Thursday, August 23, 2018

The house









We're selling our home. We're selling our home and moving to an apartment.

I haven't bought or sold a lot of homes, but I have noticed that all the many people we've dealt with, agents and brokers and inspectors and so on, have been very nice, but they have also been very glib. Well, "glib" is too pejorative a word. I am looking for a word that means "I describe this thing as very simple and easy to do because I don't have to do it".

Surely there's a word for that. But for just now I'm going to put in "glib" as a sort of placeholder, that's permanent, and that doesn't quite mean what I want it to.

When we bought our home 16 years ago it was half a wreck. And all the houses we looked at were pretty wrecked too. "Oh, sure it's got some holes through the roof but you can just patch those up with old roofing tiles and some joint compound, and shellac. I think I might have some you can use in my garage." That was not the selling agent quoted there, that was our guy, our real estate agent, who was great, super nice. I guess glibness just goes with the territory. "Sure this door has no hinges, but you can jam some chewing gum in there and it'll work a treat. Or if you want a more finished job I can hook you up with a disgraced former carpenter if you can pay him cash. 'Nam kind of rocked him, but I'd trust him with my life."

To sell our house we had to get inspected by two inspectors. They were super nice and had almost no problems with our house. "Just this leaky corroded pipe." They said. "You should replace this. But five seconds and any plumber can pop this right out. Simple job."

Well sure, simple job because they didn't have to do it, or pay for it. Even I, who only had a sort of passive assisting role in getting it done, found it exhausting. My wife called plumbers and they didn't call back. One was tracked down in our alley and a visit was arranged. We were assured he would have everything on the truck. So he came while we set aside time to wait for him. Then he didn't have the item. Then we had arrange for another time, at dawn the next day. Then we had to wake up for him, and open faucets and listen to the faintly alarming man do things in the basement. Then we had to give him hundreds of dollars. For some reason now the water pressure in the shower is low.

Easy peasy.

I am not the driving force behind this move, but I will find my way through. Just so long as no one tells me it's easy:

Oh you just pop your home on the market, sell it up, get rid of all your stuff, and move to an apartment overlooking the river. Tis the work of a moment. You'll hardly notice.




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