Going Once, Going Twice...

What do you know, the old house sold. For real this time and everything. We have a few minor repairs to do, but come the end of April we will have finally attained the American dream.

You know: a single mortgage.

Not only is this great news for our bank accounts, but it's also a boon for my novel. Because without the distraction of the second house, I can now focus more on
spending time with my son
reading the books on my nightstand
creating breathtaking photographs
eating ice cream
painting rooms in the new house
coming up with an April Fools prank
making a dent in my Netflix list
sleeping in
exercising more
avoiding doing the dishes
constructing raised-bed gardens
improving my fantasy baseball team
getting the band back together
watching cat videos
honing my improvisation skills
eating even more ice cream
redesigning my blog
spoiling my wife rotten
trying out more local restaurants
inventing new methods of procrastination
playing board and card games
unpacking boxes remaining from our move
listing a bunch of things and crossing them out
writing.

It Was the Best of Times, Etc. Etc.

Last Saturday, I did five straight hours of improv. Although, by "straight," I mean "there were short breaks in between." (That's right, I did five there were short breaks in between hours of improv. I'm a very good writer.) It was the most improv I'd done in one stint, but afterward I didn't feel mentally or physically drained. What I felt was confused.

I had fun overall, and some of the sets went really well. But so many of my scenes were slow, dull, and awkward. I did scenes with other improvisers I normally have a strong rapport with, and they dragged. Painfully so.

Most of my ideas went nowhere, and repeatedly improvisers had to jump in from the back line to save things. There were also multiple scenes where I stood there adding absolutely nothing as the action went on around me. For much of the afternoon, I was the most utterly out-of-place and useless I had ever been on an improv stage.

...until the very next night.

On Sunday night my troupe had a performance. And I added not one iota of value. Okay, that's an exaggeration; I added exactly one iota: my very last line got some laughs. But the rest of the time I was on a different wavelength from the other members of my team, and I contributed nothing. Everything I said fell flat. I spent much of our final set hugging the back line, uncompelled to join the fray. I may be a seasoned improviser, but my work that night was bland and unpalatable.

Luckily, the rest of my troupe was too busy putting on a stellar show, so they didn't notice my absence. Or at least, they were kind enough not to say anything about it.

~~~~~

But improv wasn't the only thing going on last weekend. On Saturday, we had six showings at our old house, some no more than 15 minutes apart. Six. Even though it's been on the market since June.

Oh yeah, and we got an offer. (Huzzah!)

We're not in full-on celebration mode yet, of course (Huzzah?!), since we know how the last two went. But we feel pretty good about this one. For one thing, the buyer doesn't have an FHA loan. Perhaps third time will indeed be the charm.

Fingers crossed. And just to be safe, I'm crossing the streams, too.

~~~~~

But improv and realty weren't the only things going on last weekend. I was also, apparently, in the beginning stages of the flu. (Huzzah!) (Which, in retrospect, helps to explain my inept improv performances.)

I've never had a flu shot as an adult, in part because I'd never before gotten the flu, at least as far as I can remember. Well, that streak's toast.

But let me tell you, when it's 80 degrees out in early March in New England, and the sun is beating down on you, and you're wrapping your winter coat more tightly around you and shivering non-stop...

Yeah. Good times.

Then They Stole Our Ladders

When we moved in September, the movers left a lot to be desired. For instance, we desired ladders. Because they stole ours.

As I mentioned last week, I bought the movers lunch. I tipped them $20 each. And the next day, we realized the ladders never made it off the truck.

You might think it was simply a mistake. We did, too, at first. But the more we thought about it, the more we felt it had been done on purpose. And we had plenty of time to think, since the company's office was closed for the long weekend.

Near the end of the move, trying to speed things along, I had climbed on the truck to collect a couple loose items. Specifically, our 6-foot metal ladder and 2-foot wooden stepladder. The movers asked me to leave them on the truck, so they could reach the few boxes left on the top of the stacks.

They'd already borrowed tools from our toolbox to do other parts of their job, so I knew they hadn't come fully prepared. Of course, they'd also damaged the toolbox in the move, so I knew they weren't fully competent. But at this point I was too tired to protest. If it got us to the end quicker, great.

Then they didn't follow protocol with the final checklist. Rather than bring one of us on the truck to confirm everything had been moved, like they did room by room at the old house, they signed off on things from the front step. All I'd gotten was a view from the back of the truck (where it had looked like only large piles of furniture pads remained). They'd either taken advantage of our exhaustion, or been too exhausted themselves to do things properly.

On Tuesday we finally got hold of the company, and voiced our concern. They said they'd ask the crew and check in storage. After a week there was still no sign of the ladders. It had gone from possibly a mistake to clearly a theft. Either they'd planned to take the ladders all along, or they'd found them the next time they opened the truck and thought, "Hey! Free ladders!"

