I went to a home showing the other day. The house online had great promise - it was gorgeous on the outside, beautiful location, not far from rt. 8 and lovely inside shots. When we drove up to it, I thought, this is great.
And then I went in. Barely - because their two dogs were barking their little heads off at me. But I won, and made it into the great room - and by great, I mean, mediocre and stained with dog pee. This was my first thought: "______"
No, it wasn't a bad word. I don't think so. It's just that I couldn't hear myself think over the blaring country music they left on (maybe for the dogs?)
These things aside, I poked around the house, trying to determine if I could live there while avoiding things tumbling out of closets and cabinets. All the while fighting with two dogs who wanted to know why I was invading their turf.
What kind of bothers me the most is the thought that, you know what? Maybe I could live there. But I was so distracted by dogs/messiness/bad carpets/stinkiness that comes with having pets (I know all about it, but when showing your house?!) that I just wanted to get out.
Until I opened the walk- in closet and saw her collection of Michael Kors heels.
And then I seriously considered buying the house. But then I realized that she had them all in a pile ON THE FLOOR.
Now, I am a messy, messy girl. But even *I* keep my lovely shoes in their little shoe organizer in my rinky dink closet. So it made me wonder what else they had been ignoring in that otherwise gorgeous house. And how much it would cost to replace carpets and fix cabinets....
Until I saw the ridiculously huge radon system in the basement. The end.
So many books...
10 years ago
5 comments:
You had me until "radon." I was like, "fixable, fixable, you could totally do that on your own, fixable..." until the radon part. In my book, that's up there with shoring up foundations, ridding a house of termites and remediating mold (that chapter is titled, "Things I Will Not Do Because I Wouldn't Buy The House in the First Place")
It's a frustrating process (sooo much more fun than being the seller, though!) but is worth it in the end when you're in your awesome new home. Hang in there!
What's a radon system?
A reduction system to solve issues with:
Radon (pronounced /ˈreɪdɒn/, RAY-don) is a chemical element with symbol Rn and atomic number 86. Radon is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, naturally occurring, radioactive noble gas that is formed from the decay of radium.
Breathing high concentrations of radon can cause lung cancer. Thus, radon is considered a significant contaminant that affects indoor air quality worldwide. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, radon is the second most frequent cause of lung cancer, after cigarette smoking, causing 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States.[3]
(Thanks, Wikipedia!)
In short, soda - it's not something you really want to mess with. But I believe that most systems are installed to control the issue. But frankly, it makes me feel better if the house tests low enough where it just isn't required.
oh yeah, that doesn't sound so good.
Yeah, even if the shoes were your size and she threw them in with the appliances, you don't want to live there.
And BTW, if she can spend $$$ on shoes you'd think they would splash out for some home staging. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Geez.
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