You kids get off my lawn

I stayed home sick from work today. Which is why I saw one of the kids from a unit on the other end of the complex pick three hyacinths out of my flower bed: the best purple one, the best pink one, and the only white one.  Well, I saw her walk away with them in her hand, while her friend pedaled a bike alongside her.  Oh, I was furious.

"Hey!" I shrieked out the window. They turned around, but probably didn't see me. "Pick your own flowers! Leave mine alone!"  They sped off.

Well, of course they did.  Crazy disembodied voice screaming about flowers?  I'd get the heck outta there too.

Muttering, I changed out of pajamas.  I was going to give those little brats a piece of my mind.  I caught a look at myself in the bathroom mirror.  Yeah.  No.  Not looking like this.  I stopped and brushed my hair, still angry, taking it out on the tangles.

The rational voice in the back of my head was trying to get my attention. Don't go off half-cocked.  Think about this. Do you want to alienate your neighbors by reading their kid the Riot Act over three flowers?

Now just wait a minute, the angry part of my brain said.  I've been waiting for those things to bloom all month.  They're out two days and someone walks away with them?  Aw, hell-to-the-no.

When did I realize that flowers weren't public property? My rational mind asked.  I don't know.  I remember friends in college getting what-for from the gardening staff if they got caught snapping off flowering branches or picking daffodils, and we were in our late teens or twenties then.   And how old is this girl? Eight? Ten? She probably thought it was communal property, if she thought anything at all besides, "Ooooh, pretty," as she bent to take it.

I was calmer by the time I was presentable, but decided I still needed to talk to her.  I put my shoes on and went for a saunter outside.  She was skipping around down by the other units, holding my beautiful purple hyacinth in her hand.  Well, good, a little part of me said.  At least she hadn't torn it apart.  I wonder where the other two went.

"Hi,"  I said.  "May I speak to you for a moment?"

She stopped skipping and came to meet me.

"I'm pretty sure you just took that flower from my garden."  She looked down at her hand, then back up to me.  Her face had no trace of guilt, or of defensiveness.  If anything, there was surprise.  I felt my anger dissipate.

"Just so you know, any flowers you see in the grass?"  I spread my arms wide, indicating the lawn. "Those grow wild.  But the ones near the houses?  Those are usually put there on purpose by someone."

"Oh," she said."I'm sorry. I didn't know you planted this."

"I did.  Could you please not pick any more?"

She nodded.

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome."  I think she was relieved I wasn't going to demand she returned what she took.

"And I'm sorry I shouted before," I added, walking away. "It just really hurt my feelings that they were gone."

Then I went back to my house, hoping I wasn't about to get the reputation of being the mean lady on the end.  You know what, though?  If it keeps them from picking my flowers? Go ahead and think of me like that.  Just stay away from my flowerbed, dammit.

Bullet: dodged. I hope.

Around 4 o'clock the association manager came and looked at my situation. He's pretty sure that the water's not coming from a busted main, given where the mains are located (he checked the plans for our building) and where it looks like the water's coming from. Thank goodness. They would have had to tear things apart in here to get at it.

He then checked the little meter-reader thingie attached to my pipes (don't you love when I get all technical?), and it wasn't reading like there was any water running. To test it, I went and turned on the kitchen tap. Nope, there's no water running unless it's been requested. So it's not coming from any of my plumbing.

Then he wondered if it was coming from my water heater, because it was feeling a little wet on the floor around its base. He asked me for a clean, dry, old towel--what he was about to do was going to pretty much destroy it. I found a tea towel that I don't care if I never see again, and gave it to him to dry the floor around the water heater. If water started showing up again in a few minutes, that's where the problem is. Boy, howdy, did that thing come back filthy.

A few minutes later: no water around the water heater. So he thinks that the problem is next door. He thinks my neighbor's water heater is leaking, and that the slope we've been built on has the water running into my unit, using the drain in my closet. Unfortunately, my neighbors weren't home to confirm this, but he's left them a note. I hope they come home soon.

I've asked him to keep me posted, so that I know when I can stop worrying the problem is on my end. He said he would. Though I suppose if I don't hear from him again, that'll be an answer too. Of sorts.

And now back to straightening up the downstairs. Though I have a bunch of junk in the living room that used to be in the closet. I'm not going to put it back in there until I know that I won't have to drag it out again. And besides, it's wet in there.

I could do with things being a little less interesting

My parents are coming tomorrow morning to drop of Pippin, my Very Hairy Little Sister (aka their dog). They're visiting my aunt in Virginia this weekend, and they're pretty sure Pip would have a miserable time. Not that she would have all that much of a better one with me. She's bound to be depressed, pining for my Dad all weekend. But at least here she won't have to deal with my aunt's youngest grandchild, who is a bit on the rowdy side. Pip doesn't like children as a rule, and she likes active ones even less, I think. All that quick movement bothers her.

I took today off to clean. Not that the dog will care what things look like. Really, I should clean, though, and this is a good excuse. I'm off tomorrow through Monday to stay with the dog, just because she's a bit sensitive and probably won't like being alone. Yes. I am pet-owned, and not just by my own pets.

Turns out it's a good thing I'm taking the next few days off, because things at home just got more "interesting."

The night before last, I noticed a weird isolated wet spot on the carpet. My first thought was that the cat had done it, but no, there was no smell. And then I thought, well, maybe I put something really wet there? Couldn't remember doing that. I put a towel down to blot things, and went to bed.

