House Hunters (Part Two)

In House Hunters (Part One), I talked about the first house I bought and how, for six months, it had waited patiently for me to "find" it. In House Hunters (Part Three), I plan to talk about how TSO's and my marital home in the Land o' Lakes waited THREE years for us to find it and how the patterns discussed in Part One, and now Part Two, seem to be playing out here in Massachusetts or wherever it is that we are meant to wind up.

In my experience, there are houses that wait (e.g., Haddonfield) and houses that scream "No! Not me! Go away!" Actually, if I really think about it, it's probably not the houses that are communicating but, rather, something bigger than all of us -- the Universe, God, Spirit Guides, call it/them what you will. I will give you an example of how we ignored sign after sign that a house was screaming "No!," thus forcing God to send a FLOOD to stop us from making the huge mistake that the house was trying to help us avoid.

Shortly after TSO and I married in December 2005, my darling Liege Man of Life, Limb, and Love observed that, when it comes to our marriage, he is "along for the ride." The first ride was the quest for a lake house in either the Pocono or Endless Mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania, about a two-and-a-half to three-hour drive away. Not exactly around the corner.

In late summer 2006, we found a vacant cottage at the water's edge of the worst possible part of Lake Quinn, a small-to-medium size lake in the Endless Mountains. The seller was an estate. By September 2006, we were under contract to purchase it. We called the cottage Kwin-Lo-A, which was a take on the name of the lake, my first initial, and the surnames of moi, TSO, and Christina.

The cottage was a step above a shack, but it had a foundation, and I thought it was adorable. I made it a point to meet as many neighbors as possible, and I was surprised at how cagey about the place that they all seemed to be. Everyone hemmed and hawed when I pressed them for information about it. I chalked up their hesitance to the local-yocal factor and our status as being "from away." 

There were many signs along the way that this house was not right for us. Week after week, after the contract was signed, some major issue would pop up -- one that would lead a normal person to walk away. But, I have never been normal. As for the Sainted One, he knew better than to tell me to "put the crazy away." After all, he's along for the ride. 

The home inspection should have been enough to convince us to walk away. The inspector found that the 800 square foot home was heated only by a trailer heater, which, by the way, wasn't working. As winter would soon be approaching, we requested that the heater be fixed and that the house be winterized. We even offered to pay for the winterization. "Nope," said the sellers. They insisted that, contrary to the inspector's report, the heater did work, as attested by their own person who checked it out. They promised to keep the heater set to 55 degrees, which, they claimed, would prevent any pipes from freezing and breaking. So, they wouldn't acknowledge that the heater was, shall we say, inappropriate. They wouldn't fix it, and they wouldn't winterize the house even if we paid for it. OK. Fine.

Next up. The septic system. When that was checked, it turned out that some major tree roots had moved in. The thing was a disaster. Did we run, not walk? No. Why? Surprisingly, the sellers agreed to replace the septic system, and I remained hell bent on buying this cottage.

There were other signs along the way. The cottage shared a well with the next-door neighbor, who also happened to control it, so we had to get a shared-well agreement. We were able to do that, but we were going to have no control over the well, which had the shut-off valve in the neighbor's garage, as I learned from our lawyer, who was working on the agreement with the owners of that house, which also was vacant and for sale.

It took us forever to get homeowners insurance because there was no fire hydrant anywhere near the cottage. The various insurance companies just couldn't accept the fact that, if there were a fire, the local fire department would simply pump water out of the lake, which was 20 feet from the cottage, and put out the fire that way. Nope. There needed to be a hydrant. I suppose they didn't think that lake water would work? Finally, we found a local agent who was able to get us insurance through a local company.

We got through it all, and closing was scheduled for late in the morning on December 20, 2006. A few days before the closing, I inquired of our agent about the pre-closing walk-through inspection. He acted as though he had never heard of such a thing. I was all astonishment over that one. At my insistence, he arranged for the walk-through on the morning of the 20th, just before the scheduled closing.

The day before closing, we rented a cargo van and filled it with lots of furniture and other things that we had purchased (pots and pans, etc.) to take to the house and set up after we were given the keys. We also had arranged for a local furniture store to deliver mattresses to the cottage, so we could set up beds.

Fast forward to December 20, 2006, about an hour before the scheduled closing. We arrived at the cottage in the cargo van. The agent was already there. After we got out from the van, he approached us with a grim look, stating, "You're not going to like this." As we neared the door to the cottage, we could hear the sound of rushing water coming from inside the structure. We stepped inside the door, and the water was about a foot-and-a-half high. There was green and pink mold growing on the ceiling and under the counter tops. And there stood the agent, fretting about how he didn't know where or how to turn the water off. Aha! I told him that the shut-off valve was in the neighbor's garage. Fortunately, his agency had the listing for the sale of that house, so he was able to get the code to get into the house and turn off the water. So much for the working heater inside the cottage. In early December, there had been a deep freeze in that part of Pennsylvania; the heater clearly wasn't working; the pipes clearly froze; and, when the deep freeze was replaced by a warm up, the pipes burst. 

Needless to say, the Kwin-Lo-A deal fell through. Afterward, we subsequently learned that someone came in under cover of darkness for a few nights, presumably to cover up the damage. I watched the house for several years after that, and every spring, it would go up for sale. Gee, I wonder why?

The moral of this story is that, when searching for a house, pay attention to any sign that something is wrong either with the house or the sellers or both. Do not, in the face of obvious evidence that a house is not meant to be yours, push and push and push, lest you force God, the Universe, or your Spirit Guides to send a FLOOD to stop you!!

As for why the cottage in the Endless Mountains would have been a huge mistake, we will never know. Perhaps we would have grown tired of the endless commute to and from the Endless Mountains and then had trouble unloading Kwin-Lo-A. More likely, if the deal had gone through, we never would have moved to the Land o' Lakes where we built many happy memories with all three sides of our family, especially our grandchildren.