It’s officially over

Well, our wait is over.  It should have been over yesterday, but once again, the agent from hell dropped the ball.

The house we were supposed to close the deal on Monday is no longer a deal in the works.  It’s entirely off–the house can’t ever have the utilities turned on.

I thought we’d done our homework prior to ever making an offer, because when it comes right down to it, that’s the buyer’s responsibility.  We’re just fortunate that I’m none too patient and wanted the city’s inspection done so we could turn the utilities on as soon as the house closed.

It seems that prior to the building (it was a garage pre-Katrina) being converted, FEMA had surveyed the damage in the area and had designated the building as damaged beyond repair.  That meant that it could not be repaired or remodeled without being raised to above flood levels.  (The area had about five feet of water with the hurricane, but normally does  not flood for hurricanes or tropical storms.)  There isn’t anything anybody can do–it’s apparently a case of what FEMA says is as good as law.  The house is unusable.  We’re not buying it, and the lot itself is over priced if it only contains a building that has to be torn down as per FEMA.

Yee haw, we’re still homeless, but as my husband keeps reminding me, there is a silver lining to the cloud.  We aren’t the ones who own that useless piece of property.  Our money isn’t tied up in it.

That isn’t helping me very much today.  I am depressed, I had seen the light at the end of the tunnel.  I had begun to think about paint, landscaping, and fencing for the dogs.  I was excited, and could see French doors installed in the living area towards the yard on that side.

It reminds me a lot of a house my mother and I looked at years ago.  She’d fallen in love with it from the outside.  She had actually gotten a pattern to crochet by hand some curtains for the bay window.  She was so disappointed when we got inside, discovered it was far beyond our ability to fix up, with everything from dangling 1930′s electrical wiring to dissolving plaster and grass growing up through the toilet.  I wasn’t thrilled to discover that the third “bedroom” was actually a dirt floored lean-to on the back of the house.

Never get excited until all the t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted.

So we’re back on the prowl.  Not that we have  much to look at.  What aggravates me the most is that we passed up several other optional purchases, because this one was the cheapest of the group, and we were then locked in on the offer.  Two months later, we have no house at all.

I can try and be philosophical about the entire situation.  It’s not working too well right now, it sounds more like sour grapes than philosophy to me today.  So, I’m focusing on extracting the earnest money from the real estate agent (she cashed the checks) and continuing the search.

So we weren’t meant to get this house.  It was Fate looking down at us and shaking their collective heads and pushing the house aside.  I only hope that the same group of Ladies of Fate see fit to help us find the right place for us.  I don’t want something big and fancy, I just want something dry and safe, that we can make attractive and comfortable for us and our motley crew of rescued companions.  I want a yard that I can plant a few shrubs and trees in for fruit, along with a garden, and still have space for the dogs to run and be dogs in.  I want my granddaughter to look forward to visiting us in it.

I’m just not cut out to be a nomad, it seems, yet at the same time, its as though those Ladies of Fate keep trying to push me into a nomadic lifestyle.  I feel detached and disconnected without a place to call home.

More setbacks?

Today is supposed to be the Big Day in regards to our house purchase.

Closing Day.

Having found ourselves with the world’s most lackadaisical seller AND agent…we saw the sun rising this morning with doubts about whether or not the sale was going to go through.

Guess what?

It doesn’t look like it is going to go through.  The title company is getting the blame today, and I’m still worried about the unreasonably high “earnest money” fee being forfeited due to it NOT closing.  I don’t trust this agent to tell us the truth.  I don’t trust this agent any further than I can throw her, to be honest.

She doesn’t answer the phone, she doesn’t answer emails, she doesn’t answer text messages, and never responds to phone messages either.  The agency’s office isn’t much better–we waited in the office, after ringing the little bell on the desk, with our none-too-quiet under 2 year old granddaughter in tow…while we listened to someone making obviously personal phone calls in one of the offices off of the main reception area.  No one came out until I called it off and said we’d come back later.

Professionalism is not part of this agency’s vocabulary, apparently.  It certainly wouldn’t be one that I would recommend on the Mississippi Gulf Coast either.  They are also going to stay nameless until this deal is done, agency and agent alike.  We’re not having much luck already with this group, and certainly don’t want to risk real animosity from the lazy bunch.

I am seriously irritated.  It’s been a month of waiting for who-knows-what to get to the scheduled closing date.  They cashed the earnest money checks, despite protocol indicating that these would not be cashed until the closing date.

I am also suspicious.  I want something in writing about this deal being dragged out, indicating that we’re not forfeiting that earnest money.

So…I think we’d best be bugging that agent again.

What do you think?