It was still damp yesterday morning. I changed the towel, wondering what the heck it was. It was a little wet by the door as well, and my early-morning, not-much-coffee-in-me-yet logic thought maybe all the rain we've been having has caused the slab foundation to reach critical mass, and I was taking on water? I went to work, and didn't think about it again until last night, right before bedtime, when I finally figured out that the water wasn't coming from outside. It was wetter by the steps. Besides, this isn't like my old place, where the threshold was level with the pavement outside. There's a fairly decent step up into the house.

I checked the floor of the closet under the stairs, and it didn't feel wet. Worried and tired, I went to bed and lay there a bit wondering what was going on before eventually drifting off to sleep.

This morning I finally found my flashlight (I'd looked for it last night and couldn't find it. Today? It was in plain sight. I swear, someone plays swapsies with my stuff at night) and looked in the closet. Yep. There's a water stain down the middle of the floor, well away from where I felt it last night. I think the pipe broke in the foundation.

I looked around me at the state of the house. It's more of a mess than it was yesterday, because when I clean things get more messy before they get better. Then I did a mental list of all the things I need to do that use water. Dishes. Laundry. Cleaning the downstairs powder room. I desperately need a shower.

Then I wondered, who fixes this? According to the agreement with the owners' association, I'm responsible for everything from the studs inward. The association takes care of the other stuff. What if the problem is in the foundation? Is that my responsibility? Theirs? The water authority's? If it's mine, how much is this going to cost? I haven't received a pay raise in two years, and prices keep going up. It's chipped away at my savings "cushion" bit by bit, and there's not much left. Will homeowner's insurance cover this? Or is this part of that "act of God" thing? It's not a flood, but it does have to do with water.

I have been running around all morning trying to make the place presentable for the strangers I'm about to call in. I'm also doing all of the water-related stuff now, because I have no idea how long I'll be without it. I also don't know how they're going to get at this pipe without breaking up the foundation and/or knocking down a wall.

The first step is to call the fellow who administers the association and ask him whose responsibility this is. I am really, really hoping he says it's not mine.

And? The dog is coming. There's a crate coming with her, so I'm not worried about her getting underfoot. Hey, it'll make for an interesting weekend for her, right?

Off to take a shower. And to fill up a bunch of bottles with water. Wish me luck. More news as it happens

Because it's never too early to stress out about Thanksgiving

I just spent part of my lunch break writing a preliminary to-do list of things I need to get done before Thanksgiving, complete with parenthesized notes and commentary:

• Fix downstairs commode (parts already purchased).
  
• Fix kitchen chair that you broke with your toe, for pity's sake (need wood glue, twine, brown paper).
• Refinish craft room chairs (supplies hiding in craft room).
  
• Compose and distribute Thanksgiving menu (consult your shiny new copy of The Joy of Cooking).
• Test some recipes for Thanksgiving (use up that frozen turkey breast that's been hanging around for a year; try the apricot whosit you want to make for Dad because he can't eat cranberries. Need cumin).
• Shampoo sofa and "freecycled" recliner (rent upholstery cleaner).
• Either shampoo or replace living room rug (Resolve and a long-handled scrub brush might do for this year. But really, it should be replaced with something that looks more like an area rug and less like the jagged-edged remnant it is. Something that isn't packing-taped down in the doorways by the previous owners might spruce the room up a bit, you know?).
• Rearrange furniture in living room (because now you have some, and it's all huddled together in one corner like a group of people sharing an umbrella. In other words, get rid of the boxes!).
• Is there time to sort out and arrange the craft room? (Probably, but what does this have to do with Thanksgiving?)
  
• Fix cracked, spackled bit under window (need spackling tape).
• Buy a new roasting pan & rack (preferably one where the finish from the rack doesn't rub off on the food. Gross. And possibly dangerous).

Yes, I really do write myself notes like I'm writing to someone else. It helps. And it amuses me when I look at them later.

Every little bit helps

Opened some mail from the PHFA expecting it to be my next mortgage payment bill, and instead found a check for $64.27. They had to adjust my escrow balance and they found that much of a surplus in the account. I guess they're not allowed to keep it. Also, they adjusted my payments down $2 to make sure we don't have this problem again next year.

Since I generally add a few dollars to the payment, directed at paying a little extra on the principal, those two dollars don't mean anything to my budget. Instead of applying $27 to the principal I'll be paying $29. Still, if it helps get me to the magic 20% mark (after which time I don't need to pay private mortgage insurance any more) that much faster, twenty-four more dollars a year is great!

Gang aft a-gley

I was going to take a picture of my nearly-ready-for-winter flower bed, but it turns out my camera's battery is dead. By the time it finishes charging I will have lost the light. Ah well. Best-laid schemes and all that.

Today was very probably one of the last warm weekends we'll have until spring. I'd put off tending the garden a couple weekends in a row, but today? Today was my last best chance.

So I pulled out almost all the annuals--I left in the red verbena, a few of the pansies, and one of the gerbera daisies because they're all still producing blooms. I cut back the perennials, covered the roots of the rose bush with leaves I found on the edge of the property (why buy mulch when it's literally falling at your feet, eh?), and planted some bulbs for next year. Over the course of the summer I've noticed chipmunks in my garden, and there have been holes appearing in the flower bed where the crocuses came up this year. I've decided to plant a mix of daffodil varieties (including one called Avalon, which I've never seen before), since no critter seems to like the taste of them. Or so I've been told by a few more experienced gardeners. I also planted allium bulbs near the wall of the house in the sections that get more sun, and an oriental poppy in the rounded-off section at the end.

