Last week I ask for prayers for Mr. A and me as we submitted our very first offer to buy a home. Remember this pretty picture?
Unfortunately, not only did it take a week to resolve this whole mess but we also managed to lose the house in the process. But there’s definitely a silver lining in this debacle because this house has some hefty baggage.
We initially submitted the offer for the house last Monday, only to receive a phone call from our agent telling us that we were in a multiple offer situation. After a day of debating and number crunching, we were just about to submit our revised offer when we received a call from our agent, which started with the phrase, “I hope you are sitting down.” Clearly not a good sign.
Our agent had just gotten off of the phone with the seller’s agent and he was delisting the house and rescinding all the offers. Apparently, he had just learned that the neighborhood in which the house was located had a complicated history that wasn’t revealed to him and needed to be properly disclosed to anyone buying the house.
At first, we didn’t think it was that bad until our agent sent us this article. Apparently, the houses in this neighborhood have been built over sand and gravel quarry. Seems innocuous enough, until of course, we found out that when the mining operations ceased, local businesses and individuals started filling the quarry pits with miscellaneous solid waste including tires, car parts, appliances, construction debris, tree trunks, etc. The real estate development company that developed this area knew of the solid waste problem. They removed some of it but other parts of it behind and then proceeded to build houses on top of the waste. They then sold these houses to the current homeowners without informing them of the history of the quarry and the presence of solid waste.
The new homeowners probably would have never found out about the solid waste problem were it not for the fact that the tree trunks began to decay and subsequently secrete lethal levels of methane gas that forced several homeowners to evacuate from their homes. The home builders were then required to come in and find the source of the methane gas. Through their investigations, the builders were able to pinpoint the source of the methane gas to one particular lot. They dug up the lot, removed the solid waste, and the neighborhood hasn’t had a methane problem since. Meanwhile, the homeowners, who were upset to learn that the quarry and solid waste issue was not disclosed to them before they purchased their homes, sued the real estate development company and home builders for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Quite a storied history isn’ t it?
When we first dug up all of this information, I was totally relieved that we didn’t get the house. While the methane issue is resolved, I couldn’t help but imagine what other kind of waste might still be lying under the houses. All I could think about was my kids playing on grass that was growing over gas tanks and old chemicals.
Mr. A was convinced that this all wasn’t a big deal. He talked to neighbors, called the Department of the Environment office, and talked to tons of experts. They all eventually persuaded him and eventually me that it was no longer a problem since the neighborhood had never experienced another toxic methane reading (well, not inside their houses, anyway). After a lot of debating and researching, I hesitantly told Mr. A that I would be okay with putting in an offer on the house if we could perform a methane test (it came back on the market on Sunday with the a property disclosure this time). Almost as soon as I said okay, we got an email from our agent telling us an offer was already accepted on the house.
While Mr. A was beyond disappointed, I couldn’t help but be relieved. I’m a constant worrier and while I may have been convinced that we would be okay in that home I still would have spent plenty of days worrying. And God forbid if anyone had ever gotten really sick while we lived there I don’t think I could ever forgive myself.
So our dream house is now out of the picture, and we are onto new houses, which hopefully don’t have such a storied past. Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes. I’d like to think that they helped us move down the right path.