Small house, big mistake

We did some measuring on the house we’re buying earlier this week, which explained a peculiarity about the house…and brought a huge problem in a tiny space to our attention.

Where is this problem?

The utility room.

Somebody made a huge mistake in that tiny cramped space when they planned the utility room.  It has all the basics–the closet for the central air/heat, the water heater, the washer hook ups, and the 220 volt plug in for the dryer, as well as the dryer vent.  It all looks good when you just look at it.

Utility room's laundry hook ups. They look "normal", right?

But we had noticed a peculiar thing about it too.  It sports two doors–the “back” door and a door into the living area.  On the door to the living area, there was weather stripping, and a lot of it.  Why on earth would anyone put weather stripping on an interior door?

Initially, we thought perhaps it was to prevent heat transfer from using the dryer, or to block noise from the machines.  We were happy with that explanation until we measured.  It seems that here was the mistake.

There is exactly 26″ from the back of the space for the machines to the door frames, both of which open inwards into the tiny space.  Without allowing for hoses behind the machines, the machines measure 26 1/2″ on upwards to about 29″.

It won’t fit…and allow the back door to be used.

Moving a door is a major project, even if GM does it himself.  It’s not exactly an afternoon’s work.  There is plenty of room to move it further away from the machine without interfering with the water heater’s closet or the closet holding the central air/heat unit…so why on earth did they screw this up so badly?

We’ll never know the answer, but eventually, we do have to come up with a solution.  We don’t currently own these appliances, and they are a ways down the list in terms of priorities for purchasing them as well–we’ll get by initially with trips to the laundromat.  (Thank goodness it offers free wi-fi, right?  Nothing ranks as boring as sitting and waiting for laundry to wash!)

Problems are easy to find.  The real challenges are found in finding solutions that fit our budget, tools, skills, and abilities.  That’s next…but not until after closing.

The formal handing over of title and deed seems so far away right now!

And so the weeds grow and the fire ants build an industrial complex

Waiting to close on a house is an exercise in patience.  We did go back to the house after signing the contract for the bid, mostly to double check a few things and do some measuring.  We had missed some of the “problems” too, although that wouldn’t have made any substantial difference in our bid.

It’s “livable” and it is dirt cheap, so we’re just faced with making it into our home and doing the repairs.

In the meantime, here on the Gulf Coast, we have ample moisture, plenty of sunshine and fertile soil–a perfect recipe for a neglected lot to start looking like the weeds have won the war.  The fire ants are also taking full advantage of the lack of a human presence to make their industrial complexes.  They are even hiking through the back door into the utility room.

I hate fire ants, like anyone who has ever been inflicted with their painful bites.

It’s also killing me that we can’t get the lot mowed until we close.  It looks horrible as it is, and I’m sure our new neighbors aren’t thrilled with the way it looks either.  It also makes it virtually impossible to assess the lot properly–the weeds hide any holes, hills, or other obstacles that need dealt with.  Even the parking area is waist high.

This section of lattice was used to form a short section of fence in the front, alongside the parking area. It is now being consumed by weeds.

So we wait…and know the fire ants are preparing their complex for battle in the meantime.

Another step closer…

The property we made an offer on has an agreed price after the haggling back and forth.  We’ve got the financial aspect covered.  We have signed that initial paperwork for the process.  The earnest money has been paid.

Not that there haven’t been some bumps in the road along the way.  It turned out that this particular house had never been given an address…in this day and age, no less!  That required a lot of trips from city hall to court house, back and forth, over and over, for the real estate agent.  It had also never had its own electric meter, which required the seller to hire a licensed electrician and coordinate with the power company to install one.  It was at that point that I must confess…I was worried the seller (a bank) would back out.

Now, those hurdles have been jumped, and we’re on to the waiting game until the closing.  We can, however, arrange for the city to inspect the house and give us that oh-so-necessary certificate of occupancy that we need in order to turn on the utilities after we do close.  The missing item that was going to cause a failure from the city was it’s utter lack of smoke detectors, which the agent promised to install prior to the inspector’s arrival.  I thought that was a very nice gesture on her part, since she’s been making me crazy with her manner of returning calls.  (She apparently prefers text messages and email…and I prefer to hear a voice!) Since it’s all electric, no carbon monoxide detectors are required.

Since this house was converted in the aftermath of Katrina…I have no worries about that inspection–the codes haven’t changed.

But that isn’t the end of it. I’ll get photos posted as soon as I actually start taking them and we start working.  It will be interesting to see before and after pictures.

We have so much work to do…from the waist high weeds onward.

