until closing.

Mortgage got approved (with caveats, should be handle them).

Yesterday. Rush title search started. Termite inspection triggered.

Its the boy's.

They said: Sure, you can have a house, go shopping.
He said: Cool, let's go find a house.
We said: YAY, check out this house.
Hired lawyer, started process, got news from bank:
WTF? Who were you kidding, minimal credit history, no mortgage for you.

We spent a couple of days dithering, found a supportive mortgage agent at another bank, and started the process again, but this time with professional guidance.

Of course we had already scheduled leaving the current place. Yes, it was silly, but we were DONE there. So a week of short term hotel suite (f'ing expensive) and then move to a semi-vacant house (for sale, crappy condition, been on the market for a year, I don't want it but it is a cheap place to hang out).

It was filthy and moldy and smelly and yucky. M put in a couple of serious cleaning days before it was livable. I helped, but not much.

3 days after we moved in (and cleaned it), they showed it and sold it. 1st showing in a year. Which gave us between 2-3 months to GTFO! Without investing any more effort into this house.

I can put up with anything for a limited amount of time. Sometimes the time frame is measured in decades. This place would be for a couple of months MAX. If the mortgage fell through, there was plenty of $$ in the bank to move to somewhere at least a little better. But we couldn't touch it unless we were done with the mortgage process.

Ok, bman, when reading this, keep in mind NOTHING I suffer at this place compares to the smell of your lobby (even before cleaning). THAT I cannot put up with.

I've written about this place a bit. Small 3 bedroom 1 bath house, 1/2 a duplex. When you walk in the front door, you walk into an open area. The entire downstairs of the house is essentially 3 15x15 rooms separated by large cut outs, so it is really 1 open area 15 x 45. TV "room" in the front, kitchen in the back.

We don't go in the basement. That is where the clothes washer is. We go to the laundromat. The basement is infested with fleas, which are also occasionally found in the rest of the house. Which means we have to be wary of bringing any with us to the next house. I can see some flea bombing here before we leave then in the new house again to make sure we don't bring any with.

They left me and the boy alone for the 1st week. It was odd. They feasted on the women and didn't touch us. But then they moved on to us.

The house tilts. Pretty hard on the steps to the 2nd floor. It screws with your sense of direction and balance since if you walked "straight" you'd walk into the wall, which means my body gets contorted while walking. They are also too short (in depth),my foot only gets placed 1/2 way on the step, I really need to wear shoes while walking on them or they hurt me. The bouncy creak in the steps feel like they are going to peal away from the wall as the house collapses.

The house bounces as the girl walks around. She's got elephant feet.

The heat doesn't work and the electric sucks, old outlets, limited wattage, circuit breaker blown with a single electric space heater, don't run the toaster and the microwave at the same time. And when resetting the breaker, I have to run through the fleas.

No AC.

There are 3 bedrooms.

Ceiling fans downstairs and in my bedroom. They spread the mold around.

When describing the girl's new bedroom to her (before she saw it), the joke was made she did not have to worry about falling out of bed. The room can barely hold it, it fills the space, with the swing area of the door at the foot of the bed. She said she's not crying herself to sleep every night, not yet, so she can put up with it.

Our bedroom had a soft damp wall with a hole in it. The spore load is HUGE. I covered the entire wall with a black plastic tarp, then put a white sheet over that (black plastic wall is OPPRESSIVE feeling), and kept the mold on the other side. I ran the ozone machine for a while and killed what I could, but it is ever present.

My bedroom windows (over my head, the only place the bed can be) fronts to a residential busy street, commonly used as a parallel route for the main road 2 blocks over. It is open enough that the cars can get some speed and make some noise. There is a custom motorcycle shop around the corner, so lots of bike noise occasionally as they are testing the bikes out. No sleeping during the day here.

The single bathroom has a decent shower head, good water pressure, and the hot water is VERY hot, and lasts for longer than I can shower. And I shower for a LONG time, especially when I'm trying to wash the skeevy house off me.

No cable.
No landline.
No fax (fakeable via scanner / 4g Clear internet if I have to).

The oven doesn't work.
No dishwasher.

Hmm, pretty much covered it.

Ok, so we seem to be surviving this place, and we seem to actually see the light at the end of the tunnel, and isn't a train. It is the reflection of the pool I'll be swimming in, in my backyard as soon as it gets warm. And then all year when I enclose it. Gotta have high goals, or these moments of dismal existence get to you.

No termites but a few carpenter bees. Doesn't matter, they only care about termites. Fixing the bees anyway.

You ever see the frantic emails going back and forth when someone tries to close a real estate deal within 3 days of loan approval?

Wow.

Probably won't happen.

They are targeting Friday, and I doubt the title search will be done yet. Oh well, almost over.

That's OK, I'll be there in the morn to fix it.

This may still happen this week. We'll find out tomorrow.