I'll post a picture of the garden tomorrow. Here's one of what it looked like in the height of summer:



And of the other half of the garden:



Later on that summer, I crawled around on the ground to get some good shots of the zinnias:



I like this one. Shows them in all stages of bloom:



And I have to include my favorite shot of the sunflowers!



There. I wonder if I've choked Blogger with all these pictures. Time to hit "publish" and find out.

The last wall

Today (finally) I am attempting the last bit of painting in my house for this year. One corner of the living room still needs a second coat of paint. It didn't get one when I was doing the rest of the room 'cause this is where I shoved everything to get it out of the way last time. I keep saying I'll do that corner "later." Well, I've put it off long enough. Today is "later."

Most of why I kept postponing this is that the TV stand is right in the middle of that section. Here's hoping that the cords and cables are long enough for me to pull things away from the wall without disconnecting everything. And then I have to find places for the assorted junk I've been pretending not to see for months.

So by this evening I shall finally put all the brushes and pans and rollers out in the shed where they belong.

Yay, progress! Time to go change into my painty clothes.

Update on the Battle of the Tulips

Well, the cayenne pepper stuff seems to be working. I have to reapply after every time it rains, though, or the little thieves come back. And since the mixture has dish soap in it, when it does rain my flowerbed gets a little frothy. Not too much, just a few bubbles around the edges.

It's starting to get very cold out there. Winter is right around the corner. Nobody's told my rosebush that, though. It's still putting out new shoots. I thought if I let the last two blossoms it produced stay on the bush and develop hips it would slow things down a little. Nope. Maybe it's trying to make up for the time it lost before my sister cut all the dead wood off of it back in June.



See? Look at all that new growth. Poor little things are going to get their heads snapped off by the cold pretty soon.

See all the divots in the background? Evidence of the squirrels. If any of my neighbors have seen me out there lately, they must think I'm loony--stomping around in my flowerbed, covering up little attempts at excavation, muttering and spritzing everything with stuff that smells like hot wings. I guess every neighborhood needs a crazy lady, I just never thought the one in mine would be me.

Buffalo-style tulip bulbs

Okay, so last night after work I bought a bottle of cayenne pepper sauce (Frank's Red Hot) at a little grocery store downtown. I looked around for squirt bottles, but they didn't have any. Drat. Spraying for squirrels was thereby postponed 'til today.

This afternoon I went somewhere else and got myself a squirt bottle. Came home, mixed the cayenne pepper sauce with a teaspoon of dish-washing liquid, and then mixed that with a gallon of warm water. The result is this orangey-red liquid with foam on top. If I ever need to do this again, I must remember next time to add the soap after the pepper and water mix.

I filled the spray bottle with the cayenne solution and sprayed it anywhere I'd planted bulbs. About halfway through, I began to flash back to the restaurant my parents used to own in upstate Pennsylvania. One of the items on the menu had been hot wings--deep fried chicken wings covered in a hot sauce. This stuff smells just like that sauce, all spicy and vinegary.

Ditter, if you're out there and reading this, do you remember the label on the jugs of hot sauce we kept in the store room? Was it Frank's Red Hot? I think it was. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure that it was. I wonder if that's why I picked this particular hot sauce, out of some sort of subconscious brand loyalty.

So now every time I pass the flowerbed, I'm going to be hungry for chicken wings. Great.

Not nuts

To the squirrels that keep digging in my flowerbed:

They're tulip, hyacinth, and crocus bulbs. Same ones as yesterday. Which were the same ones as the day before. They're not magically going to turn into walnuts or something. Quit digging them up and then leaving them lying around.

Don't make me break out the cayenne pepper. You will not be happy.

Edited to add: I found a recipe online for a cayenne pepper squirrel repellent. As a stopgap until I get to the store for a small bottle of hot pepper sauce, I've scattered ground black pepper all over the flowerbed.

Wish me luck, people. If decades' worth of Warner Brothers cartoons are any sort of indicator, this battle is going to end with a large smoking hole in the ground, me sitting on a cloud wearing wings and playing a harp, and a squirrel covered in soot, holding a crocus bulb in his little paws.

My first ever association meeting

Being an owner of this townhouse means I'm part of an association. Once a year all the owners in my development get together and go over the budget, elect officers, talk about anything that needs fixing or improving. If any of the owners can't make it, they're supposed to send in a proxy notice saying which of us can vote for them. If they don't do that, then they're bound by whatever the rest of us decide. The notice of the meeting was mailed out months ago, so it's not like no one had time to send a proxy if they didn't want to come themselves.

The annual meeting was today, at 5pm. I got to meet some more of my neighbors, one of them being a woman I already knew slightly. She has a miniature schnauzer that I sometimes see her walking with when I'm waiting for my bus in the morning.

This year there were three bylaw amendments on the agenda: pet policy, satellite dishes, and replacement windows. Apparently the pet policy really is "no pets," but the association decided years ago not to enforce that. Some people (tenants, we think, not owners) are letting their dogs out and leaving messes. And someone's tom cat is spraying near someone else's house. So we've decided to amend the bylaws regarding pets; something about them needing to be spayed or neutered, and something about dogs needing to be on a leash and cleaned-up after. The representative from the company that does the administrative stuff for the association is going to write something up based on what we discussed, and then we'll pass it around and probably okay it.