To make it a bigger challenge, we don’t really have any money, so the repairs, work, and materials…are all being done on a shoestring.  There’s no furniture either–we’d gotten rid of nearly everything that could be called “furniture.”  That means we have camp chairs to sit on, a camp table…and a bookshelf.

GM has the skills to do the work, whether its building a new entry or a new table, but we are also “tool challenged.”  For power tools, all we have now is both a corded and battery power drill, a cheap jig saw, a dremel tool set, a router, and a scroll saw.  Our most critical need is probably going to be a circular saw, as it can safely accomplish most cuts on both sheet stock and dimensional lumber.

For the house, the critical needs are going to start with plumbing and painting, and we already know that we need a new toilet.

The tank is cracked, the tape is because of winterization of the house. The cracked tank has been "repaired" with metal duct tape.

We hadn’t noticed this particular detail on the initial inspection, but it wouldn’t have made much difference anyhow.  This is probably one of the more glaring needs-to-be-repaired items, but it’s certainly not the most serious or expensive.

So our shopping list is growing: caulk, caulk gun, toilet, new wax ring, corner molding to replace the lovely job the toilet currently sports with corner bead for drywall…and plumbing parts. Some things have to wait due to financial crunches–we have to move in as soon as possible, and just plain don’t have the money for an instant remodeling of the house.

That means we are stuck with the flooring for now.  It’s special too…along with the closet installations, the door to the utility room and a few other horrible things.  The damaged kitchen cabinets, despite the bad installation and damage, are also something we have to live with.  They too will get a scrubbing, coat of paint, and a promise for better things to come.

Despite the problems and needed changes and repairs…I like the house and the lot.  I don’t like that it is considered “flood plain” but most of coastal Mississippi IS somehow flood prone.  This area flooded during Katrina, but doesn’t habitually flood for every incoming tropical storm, unlike the bayous and some of the river front areas.  (According to the neighbors, Katrina delivered about 5′ of water…enough to indicate that a hurricane is an occasion to go visit someone inland.)

So we’re looking at the weeds and sighing…we don’t even own a lawnmower.  The graveled parking area is even sporting the waist high crop of weeds.  For this, I had recently read something about how straight distilled vinegar, sprayed on weeds, will kill them quicker than using chemicals such as Round Up.  Since we would prefer to avoid that kind of chemicals (we’re intending on doing some gardening and prefer organic practices) and distilled vinegar is one of the cheapest chemicals on the market…I’m going to give that a try.  We have a healthy crop of native vines taking over some fencing, and that too will get the pickling treatment with the hopes that it works on them.  (I already know that these vines are apt to thrive on Round Up from previous experiences.)

So here is our shopping list as we wait for news about closing.

• 2 gallons vinegar
• yard & garden sprayer
• drywall mud
• trowel/knive
• sanding block
• sand paper
• paintable caulking
• caulk gun
• toilet
• roller pads
• roller
• extension handle
• paint tray
• paint brushes
• small/trim roller
• masking tape
• step ladder

While we can drive to Mobile, Alabama or the Gulfport/Biloxi area for supplies, we only have a Lowe’s in the Pascagoula area, along with the standard Walmart.  That doesn’t give us a lot of options for supplies and tools.  We also don’t see a lot of benefit in spending an entire day and half a tank of gas (to the tune of $30-40 these days) to save $10 on our supplies.  For some things, there is also the option of mail order/internet shopping to get the items we need.  We’ll see.  I dn’t mind saving a bit if I don’t have to sacrifice too much quality to do so.

Just looking for a home…

Eighteen months in the poorly designed travel trailer, and we’re ready to call that phase quits.  I hate it.

I seriously hate it.

There is no place to put anything, and while some travel trailers are designed with adequate storage and a workable floor plan, ours wasn’t.  It was awkward, cheaply made, and frustrating.

I also suffer from claustrophobia, and the bedroom was so cramped that I had to sleep with my feet hanging off of the bed to alleviate that feeling of suffocation (there was a “closet” alongside the head of the bed.)  There wasn’t much I did like about it after the first few months.

We wanted to downsize, but this was a perpetual agony of downsizing.  The size probably wasn’t the problem in our case, it was the design of the particular travel trailer we had bought.

So for over a year, we had been searching for that perfect “bargain” in real estate that we could not only live with the payments, but we could live with living there for a minimum of five years.   If you add in the consideration that our budget was as downsized as our quarters, it is a wonder we had the faith to even keep searching.  No money, no credit, no collateral, and still we hoped that we’d find SOMETHING suitable.

Obviously, with our budget, we were looking at “distressed” properties, and boy did we see some doozies.  Some of those doozies also came with some incredibly surprising price tags.

