the first one. The next day we received a request for a second showing on Thursday, which we agreed to do. I knew it would mean us leaving the house twice in one day and early the next, but we need to get this house sold, so we agreed.
After the first showing, the agent called to say the buyers had smelled natural gas in our basement and suggested we call the gas company. I went to the house to check it out first and didn’t smell anything but dirt in the basement. My son went in separately and said the same thing. My husband sniffed when he got home and nothing. So we hoped that it was a fluke and went on with the other showings. We actually forgot about the natural gas smell until the day after the last showing when my husband asked our agent how the showings had gone and she said he had texted the last agent of the week who said she also smelled natural gas in the basement.
Of course, the buyer’s agent never let our agent know she’d smelled natural gas so we had no idea there still could be an issue, but hey, at least we didn’t blow up or die. We are making sure to get the name of the agent who didn’t bother to tell our agent about the smell until our agent asked and then making sure we never, ever hire her.
Making a long story short, instead of longer, we ended up calling the emergency line for the gas company and were told to get out of the house immediately. We felt this was overkill since we couldn’t smell anything anywhere in the house, but I gathered up the kids and a friend who was staying over and we all sat in our car while my husband took our van to the mechanic.
The man from the gas company was so sweet and amazing and very thorough. He walked me through the house with the meter and tested pipes in the basement and by any appliance that uses gas. He even showed me on the meter where a small amount of gas was being detected and assured me it wouldn’t have been enough to knock us out or blow up the house.
I think the best moment of his visit was when he asked if my husband and I were believers. I was happy to say we were and guessed he had seen our bibles or maybe our gorgeous painting of Christ’s return by local artist Wayne Beeman. We had a nice talk about churches and pastors before he left, shortly after my husband returned with the bad news about the van.
Oh, wait, did I mention the problem with the van? That’s right, I didn’t. So on Saturday of last week, I noticed a horrible sound in the right backside of my van and thought it was a flat tire. It wasn’t, so I hoped it was just something stuck inside the wheel well (or whatever it is called) and proceeded to drive the 30 miles to my parent and back that day. By Tuesday, when I had to run an errand in town, the sound was really getting loud. And to make this story even shorter: we have to have our back brakes replaced. (yeah!! More money to spend that we don’t have!
On top of the van, the washer, keeping and getting the house clean for the showings, the natural gas scare, and the roofers trying to show up in the middle of our third showing during the week — oh wait, did I tell you about the roof? No? Oh, so apparently one buyer went into our attic and informed the agent with him that there was a huge wet area around our chimney and suggested the roof was leaking.
I’m going to shorten this story right down and let you know that was not the case and instead there was slight dampness on the actual chimney and there were signs of damage to the inside of the roof but this appearance of damage was leftover from right before we replaced the roof about seven years ago and new boards and roofing material were added over that area and the damage was staining and not actually wet.
So, we called the roofers, since the work is under a 10-year warranty and they said they would be there the next week. Two weeks later they called to set up the appointment for 11:30 a.m. on Friday, an hour and a half after the third and last showing for the week. The night before the last showing we were told the showing would be closer to 10:30, which we figured would work out fine since the roofers weren’t coming until 11:30.
Nothing has been easy about any of this house selling process so, of course, the roofers call while I’m out with the kids, down the street with the noisy van, and they want to know if they can come “now” at 11. Let’s cut this story down and just say we had to push them off a half an hour and when they did come back there was no damage inside the house or on the roof but there did need to be some tar added around the chimney.
While the roofers were out buying the tar, I ran to Walmart for our pick up order, came back and cooked the kids a pizza and as soon as the roofers left we headed to roller skating with the local homeschooling group. Because the Crazy Week of Drama wasn’t ready to be over yet, my daughter, who had been asking to go roller skating all week and all that day, proceeded to have a breakdown over the roller skates she was given and we had to go through three pairs before I finally told her to suck it up and use the skates she was given and either enjoy the time she had to skate or be miserable, I didn’t care anymore.
The problem with the first skates? They were tight and latched weird and fit on her actual feet and not on her shoes like the other ones she has been given while there. What was wrong with the final pair we were given? They were blue and yellow, not pink. (insert eye roll here). Yes. That’s it. They were not pink.
Eventually, she was able to get over the color crisis and she wanted to skate but she wasn’t content in going out alone this time and shuffling around the edge because there were more people this month, so while I had hoped to sit and read a book and relax a little while, I spent the next hour and a half making laps around the rink in my shoes while she shuffled on her skates and helping her into the concession area for cotton candy and a snow cone.
This time I didn’t do what I normally do during skating, which is buy her the snow cone early in the skating session and then end up throwing it away because you can’t take snacks out of the concession area. Instead, we waited until right before we left to get the snow cone and we took it with us – and then ended up throwing it out anyhow because it tipped out after we got in the house.
The day had already been crazy with stops at three different stores while we waited for the showing to end and then the roller skating drama so when I looked down while at the rink, and after talking to several people in the homeschool group, and saw I had thrown on a shirt I had thought I’d thrown out because it had holes in it over the bra area all I could do is laugh and think about what a fun blog post this week was going to let me write.
Last week was traumatic for my daughter, I suppose. After the painting incident and losing her tooth and all the blood from that and … wait! I did mention she lost her tooth while eating an apple and had a complete meltdown when the blood started pooling on her bottom lip, right? No? Oh, yeah, well that happened after I’d already scolded her for stepping in the paint and then tried to make it up to her by letting her stick her feet in the bathroom sink and have an extra popsicle.
The bottom line of this blog post is that I felt like I was plugging holes all week long. I should say all the drama was worth it because someone made an offer on the house, but we didn’t make a sale, our timeframe for being able to buy the house we have an offer on is shrinking, and I’m pretty tired of running in and out of the house just to have people tell us what they don’t like about our house and why they won’t buy it.
I’m seriously over the whole house selling thing, but we want this house sold and we really, really want to get out of the town we are in so we are closer to my family and my husband’s job so we keep slogging on.
So, how about all of you? How was your week last week and what are you up to this week? Let me know in the comments…if you are so inclined.
The documentary follows the journey of a couple who starts a diverse farm in a fairly deserted area of California. Under the guidance of a consultant, they not only plant diverse crops but also begin raising various livestock, including sheep and chickens and one fat, pregnant pig. The couple started the farm to give their rescue dog a place to roam and soon learn their family dream will cost them a lot of pain, emotionally, physically and financially. There is a lot of bad (coyotes come to visit; there are other unexpected challenges) but there is also a lot of good (a booming egg business for one).
I like the predictability of the Cat Who books. I don’t always know who committed the crime but I know what the pattern will be to solve it. Qwill’s mustache is going to quiver and hum, alerting him to something that has gone amiss, but he’s still going to walk himself right into something questionable and his cat KoKo is going to help solve the crime with his uncanny ability to feel (and signal Qwill) when something is off. Also, a few women will fall all over the retired crime reporter and he will return some of that affection but he’s going to back away from the woman, choosing instead the comfort of the reserved librarian Polly Duncan from the small town of Pickax.
