Archive for the ‘Moving’ Category

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Congratulations. You Are Now Officially Homeless


2010
03.30

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Posted in Closing, Headaches of Selling Your Home, Moving, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Day 92 - A bit behind due to lack of internet.

 

Day 88 -

 

I have never been so tired in my life. Two days of moving has turned into four with an additional two days of clean-up. When did I accumulate so much stuff? It just kept multiplying. It seemed every time we took a box out of the house there were two more in its place. The movers were even baffled. They couldn’t believe they underestimated our move by so much. Apparently, that’s never happened to them before. They have only ever underestimated by an hour in the past. Guess we were too much for them.

 

So, here I sit at my in-laws typing my blog that I can’t post because we haven’t had the time to figure out the internet connection. But we are comfortable here amongst our boxes and are grateful for that. I have to head back to the house today to finish sanding the map wall, clean the kitchen, the basement and grab the remaining things in the house and in the yard. Yesterday, at the end of the day, I was so tired I actually taped shut an empty box and asked my husband to carry it to the truck for me. Once he picked it up, it was so light he almost flung it across the room. I was so embarrassed. I crawled inside it and tried to shut out the world. The streams of light that flowed in were actually quite beautiful… but anyway…

 

It looks like the closing is on for tomorrow at 10 am. Right after the 9 am walk-through. Guess they are going to buy it after all. We have the final signed addendum in our hands. They did ask if we could call the home warranty folks about the sump pump. Had to laugh at that one… ahh, no. It’s going to be your house in a day, you call! I have a feeling three months down the road they will be asking my husband to make the appointment to open the pool for them. Do these people know how to do anything themselves? I could have sworn they were in their 30’s, not their teens.

 

 

Day 91 -

 

Congratulations family! We are now officially homeless. We closed on the house yesterday and I have to say, I feel relieved.

 

The whole closing process made for an interesting learning experience… Life has them waiting around every corner. You see, we received the estimated settlement sheet a few days before, and I immediately took a look at the bottom line… Wouldn’t you? I wanted to see what kind of money I was getting out of this house, our down payment on the next one was depending on it. To my utter shock and awe, (seriously I think I actually dropped to my knees), it said we were only getting $18,000. What? Are you serious? You’ve got to be kidding me! I quickly picked up my cell phone and called my husband who was at Home Depot getting another pad lock for the fourth POD we needed to order at the last minute. I was practically in tears, ok… I’ll fess up. I was completely exhausted, my defenses were down and I WAS in tears. I expressed my concerns to my husband through my hyperventilated mumbles and he called Roxie, our agent, to investigate while I tried to calm down in a much needed hot shower.

 

After calming down, I took it upon myself to find out what the hell was going on. Closing costs, they call them. More like, lets-see-how-much-we-can-rip-you-off-costs. Well, if you’re not careful you will end up paying much more than you bargained for, and NO ONE is going to help you or tell you different unless, YOU call them on it. For starters, “$350 for Water Escrow”… Water escrow? How can there be a water escrow… we have a well not public water! The brokers fees I figured were set at 9% instead of 5%. Wow, now this is the buyers agent putting this all together with the title company. Nine percent? Glad I didn’t hire him. We were paying upwards of $500.00 to the title company for “document preparation”. Again, why should I pay someone I didn’t hire. It also states in the contract of sale, (yes, I read it!) that the buyers are responsible for all fees associated with the title work. The contract also states we would split the transfer taxes 50/50. Well, looking at this statement it seems a bit unbalanced. More like 70/30. It took a few back and forths to try to straighten this out, yet still, it was slightly wrong at the closing table. I have to say, I’m damn proud of myself for sticking to my moral high road here and making sure I wasn’t ripped off. It was a double team for the books. My husband drew the agents and buyers attention away and I stuck it to Mr. Title Company.