$35,000 for a small rural lot with a gutted, formerly flooded home that had to be raised to get a certificate of occupancy…to the tune of FOURTEEN feet?  With rotted roof and all, there it sat with the spray painted tags from the months after Katrina.  It was going to need a new well, new pump system, new septic system up to current standards, and the house was unlikely as a candidate for renovation and raising onto a platform.

Another one had a reduced price of $22,000 in another rural location, although high and dry this time, out of the reach of hurricane storm surges by more than twenty miles.  It was supposed to be in “rough” condition, sporting a garage, a shed, and a self-supported roof over an older mobile home.  The reality had a far different picture, and while it came with over 2 1/2 acres of land…the roof was rotting, the insulation and ceiling had come down and the water was still streaming in days after a rainstorm when we visited the property.  Vandals had ripped out cupboards in the kitchen, strewn personal belongings around, and it even came complete with used syringes on the floor.  Doors hung halfway off of their hinges, and I shook my head.  Who would want to start to work on this mess, knowing that whoever had vandalized this property probably lived in the area and might come back to see what they might be able to steal?  The humped driveway off of the busy blacktop road was another problem–our van bottomed out on it, and there was no way we could get any trailer, let alone a 30′ travel trailer, over it, and it would require a bulldozer to level it out before we could start doing anything.

Scratch that off of the list.

Another one was another bayou property that had flooded severely during Katrina, although it was high enough that it didn’t flood with every tropical storm like some bayou areas do.  It had a large, newer (circa 2000) mobile home on it, but the home had flooded, and the former occupants never removed their destroyed personal belongings.  The bank hadn’t even foreclosed, instead, the property was forfeited due to back taxes.  Repeatedly.

Inquiring with the local county zoning had us dancing through hoops with the mobile home, instead of merely getting rid of it and starting over.  I had zero interest in renovating an older (by 2011) and flooded mobile home to live in, especially when it too had to be raised fourteen feet into the air.  We also had not been able to get a straight answer about whether or not we could put our travel trailer on the property while we were dealing with preparing to build, raising the money and then building a home.  We decided that there was too much red tape involved with the property, especially with it weeks from being forfeited again due to back taxes.  That property, during the time period we looked at it, went from $7000 to $3500.  About a month after we gave up on it, we drove past it again, and the mobile home was occupied…without raising it.  I wish the occupants a long life and good health, but I suspect they are dealing with more mold than is healthy.

We looked at a newer mobile home in a nearby small town, supposedly in a “good area.”  The area might have been good, but the particular street this one was located on was not.   We weren’t able to get in and look at the interior at that moment, but it didn’t matter.  I told GM that I’d be afraid to stay home alone…in the day time…in that neighborhood.  He laughed and said that the first time we left, we’d likely not have to worry about coming home, because our impression was that the house would be looted the minute we were gone.

That one was scratched without further ado.

Another mobile home on a 2 acre lot sounded wonderful, but there again, we weren’t able to get in to inspect the interior.  Its pump had been stolen from the well, and in talking with some neighbors, we found out what the problem with getting the permit for the septic system would be.  The county was putting in water and sewer in the area, but it was going to be up to two years before it was actually available to this particular home.  That meant we could be forced to sit on the property, unable to use it, for the two years.  Another case of scratch-that-one-from-the-list.  We couldn’t afford to buy a property we couldn’t use for the first two years.

Small houses, gutted houses, flood properties, dilapidated structures, debris and trash, junk cars…we saw it all.  We’d sigh, sometimes we’d laugh, often we’d shake our heads, and we’d move on.  The right property hadn’t come along, despite our desperation to escape our “sardine can” travel trailer.

Then, finally it did.

Or so we hope.  We are actually waiting today to hear from the realtor about whether or not the deal has been accepted.  It’s a tiny two bedroom house, in a converted garage, with the work done since Katrina.  (The area had 5-6 feet of water from the storm surge.)  It’s in a flood zone, but nearly everything on the coast is in a flood zone, and according to the neighbors, the area had only flooded during Katrina, instead of for every tropical storm that hit the coastal area.

It has a tiny laundry room, a basic full bathroom, two of the stupidest looking closets I’ve ever seen, and an all-in-one living/dining/kitchen/family room…without an exterior door to access the yard from that room, despite having the ramps indicating the original garage doors were located on that side.  It has a dorky little overhang over the front door, and absolutely NO “street presence” in terms of the neighborhood.  It really looks like a converted garage still, with this industrial looking parking area directly in front of the front door and missing fences on either side of it.