It took another few weeks (plus multiple phone calls and visits), but eventually we were reimbursed. As for the movers, it turns out only one was an employee. The rest were that guy's crew, paid by him. I have no idea what, if anything, happened with them.

Selling a house sucks. Moving sucks. But on the plus side, now we have new ladders.

Not Completely Incompetent

They weren't completely incompetent. Not completely.

This past September, we moved to a new house 10 miles away. I've heard tell of worse moving experiences, but for a local move, this was a torturous day. All we wanted was everything to go relatively smoothly.

We aimed too high.

First, they arrived nearly an hour past the tail end of their ETA. From the start, one was badmouthing the rest of his team to us, including his boss. (His boss was, in fact, his nephew, who had nothing but good things to say about him.)

Instead of covering the stairs like the marketing material said they would, they left them bare and slid a heavy chest down them, scraping off chunks of stair.

Any idiot can tell you if you lift a pressboard microwave stand from the top and hold it at a 45-degree angle, the sides are going to snap. Clearly, that guy wasn't just any idiot.

They broke three other items due to improper stacking (i.e. putting boxes on their sides; placing heavy items atop more fragile ones). They also twice dropped bins/boxes on their way off the truck, but fortunately neither lapse involved anything breakable.

Two of the movers barely spoke a lick of English. You'd think, as movers, they'd at least know the names for the rooms in a standard house. Nope. Bathroom, bedroom, basement, all the same to these guys. I had to explain "kitchen." They started leaving half the boxes in our garage rather than ask where they should go. Even the two who knew English left heavy items in completely different spots (or rooms) from where we specified.

It took 4 guys 10 hours for what was estimated to be an 8-hour job for 3. And that was with me moving just as much as they did the last two hours, simply to ensure things ended up in right place. In the end, only 1 guy stuck around inside to help assemble the beds like they were supposed to. (And one of those I had to redo later, since they'd mixed up the parts from two different bed frames.)

Nice guy that I am, I bought them lunch midway through, and despite all the trouble they caused, I tipped them each $20 a piece.

Then they stole our ladders.

It Was the Best of Listings, It Was the Worst of Listings

A few days ago I mentioned there'd been an impressive 90 showings at our old house since June, but it had yet to sell. It all comes down to one word:

Slope.

The front part of the house grades gently toward the front door. That alone has deterred many would-be buyers. Never mind that the structural report states the settling stopped years ago and the house is stable. They can't get past the slope.

Which is too bad, because the truth is when you live there, you don't notice it at all. In our ten years in the house, the slope affected our lives in only one way: if we wanted to keep the front steel door open, we had to use a doorstop. That's it.

Interestingly enough, the buyers who briefly had contracts with us backed out for a different reason. Both were first-time home buyers with FHA loans, and balked when they realized older houses require maintenance.

Of course, others also passed for reasons other than the slope. Some said no because:

• "The front yard is caving into the middle." ¹
• The garage is too small.²
• We can't afford a mortgage right now, but would like to rent-to-own.³
  
  ...and of course, the old stand-by...
  
  
• The basement ceiling is too low to convert the place into a man cave.⁴

Oh, well. It'll happen eventually. Sometime this year, our Tale of Two Mortgages should have a happy ending.


¹ The yard is completely level. In the middle of our yard is a walkway. I'm not sure what drugs the realtor was on when she wrote this, but I want in.
² Apparently, people actually want to park in it. And then be able to get out of their car. Yeah, that's not going to happen in any 1-car garage on our street. Not without a Mini or a Smart Car. Or one of those classic orange and yellow ones.
³ Um, then maybe you should have been seeking out house rentals. This one is for sale. If you're not going to maintain the place and pay at least 90% of each mortgage payment for us, we're not interested.
⁴ But many caves have low ceilings! It'll be authentic!

Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Mortgages

In mid-June, we put our house up for sale.

1 Week: 17 showings. We'll have to find a new house faster than we'd thought.
2 Weeks: We find a house. Also, getting real tired of pulling the dogs out every showing.
4 Weeks: We get a buyer! She's #28 out of the 31 showings in the first month.
6 Weeks: The buyer backs out. Now we need to show and pack concurrently. Crap.
2.5 Months: We move to our new house. 2 of the 4 movers are completely incompetent.
3 Months: Price reduced. No, we're not interested in renting it out. Stop asking.
3.5 Months: Now we have two mortgages. Yay.
4 Months: Another buyer! Denise is thrilled. I'm dreading the worst.
4.5 Months: The worst. Back on the market again. Double yay.

We're now at 6.5 months. Yep, into the third trimester. With the two mortgages, I'll be dipping into my investments again soon. And likely shoveling out two driveways. So far, there have been over 90 showings, at least one every week since it went on the market.

So why, with so many showings, has the house not yet sold? I'll tell you.

Just not today.