 

We ended up walking away with $24,000.00 extra dollars than they wanted to give us. Can you imagine if I didn’t take a stand? Makes me wonder if the buyers didn’t get ripped off too. They just sat there and nodded as Mr. Title explained, all to quickly, every charge. How much money do you think agents and title companies make unethically every year? Well, when I buy the next house, I’m going through that settlement sheet with a fine tooth comb. No more Mr. Nice Guy! And you know what… It feels good!

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Stumbling Block


2010
03.24

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Posted in Contractor, Economy, Headaches of Selling Your Home, Moving | No Comments »

Day 86 - 5 days to go!

 

My house is almost empty. These movers are super efficient. We’ve used them before and just love these guys. They have one POD so neatly packed, to the top! They still need to attack the large pieces, bedroom furniture, couches, etc. Then, tomorrow, the home office.

 

As far as the sale of this house goes… Well, we’ve run into a few snags. Come on… Didn’t we all know there would be snags.

 

Two nights ago was our last night in the house. We were about to be celebrating with the tenderloins I had marinating in the fridge and the bottle of red just waiting to be uncorked. The next day would be filled with moving all the stuff we need to survive for a few months, the kids and the dog to the in-law’s. The movers were coming on wednesday (today) and we were suppose to be closing on monday. All was in the works.

 

Just before the steaks were to go on the grill we received word that out buyers aren’t happy with what we have done regarding the home inspection. Really? Hmmm. They wait til now to tell us this!?! We remediated the mold, we fixed the broken heat pump, we had the oil guy come and give recommendations on the oil that strangely appears on the wall by the oil tank, but they want more. There were a total of eleven issues they wanted us to address regarding the home inspection. I think they actually expected us to take care of each and every one! Who does that? But we did what we could afford, addressed all “health and safety” issues, and we’re done!

 

It seems their biggest issue is the subfloor in the master bedroom, it kind of bounces in one place when you walk over it. Now, I have ran on this floor, exercised on it, put furniture on it all with no problem, but they would like it fixed. I think it’s just not nailed down properly to the joist under the floor, or it has come unnailed over time. Either way, I say get out your own damn hammer and fix it.

 

Our biggest issue is the fact that we are planning on moving… like NOW! If these people decide they don’t want the house, well, hell… I don’t want to move in with the in-law’s. I… and I’m sure they, would rather us stay here. Plus we’ve already paid for the PODs that are in my driveway, a deposit on the movers, a mold inspection at the new house (that we won’t be buying if we can’t sell this one), and we have scheduled cancelations of BGE, the phone, DirecTv and the alarm company. We have even gone to the extremes of scheduling an installation of high speed internet at the in-law’s so we can work. Oh, my what a mess…

 

Wow! What a way to ruin a beautiful evening and dinner. So, we were thinking of calling their bluff. They must have movers lined up too, right? And really, I don’t think we are being unreasonable. We did the necessary fixes. Come on… Nothing is perfect. No, you get no more money from me! Buy it or don’t buy it, I just need to know ASAP! If they screw us my husband will not rest til someone pays for all the expenses we have accrued to be able to be out of here by closing. He basically told our agent to tell them they don’t know who they are fucking with, but I’m sure our Roxie would never use that kind of language with their agent.

 

In the end we caved, ever so slightly. We had our contractor come by and take a look, just to make sure we were right about the floor and the building won’t be caving in on the new residents. And he confirmed what we thought all along, a few screws and nails and we’d be all set. In any other situation, I’d grab the hammer myself, but, no, I’d have to have some kind of receipt that a licensed contract took care of it. So the guys are coming by on Thursday to screw my floor! So, I’m pissed that we caved and are forking out more money to sell this place. But the alternative scares the shit out of me, and that would be they hire some hard-up structural engineer who’s business has been really slow lately due to the economy and he recommends to them that they need a whole new floor system and support beams.

 

Well, my house is half empty and we still don’t know if we are solid and going through with the sale. God willing, signatures will come.

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Moving


2010
03.22

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Posted in Buying a Home, Moving | No Comments »

Day 84 - 7 days to go!