We also have no written policy regarding the placement of satellite dishes, mainly because when the association was created back in 1986 there was no need. We decided this evening that they definitely shouldn't go on the roof or the exterior walls--makes holes, damages the roof. And they just put on new roofs for some of the units. The other units are due for new ones in the next couple of years. The whole thing is kind of tricky, so rather than make up a whole set of if/then rules we're going to state that if you can't get reception in a couple of places that we will list, you should contact the association, and we'll see whether we can accommodate that without damaging the building.

I brought up that the people who used to own my unit attached a dish to the far wall, and that I don't use it and wouldn't mind if it left. They're going to see whether the dish company will take it down, and if they won't then the president of the association will see to it that it's gone. That's great. I thought I was going to have to ask my Dad to take it down or something, or maybe call the handyman who did my electrical work and ask him how much it would cost to remove.

The other thing was replacement windows. Apparently the original living room windows to the units weren't very good quality, and some owners have opted to get them replaced. They wanted to put in the bylaws that the first time the windows get replaced, the association will contribute $400 to the cost (since that what they did with everyone who has opted to do it so far), but that if you decide to replace them again, you're on your own. That was more documenting a past practice than adding something new. According to the president, it was a previous owner of my unit that started the whole window-replacement thing, so I know mine are new. I knew that anyway. They looked a bit upscale for a building that was mass-produced. They tip in so that you can clean both sides without leaving the house.

And that's pretty much all I did today. Did I mention that last weekend I spent sorting out the flower bed? I don't think I did. Yep. I took out the hollyhocks by the front door, harvested the seeds from 'em. I think I got all the root system out. They were pretty, but by the end of summer they got very messy. They really aren't a front-door kind of flower. I'm going to plant some of the harvested seeds on the side of the unit, or maybe by the shed.

I also took out this sad scraggly looking thing that hasn't done much this year. If it ever took hold, I think it would have turned into another tree, and I didn't really want that. I think I'm going to put a butterfly bush there next year.

I planted a bunch of bulbs. Just in time, too. It's starting to get very cold now. I planted hyacinths near the front door, crocuses around the base of the tree, and then pink and white tulips under the windows and on this little rounded area at the end of the unit that didn't seem to have anything growing in it. I had a lot more crocus and tulip bulbs than there was room in the plot, so I scattered a few crocuses on my side of the sidewalk, and put some tulips and crocuses near the shed in back. Mom says the crocuses will naturalize and reproduce, but that after a few years the tulips will probably need to be replaced. I'll be interested to see how all this planting turns out.

While digging holes for the crocuses, I unearthed a few acorns. Whoopsie! Squirrel cache! I tried to put them back roughly where I found them. I just hope the squirrels don't go after my bulbs.

Last hurdles

I did a ton of cleaning at the apartment this weekend. I thought I'd be done on Sunday. One of my buckets sprang a leak halfway through Sunday, though, so I only had the one container with which to clean the floors and catch water from a defrosting fridge. The refrigerator took a lot longer than I expected, so I only got the bathroom floor washed by Sunday evening. I had a few things left to do in the kitchen, and I had Monday off (reinspection that morning, thought I might as well take the whole day in case I needed to clean some more. Hurray for planning ahead!) so I knocked off about six Sunday evening, went home, and collapsed.

Monday morning I got reinspected, so that the lenders would have proof that the electrical and water heater issues have been fixed. Took about ten minutes, got a thumbs-up from the inspector. Second-to-last hurdle cleared. I headed back to the apartment to finish up and hand in my keys.

Upon arriving at my place, I found the door and window open, all the lights on, and the place reeking of fresh paint. There was a paint roller in the kitchen sink, junk all over the living room floor (3 ten-gallon paint containers, the bits and pieces of what used to be the brackets for the Venetian blind, curtain rod...), and all of my things dumped unceremoniously into a corner "out of the way." Needless to say I was highly miffed. The complex handyman was nowhere in sight (of course), so I took all the stuff that was in my way and deposited them on the sidewalk. Put some paper towels under the paint roller before I put it outside, more to make a point regarding courtesy and care of other people's things than because I cared if the roller got dirty. I'm sure the message flew right over their heads. I finished what I had to do (taking frequent trips outside for gulps of fresh air) and was vacuuming the living room floor when the handyman came back.

I told him I'd asked Jim to wait until I'd finished. I told him it was partly because of my asthma, and that I never knew what would trigger it. He apologized, said he had no idea. He just went where he was told to go. I figured as much.

Why did I expect that man to honor my request, when he's shown me all along the only agenda he's interested in is his own? Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Because I just wanted to get out of there, I didn't make a fuss with the manager about the paint when I handed back the keys. I told him the place wasn't as clean as I would have liked it to be, but that I was done. The oven, for example. I did that twice and still wasn't happy with it. He said not to worry, a lot of that stuff was going to be replaced anyway -- the vinyl flooring, the toilet, and probably the stove. Wish I'd known that before I spent most of Sunday scrubbing and swearing at marks I couldn't get out and wasn't sure I'd made to begin with. He made it sound like I'd get my deposit back. I'll believe it when I see it. My experience with landlords has been that once they have your money, they don't give it back. I'm treating that money as long-gone. If I get anything back, I'll use it to buy curtains, I guess.