We know that the plumbing needs repairs, although we’re not sure exactly what is all wrong.  We don’t know if the central air/heat works, nor if all of the parts are actually in place either.  We weren’t able to inspect the water heater either.

There’s plenty of room for surprises.  It is also affordable for us on a five year loan, a far better prospect than saddling ourselves with a thirty year mortgage.  For most people the price translates to dirt cheap, even if it IS a converted garage.

How do I feel about that?

Surprisingly, it doesn’t bother me.  Some things about the house I really like, some things I don’t, but the “likes” far outweigh the “hates”.  I know we are going to want to change some things, as soon as we can afford to spend the money.  I know I want a door added to the living area side to access the side yard.  (The house has far more width than depth in terms of its lot size and shape.)  I also want a deck to cover up the ramp, and a new entry of some kind for the street side.  Some things we can change with very little money, other things are going to have to wait for the funds to be available.

This property, I will be sorely disappointed if we can’t come to an agreement with the seller.  I’ve also learned that I would never hire this particular realtor to represent us in selling property–she doesn’t return calls promptly, and is not very actively engaged in this property at all.  I realize that its probably the cheapest property (with the correspondingly low commission for selling it) but there is no excuse for simply ignoring phone calls…or people who walk into your office.  We had actually waited in the office, rang the bell, and stood around for fifteen minutes listening to someone in one of the offices making phone calls that sounded more personal in nature than professional.

I really have a bone to pick with poor customer/client service.  I don’t feel that they are representing either the seller or the buyer very well.

So we wait…and I just want to know if it’s a done deal, when we can close, and when we can find out about the utilities, paint the place, and get it ready to move into.  Patience is not my forte, I guess!  We have waited and searched for a long time for this “bargain.”  Over half of the business day is gone today, and who knows if she has even called the seller with our counter offer.

Big sigh.

I want to move on to the next phase.  I want to go get measurements and start plotting.  I want to arrange to mow down the waist high weeds before they are a snake haven and pure hell for humans and hounds.  I want the fence fixed so we have at least the small “backyard” dog proofed so that the dogs can use that area.  I want to find out where the shut off is for the water, to find the breaker box for the electric, and remove the nails holding the door closed on what is probably the water heater.  I want to go buy paint, even if we’re stuck buying bargain paint.

Dang it, I just want to know if it is going to be our home!

Another looming disaster?

Living in a travel trailer in someone’s back yard is one low-cost option when downsizing, especially if your travel trailer exceeds your vehicle’s towing capacity.  Ours does.  With the way the price of gasoline is skyrocketing with no end in sight, changing that doesn’t look like a brilliant option either.  Not only would we have the expense of another vehicle, either as a second one or replacing our mini-van, but it is tough enough fueling the one we have.  It can work quite well, but there are problems.

We’re encountering one.  

We really, truly, most sincerely and definitely too, need to find a lot or piece of property that will work for us and we can afford to buy.  Being semi-nomadic and at the mercy of others’ lives, choices, behavior, and whims is apparently not for us.

It seems that our benefactor has had financial problems resulting in their home being put into foreclosure.  What does that mean for us?

It means that if they don’t manage to salvage their situation, we’re going to have our own situation of being forced to move while ill prepared and without a clue where on earth we’re going to go next.  We had been looking, hoping to find a low cost alternative to a trailer park or RV park, but so far…nothing actually suitable has come up.  Trying to get a time frame, etc. hasn’t been easy–it’s an uncomfortable and difficult situation for everyone.  For us, it looks like we have at least three weeks before the “Fist of Fate” descends on our heads.  Outside of that, we don’t know.

Panic time?

Well, panic wouldn’t do us any good.  We are “financially challenged” right now, courtesy of some health problems that have dropped unexpected costs on our heads too.  We don’t have our usual cushion in the bank account.  Our search for a new location is continuing, even if there is a much more serious air to it.  We really could use a bit of good luck at this point.

Sometimes, I have to admit…it seems as though things go wrong if we get too comfortable in our temporary locations.  It’s like we’re supposed to move on, so “stuff” starts to happen to make us do so.  We had gotten a bit more complacent about where we were and how we were living our lives, and now…we’ve been made uncomfortable to inspire our search afield once again.  Nobody wants to wait for the sheriff’s office and an eviction notice before they are prepared to move on.

We’ll most likely check out some RV parks, as a “just-in-case” move while we continue our search for more agreeable alternatives.  By their nature, RV parks tend to have frequent vacancies, which means we can likely get a slot if we have short notice that we’re going to need it, as well as the ability to relocate when something more agreeable IS found.  In a sense, it’s going to be our “Plan B”.

Sometimes, it’s a real good thing we have 26 letters in our alphabet.