Permits, Lawyers, Movers, Bats, and a New House

I didn’t write about the house for so long as I was afraid of jinxing the whole deal. (actually in the very back, tiny regions of the paranoid part of my brain, I thought the now previous owners of the house would read my blog and they would become even more paranoid than they had become). In the time between signing the contract and the closing (about 4 weeks) there was mind-numbing, stressful drama. The owners wouldn’t let us into the house to measure or look around. The title search revealed the there was a lack of permits on records for a number of things and the owners wouldn’t let us send inspectors over. To make the story short; in the end there was nothing wrong with the house, but we were really stressed that the owners were hiding something horrible from us. Everyday was something new that they wouldn’t let us do; it was the largest investment of my life and I felt I couldn’t do the proper research, and I wasn’t reassured by assurances from people who said that this was common. Ohhh, and I didn’t mention how the owners threatened to put the house back on the market (which would have been illegal on their part) unless we agrees to term they gave us. They gave us the terms on a Friday at 4:00pm and said we had three hours to decide yes or no. To make matters worse, my lawyer decided that it was after regular working hours and would not call me back until Monday (although my lawyer was competent, I considered this action to be completed unacceptable and the only thing that kept me from firing him was that I didn’t want to spend more money on another lawyer (who I wouldn’t be able to hire until the next Monday anyway). That weekend was horrible and a five minute call from the lawyer would have relieved enormous stress, but I guess that was too much to ask. What more could I add onto this, ahhh Molly has three teeth coming in and was sick. Anyway, the day of closing was ok and we had a week to finish packing and move. The move was really stressful; for anyone out there moving my advice is just hire a moving company, don’t worry about the price, just do it (of course you can pack and unpack the stuff but don’t move anything or get your own truck or anything like that. I know this because I didn’t the opposite, it ended up taking three days instead of one and just as much money. But we did get everything moved. So the house was mess, Molly and Lindy were sick and than I get a nasty ear infection because I wasn’t sleeping and was pushing my tremendous physical strength past the breaking point. Now we are all sick, molly is waking up twice a night, we have almost no furniture, everyone is stressed, the house is a mess, and we can’t find anything. What else could there be – ohhh, our car broke down. The only thing left was that “I've got no money! A dress code problem! And a little murder case, which in the balance holds the lives of two innocent kids. Not to mention....YOUR biological clock! My career! Your life! Our marriage! And let's see...what else can we pile on? Is there any more shit we can pile on to the top of the outcome of this [house]?! IS IT POSSIBLE?”

However, the last few days have seen some progress. I organized the entire garage, which will be our central storage depository; we got cable, internet, and phone; we order a kitchen cart/island, a desk, and bedroom furniture (the cart and desk will be there is the next day or two), we are all less sick, we can find our toothbrushes, the car got fixed, and I never have to think about the previous owners or my lawyer ever again (I hope).

Although the house is a mess, I invite everyone to come visit. It’s a nice house and one day it will be perfect (once we get furniture, unpack, paint, retile the bathrooms and few other things that we will get to). Ohh, Lindy saw bats and a fox outside our house this morning, you gotta love Connecticut.