So that's it. Last hurdle to home-ownership cleared, all loose ends tied. Now all I have to do is figure out where I'm putting everything.

Three last little things I want to mention:

1. The sellers made absolutely no attempt to forward their mail. For a few weeks there until my change of address paperwork went through, I was getting tons of mail for them. Credit card offers, bills, packages even. I gave that all to my agent yesterday, for her to give to their agent.
   
2. Another thing I passed on? An envelope containing four cards I found in one of the master bedroom's closets: a Barnes & Noble membership card, a Turkish driver's license, an employee ID (also Turkish), and Target credit card with an expiration date of next month--unsigned on the back. These people are really lucky I'm honest.
   
3. While I was gathering my stuff together prior to quitting the apartment for good yesterday, the handyman asked me how long I'd lived there. I told him 16 years. "Wow," he said. "This place looks really good, considering how long you've been in it. I've worked on some where they've only been in 2 years and the place looked like hell. This one only needed one coat of paint." That made me feel a little better. I've always been a little insecure about my abilities in the cleaning-and-maintenance department.
   

Give him an inch, he thinks he's a ruler

When I went to pay my last ever rent (yee-haw!) and check on the apartment a few days ago, I found a note taped to my door. The manager had noticed I moved out and was hoping I remembered that I wasn't released from my lease until August 1. He also wanted to ask if he could come in now to do the painting and recarpeting instead of waiting until I gave the keys back to him. I think that's what he was asking, anyway. He's a stream-of-consciousness writer, and if I didn't know better I would swear English isn't his first language.

I am planning to take part of July to clean and was going to give the keys back to him around the middle of the month. That's always been the plan. It's what I told him when I asked to be let out of my lease. I tried to call him to let him know that yes, I remembered I still owed rent (I was there to pay it, after all) and remind him of what we'd talked about in April. Of course the answering machine cut me off right after I identified myself. "Messages full," it said. The office closes at 4:30, and by six pm the answering machine was already full? What's he do, never delete messages so that he can't be bothered by new ones?

So I emailed him. Got a garbled response in reply (big surprise). He really doesn't care whether I've cleaned first, he wants to do the painting and carpeting now. Yeah. That's what I want to deal with: dust, mold, fumes from cleaning products, and the smells of fresh paint and new carpet. What's he trying to do, kill me?

I told him, no, wait for me. There's still stuff on my floor. I don't think he's happy, but I'm past caring. He keeps on rushing me, I won't give him the keys back until July 31. It's still my place after all, even if I'm not living there any more.

Jeesh.

Really effective way to communicate, by the way, via a note on the door of an apartment you know is empty.

Photos of the new place

Hi home, I'm honey!
Originally uploaded by JugglingScarves

Just posted a few photos of the new place onto Flick'r. Most of the rooms still look a bit disordered and I really didn't want to record that so...there are some shots of the cat, of the kitchen, of the exterior and of the plant life in my garden. There's one that I haven't posted yet. It's of the ceiling in the craft room--I wanted to get a day shot and a night shot, but I keep forgetting to go in there after dark. As soon as I remember to do that, I'll post those two pictures.

From under a pile of boxes...

...I send you greetings. Am currently digging out from moving in. Will be back posting when I can find the living room again.

Let me give you the edited highlights, though:

• There was a brief last-minute to-do about the truck we'd rented. My sister was supposed to pick it up at an office near them, but the place had no reservation listed. I had to sort it out long distance over my cell phone, but it turns out whoever I'd talked to on Thursday had reserved the truck for the wrong location. Fifteen minutes later (through the magic of computers), the reservation was in the right place and she could drive away with the truck.
• My family was amazed at the amount of stuff I'd managed to cram into that tiny apartment. At one point Stretch asked me: "Do you have a door into some other apartment that you're taking stuff from?" Come on, gang, I'd been in there a decade and a half, and I have pack rat tendencies. What did you expect? And why did you think I've been packing for two months?
  
• I need to get the townhouse reinspected now that the work required by the lenders is done. Before I call my realtor and say it's okay to call the inspector, I need to clear a path to the breaker box, which is surrounded by very heavy boxes of books. Guess what I'm doing Saturday?
• The hollyhocks by the front door are starting to bloom. The tall one is hot pink, and the one next to it is a deeper pink, somewhere in the magenta range. Must take a picture and post it.
• My third day in the new place I got my first door-to-door evangelist. Thought he'd be sneaky about his pitch and start by talking about Noah. Noah? Trying to tie in with the Mississippi floods? I didn't wait to find out. I'd answered the door covered in lilac and green splotches and brandishing a paint brush. Told him I was in the middle of something and then politely but firmly refused his offer to come back and talk to me later.

That's about it for now.

Hey gang, I'm a mortgagor!

This is the first moment I've had where I could fire up the ol' laptop without feeling guilty because I should be doing something else. So here's how it all went down:

Friday: Up at the crack of dawn. Examining, pitching, packing things until about nine, when I figured I should probably get myself ready. J. arrived at ten and took me to my soon-to-be townhouse. She said when she brought the electrician over there Wednesday the sellers still hadn't packed, and Mrs. Seller said she was taking the day off of work the next day to do it. As we pull in, we see a U-Haul parked out front. They're still moving things out and cleaning. Turns out the sellers left the day before, they're returning home to Turkey (I thought so! I'd said as much to J. at one point), and have given/sold the contents of their house to some other Turkish folks still living here. Friends of theirs, I think. We look around, everything is fine. One of the two men clearing out hands me the keys to the front door and to the mailbox. J. drives me off to the bank for settlement.

