So, we moved. We actually own property! Crazy bank, giving us that money. But it's nice having a place to call home that is really your permanent home.
But then there's the dark side.
We are extremely lucky that my Mother is a generous and patient woman with cash to spare, as this place has been a giant money pit from the day we moved in here. Don't get me wrong - I love this house. But Mouldy Bathtub did more than just leave his white supremacist materials...he baldface lied to us about many, many aspects of the house. His parting words to my husband were something like "good luck - you can make a fortune with this place" which I think was Republican doublespeak for you will need a fortune to make this place habitable for your tenants, yourselves and your small defenseless baby. Mwa ha ha ha!
Within one week the dishwasher and stove, both of which Mouldy assured our home inspectors were in fine working order, were broken. We also discovered the valve to the washer was leaking. A lot. We managed to fix the dishwasher with the help of a creep of a repair guy, but the stove was declared deceased, in part because Mouldy never cleaned the freaking thing. The washer was fixed by a plumber, as crooked as the appliance guy. Apparently there's a breed of repairman who, upon enetring a house, sees a housewife alone with a baby and a sink full of dishes and/or piles of dirty laundry and thinks, ca-ching, as we paid through the nose for both of these repairs.
Our heating situation makes us laugh, then cry, then cry some more. We have to line our chimney and replace the boiler. The pipes in the baseboard in our laundry and bathroom had frozen and burst (another Mouldy omission), so when we turned the heat on back there, we suddenly had a lovely indoor decorative fountain. The person who owned the house previous to Mouldy decided to take the radiator out of what will eventually be John Henry's room (once we get a new radiator). We kind of knew about the boiler, but what didn't penetrate is that before we can replace it we have to line the chimney, as we have gas heaters and appliances venting into it and apparently gas scours the mortar and will eventually eat through it, leak CO and kill us in a headline-on-the-evening-news type way.
Don't get me started on the bathroom. I will say it's not mould, it's fungus. And there will be construction involved.
So I'm a little whiny. There are terrific things about the house...the porch, the built-in hampers in the laundry room, the beautiful pine-lined closet with built-in cabinets and drawers in the master bedroom, the rich chocolate wood trim, and damn, don't I love my new stove. But we got hit with so many things at once, that I just about had a nervous breakdown. I'm better now, but if we ever buy another house, I'm bringing a plumber, HVAC guy and an electrician along as well as a home inspector.
