I'm moved … but hardly settled

The year 2015 will always be Year of the Move to me. After 14 years in our “starter” home, my wife and I decided it was time to upgrade. The kids, ages 11 and 14, a boy and girl, still shared a room. And, I was tired of one bathroom and no room to get away from my wife’s in-home daycare. We were squishy.

Well, let me tell you, the process to move sucked. I thought that getting the house ready for sale would be the hardest part. I yearn for those days. I could control that part. We had little home, so we had little to fix. The sale of our house was another thing. We were dealing with this new agent for the buyers who for some reason was hell-bent on stopping the sale. She was an uber-bitch to our agent, and she did not guide her clients at all. Thank goodness our agent, who is a friend, was really diligent and tenacious, because if we had two clueless agents, that deal would have fell through. But, the real bitch of it all is that after we had a deal, and everyone was happy and ready to go, the FHA appraisal came in $9,900 under the agreed-to purchase price. We either ate that amount, or the deal would die. We ate it … or, we would have lost lots of money already invested in an appraisal and inspections on a house we found to purchase.

OK, everything goes through, we get a lot less money in our pocket than we thought, but we can still afford the upgraded house with some money for furnishing and fixing it up. After we move in, we realize that this house needs a lot, a lot of maintenance. This young guy owned it for 3 years, and he hadn’t done a lick of maintenance. When you have to replace all the door knobs, most of the lights, all the filters, change the shower heads, fix drips and a leak to the basement (a leak he was supposed to fix), address other stupid things that he either caused or never addressed … you can’t get to some of the upgrades that you wanted in the first place. There were comical things that leave you shaking your head. Here’s one thing: We wondered why the fridge ice tasted like cinnamon hots after a few days. We found a red hot whisky bottle open in the ice bin. ?! Another thing: I was afraid to close the basement utility room because the lock was really bad and we’d have trouble getting the door open again. Well, one day, my wife hears something like an animal in what sounds like our HVAC duct work. Our cat found his way behind our drywall, and could be seen through a tiny opening trying to get out of the walls in a storage room. I had to come home from work to cut a hole in the drywall because he was unable to retrace his steps to the entry point, which we thought might be the utility room. After getting him out of the wall again the next day, we just took the doorknob off the utility room and kept it closed until we could replace a bunch of the home’s doorknobs a few days later.

Plus, you’re getting your kids ready for new schools in new school districts. And, you play catch-up at work for the days you missed to close and move. And, oh, the move was just crazy and expensive. Take $2,000 right off the top for the move, and that was just to go across town. Good thing we spent months just paring down our stuff and getting rid of anything we didn’t need or use anymore.

I haven’t even mentioned that the pool (a huge pool) that came with the house was green when we moved in. I went from not knowing anything about a pool to being a certified algae fighter. Our poor kids couldn’t swim in this pool the first week we had it, and now I feel like I have a part-time job as a pool boy. The door nearest the pool downstairs had such a horrible doorknob that it wouldn’t unlock easily, and I just stopped using it until we could find time to replace the knobs. These old doorknobs also would open from the inside even if they were locked. So, you’d walk outside and get locked out of there, and had to go around looking for an open door because the previous owner left precious few keys. You had to walk out of your way for lots of stuff. We have a two-tier deck that adds to that. And, though the deck will be nice, it’s one of those things we wanted to fix up but can’t because of all the other things we’ve been working on. We also need to fix some gate issues and a put a railing on some steps at the bottom of the deck for insurance purposes.

Add to this that I’m still trying to get used to this house’s sounds at night (you can hear anyone in either bathroom in our room), and the “wall cat” sometimes wakes us in the middle of the night just because he’s still unsettled, and I can’t tell you how much sleep I’ve lost. Plus, there are the damn flying stinging things that really, REALLY want to have a home here. So far, I’ve killed three nests and stopped a few others. We’re right by a creek with lots of trees and nature. The one time our whole family found time to swim, a huge green Rodon-sized flying insect messed with us until we just kind of called it quits.

We’ve only actually been in the house for less than 3 weeks, but it seems like two months. You know what, though? Once we get a number of other things fixed, get settled, and things get sane, it will be all worth it. This was a rant about moving to this home, but at the same time, I could go on and on about what I like about the new house, or will like about it moving forward. It’s also a great neighborhood with some really nice neighbors, and a nice school district. We made the right decision, even if it isn’t an easy process.

• This topic was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Dak.