At settlement is the nice lady from the bank who got me the PHFA and county loans, the realtor for the sellers, a representative from a settlement agency, my realtor, and me (of course). The woman from the bank hands me a sheaf of papers. These are all my copies of the documents I'm about to sign. And away we go. She hands me a paper, explains what it means, I sign it. She takes that one away, hands me another one, explains it, I sign it. And so on until she runs out of papers. Then she switches chairs with the settlement agent and we start again. We go through the statement that says what I owe. I hand over a cashier's check for that. She hands me two checks: one from the county and one from the bank. I endorse them and hand them back to her, stopping to remark that quite a lot of money just passed through my hands. After the last piece of paper is signed and notarized, she folds her hands over the whole sheaf of them, smiles, and says,

"Congratulations, you are now in debt."

"Oh, I've been here before."

"Well, welcome back!"

We all shake hands, and J. drives me off to the Wal-Mart so that I can make copies of the keys. She gives me a hug and a present, a binder with all sorts of tags and labels in it, all set up and ready to be filled-- a sort of home documents organizer.

I call first my Mom and then my sister to let 'em know I'm now a homeowner. After I get keys made, have a celebratory lunch in the Eat 'n' Park, and buy a bottle of sparkling white wine for later on that night (Asti Spumante), I head on back to my apartment for more packing. At about three I call a taxi, and drag myself, a suitcase, a duffel bag, and a canvas shopping bag full of stuff over to my townhouse. From there I do laundry, and while I'm waiting for it to finish I sit on the steps and stare at my living room through the bars of the banister. I did take a few pictures, and just as soon as I figure out what I did with my memory card-to-USB converter, I'll post them to Flick'r. Mom and Dad had said they'd be here by 7, Ditter and Stretch thought they'd be here by 8. At 7, Mom calls to say that they're just leaving now--there was a terrific thunderstorm that they didn't feel comfortable driving in, and it just let up.

When Ditter and Stretch show up, I show them around the place. We take a look at my little front garden patch. There's an almost dead rosebush that she thinks she can show me how to bring back. There's also a huge hollyhock by the front door that Stretch thought was a weed. There's also all sorts of weeds and unidentified vegetation in there, and a small tree in need of pruning. I have no idea how to do that.

Ditter takes me shopping for all sorts of stuff I need and didn't think about--also, we're going to swing by the apartment and pick up the cat. While we're in the store (we were there a very long time. It was 10:30 when we hit the check-out line) Mom calls to say they hit fog so they had to go around "the long way," and they'll be another 45 minutes or so. After picking up the cat (and my sleeping bag, and a couple other things) we head on back to the house to find that my brother-in-law has weeded the patch, fixed a window screen that needed attention, and done a couple more minor fixes. He joked that if I'd already bought the paint, he'd have started one of the rooms already.

I let the cat out of her carrier and watch her slink around the place, investigating everything. She stays close to the wall--it must feel safer that way. We just get dinner started (at 11 at night!) when my parents pull in.

Upon crossing the threshold, Mom and Dad give me a golden dollar coin, two loaves of bread, and bottles of soda--some sort of tradition called a "first-footer," though it's usually a New Year's Day tradition. A dark-haired man is supposed to enter your house and give you money, drink, and bread.

Dinner is ready-made pizza bought in a grocery store and baked in 12 minutes and a glass of Asti Spumante to toast the new house. We finally go to bed around 12:30.

Saturday: I take my painting crew out for breakfast, then we buy paint and all sorts of other stuff: a flashlight, new doorknobs and deadbolts, all kinds of things I can't remember now. The previous evening, Ditter had whipped out a steno pad and a pen and wrote down everything I said in passing that sounded like something I needed. It reminded me of when she got married and I was her maid of honor--I had done something similar. Then we take it all home and paint. And paint, and paint, and paint. Then, just for grins, we paint a little. The tangerine dream master bedroom is hit with a coat of primer, and while that dries we paint the future guest bedroom "Violet Devotion" (lilac). Then some of us paint the master bedroom "Summer Ivy" (medium dark green), while others start to tape the living room. And by the way, it's humid and stinkin' hot, so we're all doing this and dripping with sweat. The new place has no air conditioning. The cat spends most of the day lying in the bathtub. Poor kitty is very hot. Her coat is too heavy for this heat.

Sunday: Ditter has an open house to run back in Lancaster, so she and Stretch leave around 8. Mom, Dad, and I paint the living room "Honey"--it's supposed to be a gold color but is a little more yellow on the wall than it was on the card or on the sample daub the mixer put on the lids when he was done. Maybe it's because it's going on top of a pale mint green, no primer in between. Doesn't really matter. I like this color too. Then we go back upstairs and do touch-ups of the lilac room and the green room. My parents leave around three.

