The past 3 weeks, I think its been 3 weeks, it has seemed like a year, have been miserable.
Although, I will say it right now, every time I thought I was just at the lowest of the low....I would hear from someone else about whats going on in their life. It really is true. Sadly, no matter how bad you think you life it...someone always has it worse. Just horrible things have been happening to people this month :(
But...for this blog post, I'm just going to pretend that my life was the worst. Why do I even want to document this? I feel like it was the closest I have ever been to being depressed. Well, what I imagine being depressed feels like. Because once again, I am lucky enough to have not ever really experienced that.
Apparently when you may be stuck with a house that you no longer want because it is a money pit....life really begins to suck.
Here we go. Inspection Day of the beautiful home we found. The week before it, I had a knot in my stomach. Its an old house, what if something was really wrong?? I had a habit of telling people that we had a house....contingent of home inspection. That is how worried I was. The day of...the knot went away. I had faith that our house would be just fine. We already knew the roof was shit, what else could be wrong?
I pull up to the house about 5 minutes late and Thane is walking to his van with a grimace on his face, shaking his head. Great. Just great. I get out ask ask him what's wrong and he simply says, "The driveway. It's washed out."
I'm sorry what?
So when we had visited the house both times, the basement was a little damp. We,and their Realtor, chalked it up to that its a limestone basement and it absorbs the water more than usual. Livable because it wasn't that much water, and we would just put our stuff on pallets.
Well, we went to the basement that Wednesday, and it was bad. SO much water. A steady stream from the wall where the driveway was to this drain area. Luckily, it had down poured on Tuesday for like 10 minutes...so we got to see the results. Bullshit to the homeowner that they didn't know why the basement was wet during their open house. Ugh. So Thane is like, well there is a drain here. Moves the weight that was on top of it, FULL of water. He looks confused and sticks his hand in...much to my dismay. Who knows what is clogging that drain!
Oh no..it was ok. It wasn't a drain? It was a hole that looked like a drain about wrist deep..and ended with a pile of dirt. Seriously?
So....the driveway being washed out? Ya. It was hollow under it. HOLLOW. Our inspector could stick his finger under the cement and feel..nothing. The dripping rain from the gutters that should have been replaced about 8 years ago, has slowly eroded the dirt under the driveway away. So when it rained the water would go right through the concrete and into the basement. The basement that had no drain. Well, it has a drain, it just on the other side of the room.
Ok so BIG flaw. Like $8,000 flaw I'm told. We would want the entire thing redone to make sure it was done right, and the problem would stop.
So moving on. Here we go. The furnace and AC? 25 years old. The stairs to the basement? "Death trap." The drainage thing on the furnace that is apparently a big deal? Not there. Need a new panel. Need a new water softener. Water leakage. That's just the basement.
We get upstairs. No insulation in the walls or attic. Perfect. The fan in the bathroom purrs like a baby kitten, aka barely works, which I'm sure with our luck meant that there was probably mold in the walls. Nob and tube wiring that Thane would have to fix, along with the roof being totally shot.
I was in tears. It is such a great house, with major flaws. We had to get out.
It may not sound like a lot of work, but with the things in our contract, it was a LOT of work and a lot of money. Too many unknowns for my taste.
So we told our Realtor to get us out.
and so begins the nightmare. Their Realtor wasn't letting us out. We had given them the right to cure....apparently a big mistake.
This home has been on the market forever. We had put in an accepted offer and now we wanted out....but they didn't want to let us out. I was terrified that we were going to get sued or worse, stuck with a house that would constantly need money...a lot of money. Which I goggled..it can happen.
I was so worried about this that I ate like non stop every day, yet somehow didn't gain 40 pounds. My stomach hurt constantly. I didn't want to be around people, but forced myself last Saturday which proved to be the best thing for me.
We got the "list of crap to fix" list back from them and they didn't want to do anything we wanted done for the driveway. Thank god...a way out. We rejected it..and then they sent back an even worse one. WHAT?! Ugh. Finally our Realtor sent them the notice that everyone signs to be released from the house...and 2 days later at 9 they finally signed it AND we got our earnest money back.
To add to my ulcer that I'm sure was forming. I got some absolutely terrible news on Thursday about a friend I love dearly. Talk about walking around in a haze on Friday while waiting to hear news.
BUT! Friday night. Ohhh Friday night. I was told my friend would be fine. Well not fine, we still didn't know, but it wasn't as bad as thought to be. Then about 30 minutes later we got the call about being freed from the house. I call that a pretty fantastic win.
In case you're wondering, "Pam, the house thing doesn't sound that bad." Our Realtor told us that in the past 17 years she has never seen anything like what we were going through. If all house transaction were like the one we went through..no one would ever buy a house.
So to my loves that the Universe is currently kicking and/or punching in the face. It WILL work out.
It has to.
If it's not perfect yet...it's not the end.
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