Slightly older hispanic guy. He lives in the other half of the house. Along with his wife, and 2 daughters, 1 of which is an 8 day newborn. I was hanging out in the house for a couple of hours, quietly. I never heard anything. THICK walls.

Note: The other 1/2 of the house has been transformed into 3 apartments. He lives in 1 of them with his family. I can envision mine being turned into 4 individual apartments, each with it's own entrance, 2 of them 3 bedrooms.

This place can be a retirement income producer, WHILE I live in it.

I go meet my agent at the house. We will be doing the walk-through.
The owners are not there.
They have NOT moved out.

We have agreed that closing will be 2:30, their movers will show up up between 4 and 6. If they damage the place, there is a bit in escrow to cover it.

I will be in the house the entire time. I'm not going to closing.

I wander around. I go through the checklist. I have a tough time figuring out how to turn the shower on. Odd controls. My real estate agent can't figure it out either.

He gets a call and has to leave. I'm along, wandering. I figure out the tub, oh such a proud moment.

Owners and their agent show up. Their agent freaks at me. I'm not allowed to be there alone. Oh well, don't talk to me lady, talk to the other agent.

She continues to freak at me. She says the only way I can be here is if the owners says so. I turn to them and smile, can I stay?

Sure. They love me.

We get the call, closing moved to 3:30. But still on. But I need to go get my pay check, so I leave M to baby sit the house.

While on my way, I get stuck in traffic, and start bitching. And then realise, fuck that, the boy is in a CLOSING, that's STRESS, I'm merely in traffic.

I get to the office, he calls.

Done.

Ok, come back, be dazed and confused, wander around while the previous people move out.

Their movers FUCKED them. 4-6. That meant 4-6. At 6PM, that said, Ok, that's it, we are done. If you want any more you will have to pay us to bring the truck back here tomorrow.

Of course they freak, and in a few moments the wife was crying while the husband was telling her that I now own all their shit that they didn't get out of the house (all the BEST stuff was being saved for last it seems) and that they'd just have to suck it up and deal with it.

Wow. Tough guy.

Of course we said they could come back tomorrow and get it, and we would take the van and deliver it for them, and they should not have to worry at all about it.

The husband came back the next day for it. As I was cleaning up I found his gun. It was old, but still in good condition. I gave it back to him. No gun in this house, at least not without some serious training and prep. On the other hand, I did keep the ancient blackjack.

I'm writing this in the "attic". More room in a single room (plus lots of built in shelves, drawers and cabinets, looks like stained redwood, everywhere) than I've ever had before. Large amounts of "project" space.

But I did not notice any 3 prong outlets. I blocked the walls with boxes and stuff, so I might of missed them. I ran an extension cord to the attic to plug in my computer gear.

Oh well.

It took 3 truck loads to empty the old house and 2 storage units. My nephew showed up at 2:30. He was supposed to be there at 1. He borrowed a truck from work. The 1st load was about 50% random furniture and most of the boxes. About 1/2 of everything ended up in the attic. I only did about a 1/10th of the work, the kids did most of the carrying and running.

My couch (oh how I love that couch) could not fit through the front door. It didn't like the back sliding glass door either. I took the glass door off. It was still too tight. We took the semi-flat feet off. They are about 1/2 inch high. That was what it needed.

As we were emptying the 2nd load, it was 7:30. In the previous load, it took about an hour to unload and 25 minutes to get back to the place. But the place was closing at 9. And I did not want to pay the gas to get them back, and they didn't want to come back.

When the storage place closes. the gates stop working. Even if you are already inside. We know that you can call the company and get a code to open the gate, but it may take a while.

We decided to empty as FAST as possible to make it back before they closed, and then take a chance on getting out in time. These guys emptied that truck in about 10 minutes. Most things got dropped on the porch (big porch, good overhand for rain protection, I love watching rain storms on it) while others carried up.

When we went back to the storage unit, no light except flashlight. I slave drove these guys.

We made it out of the gate at 8:57.

Back home M had cleared the porch and we did it again.

When the truck was emptied my nephew pointed out that there was a large corner area of the truck was blocked out with wood and FILLED with sheets of foam rubber. They were ripped out of a recording studio. They are designed for acoustic damping. I THINK there is enough to cover the attic. And if not, he knows where to get more.

Wow, the day keeps getting better and better.

In bed about 10PM.

When I wakeup, I turn on the gas fireplace. It take about 5 minutes for the room to warm up. I go 1/2 way up the steps. Holy shit, there is a chimney effect as heat is sweeping up along, through the hall, and then up the next level to the attic. And that is just 1 of the fireplaces. The other faces the other direction, and goes up the other steps.

This morning I went back to the old crap house, packed up my computer gear, and drenched the carpets in flea poison. I then picked them up, they are on the porch. After I buy the carpet cleaner I'll unroll them and work on them.

We'll be ready for visitors in a couple of weeks. Wait until the pool is open though.

The closest walkable chinese sucks, but there are a dozen more to try.