Most of the rest of the week has been spent either clearing out and packing up the old place, waiting for one technician or another at the new place (cable guy yesterday, electrician today), or touching up the paint. I keep finding spots that need more paint. The green room is especially tricky. We were having trouble seeing what we were doing--there was a glare from outside that interfered with how well we could see the walls. I've had to wait until the sun goes down, turn on the overhead light, and dab, dab, dab away at the walls. I was doing that last night until 11. Did something similar today with the lilac room. I dragged a lamp in there 'cause there's a bit that anyone painting would have trouble with--to paint, you have to stand between the wall and the window, effectively obscuring your only source of light. There's no overhead light in there. I should go check it now that it's getting dark out and I'm not getting interference from the sun. Haven't even gotten to the living room yet. Need to do the same paint-at-night routine in there as well.

Couple of little irritants: the guys who bought/were given "everything" were extremely literal. They took every single curtain rod, and I think they took the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom. Also, I found that I have only one working light bulb in each light fixture. If there are sockets for more than one, they're filled with burnt-out bulbs. Nice, huh? I don't care that much about the bulbs, I'm changing them all over to those fluorescent ones that use less energy. But the curtain rod thing irritates. Those are fixtures, they were supposed to stay. So when I painted my bedroom last night I got to do it in full view of anyone who happened to glance out the window. Everyone knows the master bedroom of #10 is green.

Ah well. Back to work, now that it's dark. Time to show folks what color the living room is.

Squeeee

I just went to my bank and got a cashier's check for the amount I need for settlement tomorrow.

My realtor is picking me up at ten for a final walk-through of the property. This is to make sure it looks the way I expect it to--no damage since I last saw it, nothing removed that is supposed to be there, that rickety island in the kitchen gone. We had a brief to-do over the breaker box. The agreed-to repair of the test breaker never got done. Never a dull moment. J. had an electrician look at the box, and he said that the part he'd need is no longer made. The current breaker box is an old technology that still works but is no longer standard. The part would cost about $300, and that's only if someone somewhere had one in stock. Instead, he's putting in the new kind of breakers, and he's also going to change the outlets (boxes?) by the kitchen sink and in the bathrooms. He gave J. an estimate, and the sellers will be putting that estimated price into an escrow account to use for the repairs.

After I look around and agree that yes, this is what I am planning to buy we head off to the bank for settlement, which is set for 11 a.m. I'd say that by noon or 12:30 I will have signed my life away and been given a set of keys. At this point I'm going to want to sprint out of there before someone reconsiders and tries to take 'em back.

Cat will be transplanted by around three-thirty, four o'clock. Family should arrive between 7 and 8:30. I have no idea when I'm going to be online again. Sometime Tuesday the cable guy will be coming to set up my new cable/digital phone/high-speed internet service. Yay! Finally switching from dial-up to broadband! I'm guessing that the next post will be shortly after he leaves.

Mission: Inspection

I have the morning off of work so that I may accompany the inspectors around my prospective new abode. There are two of them: one for pests and one for structure and systems. The pest inspector looks around, points out the wood surrounding the landscaping out front and suggests I get that replaced with brick or stone or pavers or something. Wood, even pressure-treated wood, starts to rot when it's in direct contact with the ground, and then it could become home for termites and other bugs. He also points out the drainpipe and where its dumping-off place is--right against the house. He suggests I get some sort of extension to add to the end of it so that rainwater doesn't compromise the foundation. He checks the inside of the house while I follow in the wake of the other inspector. My real estate agent is behind us both, making notes (as am I, by the way).

The inspector points out the missing doorknob of the storage unit. I'd already made a mental note of this the last time I saw the place. He says to watch the area of the patio around the entrance for the sliding glass door. It's a skim of concrete that looks like it was added after the door was in place -- there to keep the rain from getting in. He said silicone sealer will sort that out. He also shows me how to keep the dryer vent clear of lint (there's a ton of it in there and he removes it. Their dryer is going to work much better this evening than it has for a while. I wonder if they'll notice). Apparently that's a fire hazard. He says his son (a boy scout) uses lint from the dryer to start his campfires. Yikes. Will definitely be on the look-out for that.

On the inside: All clear, pest-wise. One breaker on the electrical panel needs to be replaced. The "test" breaker, the one that's supposed to shut everything off, doesn't work at all. He told me to expect to be replacing the thermostats at some point--the heating system is of indeterminate age and when it has problems it's usually the thermostats that die. He also suggested that I change the smoke detectors. They aren't meant to last forever, and should be replaced more regularly than most people do. As to water, one of the valves on the water heater has a slight leak.

Structurally, things are fine. I ask a few questions about things I'd noticed--mainly cracks in the paint. They're nothing structural, just drywall tape that's pulled away. They can be fixed with some spackle. The attic is dry, ventilated, insulated--all things you want in your attic.

And that's about it. It looks like repairs are going to be under $500, which is the magic number I gave in the contract for what I wouldn't quibble about. It's up to the people giving me the loan whether they want these things fixed before they give me the money or not. I may just have to give them receipts to prove that I had it done within a certain time period of moving in (30-60 days, maybe?).

Now it's time to tell the Invisible Complex Manager that I've bought a house and need to be let out of that addendum I signed last month. I wonder if I'll have to find someone to take over the lease, or if he'll just let me go. I've asked other people who've lived there a while (and some who moved out after buying houses mid-lease), and consensus is that he'll be okay with just letting me go. We'll see. I need to clean a little more before I tell him. I figure once I do tell him there will be people traipsing in and out until it's leased, and I'd feel a little easier in my mind if it's relatively tidy. Though how tidy can you be with a ton of boxes around the place, anyway?

