When I bought this house four summers ago, I was in love. I walked in and just knew it was my house. My life was vastly different at the time. I was a wee bit delusional. The boy I was dating, had to be better than the Jones’…he wanted everyone to think he was well off, living the high life, when in actuality he had nothing, and I did…I fell into it. I traded in my paid off Mustang, for a truck I hated, that I traded in about a year later, for the Dodge I have now. I have always regretted getting rid of that car. He told me I would need a truck if I had a house like this. He was right. But if it wasn’t for him, I would have a small house that would work amazingly great for me right now, with a $500 a month mortgage payment. It is substantially more than that now, like take $500 and freaking double it.
At the time I had a Doberman named Bella, that HE wanted to adopt from the SPCA. I was of course the only one that trained, fed, and cleaned up after her. She was three years old, aggressive and totally out of my control. I had to take her back, she was consuming my life. She was a great part of the reason I bought this house. Two months after I moved in here, I realized I had made a couple of huge mistakes.
#1 … the dog.
#2 … the boy.
When I first bought this house, and notice I say I…said boy had NO financial imput AT ALL. He put as a status on facebook one day…that he was moving into HIS 2200 square foot house, with 3/4 of an acre.
I went ballistic when I read it.
He made it all about him, when it really had NOTHING to do with him in any way. He had a house he was selling, but had absolutely nothing to show for it when it was all said and done, he still owes people money to this day…
I kicked him out 2 months later. The facebook incident was a defining moment for me. I knew he was gone. I was done.
Tonight I had that moment with this house.
I know there is a reason I was meant to go through living here…
Through the deception from the people that sold me the house, and there was more than one thing…the shitty totally rotten lawn mower, that they threw into the deal, because I was a single mom and they wanted me to have it…ya, thanks for that.
…or the fact that they didn’t disclose that the house leaked…or excuse me…FLOODED.
I found out after the fact, they had to have known. They just didn’t say anything. Karma is a bitch…payback will happen eventually. I am not worried about that.
The oil tank that they had illegally in the basement, that they claimed they never even knew was there, was 2/3 full of oil. I had to remove it. That was my stupidity. I should have made them do it as soon as I found out it was there. The home inspector found it. They played dumb.
I wanted the house, so I said we could remove it…STUPID. It was a nightmare. But job done.
I moved in in July.
Hot water tank removed in August…
November…house floods.
Two inches of water everywhere.
Ex boyfriend was here at the time, I was not terrified yet…We figured it was from the 4 feet of snow we had, it probably wouldn’t happen again.
Ex boyfriend gets the boot in February…
House floods again two weeks later. I probably would have just sat in the water and cried if my oldest son hadn’t told me to suck it up, “you wanted to be alone, now you are…deal with it”…
that is what he said to me. He was right, I was on my own and it was all my stuff…We cleaned it all up, we shop vacuumed, we dried everything…the carpet was toast, I took it out and threw it away, we had cement floor for months…
I am strong…I can do this…
We get it all cleaned up, no insurance claim…I kid you not, two weeks later, I walk downstairs to do laundry, and there is two inches of water all over my floor and it is spewing from the hot water tank…somehow I have the brainpower to turn off the water, I stand in the water crying…
I really have no idea what to do at this point.
I call my friend Willie…he comes over and we start the cleanup. I put in an insurance claim for the hot water tank. They come in with the air dryers, my laundry room floor, which is 300 square feet is toast.
Instead of using the insurance money for the laundry room floor, I got them to re-carpet my family room that was ruined from the first flood. I figured I could do the lino later on. I also got new carpet in the spare room, and a closet door cut in the wall to the room the hotwater tank was in. We had to cut the wall to replace it…the gong show went on and on…
Willie and his brother Chris helped me replace the hot water tank. They did all the hook up. Saved me a million dollars.
We had the heaters going, the fans on, the tank hooked up…everyone had just left, I went upstairs to grab some lunch. I had just sat down and I hear a noise that even amongst the chaos sounds wrong to me…
I take my carrot, go back downstairs, I am seriously standing in two inches of water again…it is spewing out from the spare bedroom…
I start to laugh maniacally…I am laughing so hard I am crying…holding onto my carrot for dear life.
I once again go to the water turn off…and turn it off.
What. the. fuck.
I finally stop laughing enough to call Willie…”you might need to come back” I say…
We realize that the shitty hoses that hook the hot water tank to the water lines, are rubber, and one of them is resting on the light in the storage room…15 minutes, meltdown … new flood.
I call the insurance guys…they come back.
They are amazing, I am blessed, and thankful. They know this.
I make it through the rest of that winter, fairly uneventfully. Until January. The house was for sale…
The house floods again. Over the fall my Dad had fixed a couple of drains, we hoped that was going to work.
It didn’t. I take the house off the market.
Luckily, I had a boy I was dating from my hometown here, visiting. We bought sump pumps, which by the way, don’t work at all when the power goes out…we dug holes, we made it work temporarily…until spring. I have redone the 300 sq ft laundry room floor myself, on my hands and knees, it looks freaking awesome too…
So if you hear me joking about a moat around the castle…ya, it really was…I am not even kidding.
In the spring, somehow, I managed to refinance and get the money to fix the perimeter drains around the house. We had a horrible winter this year, and most of the town flooded all around me. My house was bone dry…good thing too, I told the contractor if it wasn’t, he was coming back to help me bail…I know where he lives.
I made it through all of it…barely some days…but I did it…I listed the house again in August of last year…it is still on the market. Everything is fixed, the kitchen was gutted and totally replaced. Don’t even get me started on the fact that my dishwasher was hardwired into a light switch in the basement…that is fixed too. I have painted and ripped out and replaced more of the house than I haven’t. The back porch that the hottub was on was rotten, I sold the hot tub, ripped off the porch and rebuilt it, had two boys that loved me redo the roof above the porch…it is all good, though quite a bit smaller than it was…
I have done this all pretty much all on my own, with the help of my family and a couple of great boys…I am tired, and done.
Tonight I went out to mow the lawn. It is huge, and tonight I am tired. I didn’t want to really mow it, but I even less wanted to leave it to be way to long by the end of the week when I will again have the chance to do it…
I go out to my shed, with the lock that sticks and I keep forgetting to shoot with WD-40…I get on the lawn mower, turn the key…
AND NOTHING.
Remember I said I had that defining moment before, when I knew the boy had to go.
The lawn mower not starting for me tonight, was the straw that broke the camels back.
I am done here. I can’t manage this huge house with this huge yard by myself.
I GIVE UP…DO YOU HEAR ME???
I need to move on, I need the new people to come and buy this house. I don’t know what else I can learn here without ending up in a loony bin.
How much is one girl supposed to be able to take?
I am asking for help…that is hard for me.
But Universe, you win.
I need the new people that are going to love it here, to show up now ok? I will miss this house with every fiber of my being, but it is time for me to move on. To live somewhere small where I can have a few potted plants, a mini back yard, and no worries about what I am going to have to fix next.
I know it is just a dead battery, and tomorrow night I will be able to get on the mower and go, but it is the point of it all…I am exhausted, I am lonely, I am just plain old done here…
I give…