 

Well, we finally got a signed contract on the-house-with-the-view. Whew! Now we have to go through all the inspections on that place and try to close on April 15th. Mold inspection tomorrow morning. Whoo, hoo, mold, can’t wait.

 

But my thoughts are not on the new house, it’s focused on getting out of this one. My brain is a struggling through a logistical nightmare of shredded chaos. You see, we are not moving into our new house right away. That would be too easy. Noooo, life has to be difficult. We are temporarily moving in with my in-laws for a few months until we can close on the new house and fix up a bit. My husband hangs his head in shame every time we tell someone this. He looks at the ground, moves his foot back and forth like a child and says… “Yes, I’m 41 and moving back in with my parents, never thought I’d see the day.”

 

So, I ask you, how on earth does one prepare for this? What do you bring to tide a family of four over for a few months? And where do we put all our other stuff? Deep storage, that’s where! We have just witnessed the skillful delivery of 3, 16-foot PODs into my little driveway. The movers are coming on Wednesday to pack us up and stick us in the PODs, well, not us exactly… Then the POD people come and take away all my things and store them somewhere in East-shit-hole Baltimore until we are ready to move into our new house. At which time they will re-deliver them, the movers will show up once again and bring everything into the house. Then… we live out of boxes until I can muster the energy to go through them all and find new places for all my stuff to go. I should be unpacked by Christmas. I’m exhausted just typing it. I need to take a break……… Ok, better. I’m trying to think of all the things we will need through the month of May. Clothes, toys, favorite stuffed animals, valuables, all our food, some pots and pans, hockey, tennis and karate equipment, bikes, tv’s, video games and anything we may need for the new house like cleaning supplies, ladders, tools, paint brushes. My head is swimming again, Ok, I need to lie down.

 

Last night I was up til 11pm with my distraught daughter who was sad, crying and will desperately miss her house… Yeah, honey, me too. Then I woke up at 1:30 am and could not get back to sleep. Thoughts of what needed to still be done flooded my mind. I think I finally fell asleep again sometime after 3:30am. It’s hard to turn off my brain. Believe me, many have tried.

 

This past weekend was spent moving random things to the in-laws and going through the boxes we never unpacked from the last time we moved. We went through the “junk” drawer in the kitchen, old toys, old rugs, old bikes, old papers, until our driveway was covered with stuff we needed to take to the dump. A whole truck load. This was very therapeutic. I feel cleansed!

 

Now, I’ve got to start thinking about getting everything out of this house that is… well, nailed down. Two chandeliers, still have to take those down, a couple of sconces, still up, yeah… can you tell we love doing electrical work? The brass door knocker, some shelving, the shed, lawn furniture, flower pots (I have quite a few of those), my dog who is buried in the backyard. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not leaving him behind! Besides, he was cremated and is in a box under the dogwood tree. I’m not digging up bones here! And of course… my map.

 

My map, I love my map. It’s a map of the United States and it’s 12 feet long and 8 feet high, yes HUGE! I had a hard time finding another house with a wall that big so it could be rehung. The map was glued to my dining room wall until yesterday. We originally put it up with a big jug of Elmers glue, a paint roller and 3 people. It worked quite well, then we framed it out with some wood trim and got many compliments over the years. I thought taking it down would be really hard, on the contrary it was easy… a bit too easy. The map came down without a hitch because all the glue… stayed on the wall. Oh the wall looks like crap. First, I never painted behind the map, just the wall next to the map, so the wall is two-toned. Add to that the hardened, cloudy, and sharp in parts, Elmers glue. Yes, sharp. I actually sliced my finger on Elmers glue when I was running my hand over the wall. And now there’s blood on there too! We have tried soaking the wall with water, using GooGone, peeling it, hand sanding it, nothing seems to be taking off the glue. I can’t leave a dining room wall completely covered in glue… Can I? No, that would be mean. So we will try to power sand it this afternoon. We’ll see if that works. If not, I may have to test my skills at plastering.