Added later: I forgot the best part! As we're standing outside and he whips out his PDA to start note-taking he says, "Why does this place look familiar?"

He did the inspection on it 3 1/2 years ago when the current owners bought it.

My own little rollercoaster ride

I have a new fad diet. It's called the "Homebuyer Diet." Your stomach is in knots, so you definitely don't feel hungry. You get all kinds of energy from nerves and worry. I've lost five pounds in less than a week.

I've also been waking up with a jolt at four o'clock every [bleep]ing morning since Friday. Never the same reason but always the same result.

So here's what's been going on, as reconstructed from the emails I've been bombarding my sister and Mom with for days:

Saturday: My realtor tells me she couldn't get hold of the originator at the credit union, and she's not sure whether the townhouse is going to qualify for the FHA program. Something about its being part of an association and also about not knowing the tenant to live-in owner ratio. If it's mostly tenants I think property values go down. Also the FHA wants to make sure I'm buying this to live in, not to rent out. Fair enough. Anything I can sign to avow that's what I'm doing? She doesn't know, that's why we need the lady at the credit union. Apparently she's their FHA expert. We'll talk to her Monday.

Sunday: Fret, worry, try to put it out of my mind, and go shake my fanny at belly dance class. I'm okay until bedtime, when the same thoughts chase each other around and around in my head as the cat purrs on my chest.

Monday: My agent has received the numbers she needed, and they're not very good: 33 units, 19 tenanted, 14 with owner in residence. That's 58% tenant. I look it up online and find that anything over 10% is considered a risk. More bad news: the originator is going to be out of the office all day. No news 'til Tuesday.

Today: Originator is going to be out of the office until Thursday, for crying out loud. My agent calls the other one and says she can't wait until Thursday, could he please learn a bit more about the FHA today? He does, the FHA won't finance this townhouse. Crap. The PHFA will, though (that's Pennsylvania's version of the same program). My credit union doesn't do PHFA loans, though. Double crap. My realtor is on really good terms with someone at another bank, contacts her (after asking me if it was okay. I said, sure, go for it). She works the numbers out and also finds me a funky little loan from my county designed to help out with down payment and closing costs. It's a second mortgage, interest-free, and I don't have to pay it off until I either sell the house or refinance it. She asks for (and receives) a bunch of financial information from me to see if I qualify. I do, just barely.

After that, things start rocketing forward again. At four o'clock precisely (by the Big Ben chimes from the clock on campus) I have a completely executed contract in my hands, and some time during the next fifteen days I need to get the place inspected. I'm meeting with the mortgage originator at the new bank (just up the street from my credit union) on Friday. I am to bring with me a sheaf of papers, financial documents, and various pieces of proof that I do actually exist, live in this county, work, that the numbers I gave her today were accurate, and that I have good credit.

Good lord this has been an education. So far everyone I've dealt with has been eager to help me get me into a place of my own. My real estate agent has been wonderful, and never for a moment did I think she was working for anything other than my best interests. For example: the "dream" townhouse--the one that I knew was out of my league but was still tantalizingly just inside the range I'd been okayed for by the credit union--I'd looked at it wistfully from the driveway as we were pulling away. J. said, pleadingly, "Vee, I don't want you to be house-poor." That stuck with me. That told me more than anything whose side she was on, and that I could trust her. She'd have made a much better commission on that one than she's making on this one, but this one is a better fit for me and that's what is motivating her. I think she's as excited about this as I am.

My sister has said that first-time home buyers are her favorite clients. The excitement is infectious. I believe it.

Looks like another sleepless night, but for a good reason this time. Definitely time to start packing.

So I made an offer...

...which was definitely more of a shot across the bow than something I expected they'd take. They're meeting with their agent in about 15 minutes, and they'll probably give me a counter offer.

And I'll probably accept it. I was ready to give them the full asking price with no help on closing costs, so anything they offer as an alternative is great. If they say "Nope, what we listed is what we want," I have no problem with that. It's worth it.

I had a brief freak-out going through the covenants for this townhouse after I came across this rule:

"No animals, livestock, fowl or poultry of any kind shall be raised, bred, or kept in any Unit or in the Common Elements unless otherwise provided by Rules and Regulations promulgated by the Executive Board."

That sounded an awful lot like "No Pets" to me. If this place won't let me bring Lolly with me, they can keep it. Also, even if they just allow cats, my sister and her hubby have a yellow lab that they take on trips with them, and my parents have a little German Spitz that my dad loves beyond all reason. They would never go anywhere for any length of time without her. They already tried a dog-sitter and that experiment failed. She bullied the sitter's dog something awful.

I fired off an email to my realtor about that last night. She called me this morning. Apparently this is a standard rule that they use to keep people from becoming chicken farmers or puppy mills in the units. Pets are fine. I sounded a bit uncertain of that, so she found the phone number for the managing company and called them. Pets are not a problem. She made sure about dogs, too. They need to be kept on a leash when they're outside, and cleaned-up after when they relieve themselves, that's all.

I can't wait to see Dad's face the first time he tells me he's going to take Pip for a walk and I hand him a couple of little plastic baggies.

---
Added later:

The offer they countered with was the one my agent and I had decided would be our third offer. I took it. Now she double-checks with my credit union to make sure of my financing. I go in tomorrow sometime to initial the changes made to the contract.

They didn't say anything about wanting more earnest money either.

Holy cow, I think I'm almost a home-owner!