house hunting

Professur said:
Well, just rung off with the agent. #2 is a public offer (probably up for taxes). The septic is something called a dry well. Apparently, it's a large open tank and it's just let to evaporate. Illegal to sell without installing a new system. That's the catch. But there's 2 offers on it already, and if the first isn't accepted, the second will be, so that's gone. #1 is vacant, already. Might go nosing this weekend.
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I'm surprised that was legal at any time during that house's possible lifespan. Seems like that would stink awfully bad.
 
Gato, evidently several other people agree with you. A new septic tank and field shoudln't have cost more than $4500 cdn. But I just got there too late.
 
Well, #3 is sold. We looked at #1. Perfect. Big rooms, kitchen, open basement. But then, I saw that the baseboard heaters upstairs were surface wired. (uhoh, can you say illegal?) Then I saw that the entire plumbing was hacked. Rubber washing machine hoses were how the 60 gal hot water tank was attached. Damn. The elementary school was literally one block away.

The worst part is that nothing I saw is beyond my ability to put right. But there's always the question of "what did he hack that I'm missed?" And there are a lot of 'patches' in the drywall. Badly done patches, in odd locations, that make me question what the hell happened. And that if the guy couldn't do drywall any better than that, what else has he cocked up.

The kids were running about, going "this is my room", dragging the agent about. V2.0 even liked my joke about her getting the cupboard under the stair (a la Harry Potter) as her room.
 
It's already been revised from $130k to $117k. I could push it and see where he's willing to break. It's been on the market for a while. But .... I don't want a house that's been hacked on. And I don't want a house that I've questions about. This house was the most expensive of all the ones we were considering, and I really wanted it to be perfect. Instead, everywhere I looked, I saw something that made me cringe. Damnit, it made me angry. Still am about it.

At the top of the stair is an open landing that would have sold the place to my dad without hesitation.
 
When we bought ours, affectionately referred to as Bob Vila's Worst Nightmare, we expected some updating and such. We got that and a whole helluva lot more...

Nowadays, we just try to tread water for the most part. We started a master list of stuff to fix, replace, update, or alter. It's about 15 pages long. Just when we think we can get to something on the list (we do NOT do credit cards, we pay as we go when we have the saved cash), something breaks and there goes the replace money. Frustrating, but then again, we have the rest of our lives to get this place like we want it, and as far as I kow Southern Living isn't planning a photo shoot anytime in the near future.

We got 3.53 acres, with a full frontal mountain view, 3 bedroom 75 year old farmhouse with 2 outbuildings, under 80K. For no more duckies than that, ya gotta figure on some glitches, and believe me brothers and sisters we got glitches. :lloyd: Still, it's remote, less than a handful of other houses in sight, acreage, fantastic view, no danger of a development cropping up anywhere near us ever, good school, good soil, breathtaking views, quiet, rustic, and did I mention the views?

Plus, we got a couple of added bonuses we didn't count on. It appears that we reside in a part of the county that 95% or more of the folks here are scared of. At least, scared to be back here after dark. There's some rough customers afoot, but not nearly as bad as the tenderfoots in town think...and I keep the rumors alive to the best of my abilities. The last thing I want out here (besides a snake) is a bunch of town clowns with their pushy ways, gated neighborhoods, whiny complaints, and nosy noses. If I wanted to live in Annonymous Hills, I'd have bought there. I'd just as soon people stay out of the way and let nature be the neighbor. Luckily, everybody else back here feels the same way. Well over 3/4 of the road traffic by our place is local. We get some sightseers on weekends and pretty afternppns, but they by and large drive out a whole lot faster than they drove in. :lloyd:
 
Every house has stuff you have to deal with/upgrade, unless you build new to suit ($$$$$).

We're doing a massive renovation starting this week, and I can't wait for the fucker to be over. Until this morning when I put a spike in it, the spouse and I were fighting over this. To the point that I slept downstairs last night. First major fight in 2 years, and this is what brings it on.

I finally killed the fighting by telling her to do whatever the fuck she wanted and leave me out of it from here on. Didn't go over real well, but it shut her up, and that was what I was after for the moment.
 
HomeLAN said:
Every house has stuff you have to deal with/upgrade, unless you build new to suit ($$$$$).

We're doing a massive renovation starting this week, and I can't wait for the fucker to be over. Until this morning when I put a spike in it, the spouse and I were fighting over this. To the point that I slept downstairs last night. First major fight in 2 years, and this is what brings it on.

I finally killed the fighting by telling her to do whatever the fuck she wanted and leave me out of it from here on. Didn't go over real well, but it shut her up, and that was what I was after for the moment.
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Oooo. Details??

If the roof needed done, that'd be a non-issue. Painting the entire outside, same. It's having to rip out the cockup job done by someone how thought he knew what he was doing....

Not to mention that the trailer's previous owner was the same sort of person, and it damn near killed us.
 
Professur said:
Oooo. Details??
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You've already gotten as many as you're going to get.

Again, though, unless you build new, there WILL be issues that some bonehead before you has left to be cleaned up. Hell, these days, even new construction can be just as bad.
 
These days, even new has issues. Great quality construction isd now do-it-yourself.
 
Get a friggin' inspector! 'cause no matter how well you look, there's always something that'll be missed. Having several sets of eyes looking means that less stuff goes by.


I had to tear the floor off of one bedroom downstairs and have to replace more floor because the inspector couldn't see through floors and couldn't see that the previous owner had used 1/2" ply on 2X2s instead of 3/4" or 1" ply on 2X3s... AND he used scrap wood for shimming instead of cedar shims (which promptly rotted out), AND the majority of my piping is held to the ceiling with bent nails (hidden behind acoustic tile ceilings) , AND cracks on damn near every window in the basement (hidden by panneling) AND AND AND... plus some stuff which I had missed but the inspector got, which knocked the price of the house down by almost $10k.

New houses are almost as bad...the settling of the house will cause more issues.
 
Bish, it's not like there's a choice to have an inspector and surveyor to get a mortgage in the first place. But I doubt an inspector would spot anything beyond what I already put on my list. Besided, I know the two assholes who are the only availible inspectors up there. And I'm better than either of them. And the only electrician, for some bizzare reason won't return my calls since my cheque cleared. Wonder why.
 
Professur said:
Bish, it's not like there's a choice to have an inspector and surveyor to get a mortgage in the first place. But I doubt an inspector would spot anything beyond what I already put on my list. Besided, I know the two assholes who are the only availible inspectors up there. And I'm better than either of them. And the only electrician, for some bizzare reason won't return my calls since my cheque cleared. Wonder why.
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Drag one up from Montreal...worth the effort.
 
MrBishop said:
Drag one up from Montreal...worth the effort.
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I can get any electrician I want, but Bozo is the HQ inspector for the region, for all that he's useless. Banks tend to follow that.

Not that it matters any. Unless something drastic happens, we won't be pursuing that house further.
 
Professur said:
I can get any electrician I want, but Bozo is the HQ inspector for the region, for all that he's useless. Banks tend to follow that.

Not that it matters any. Unless something drastic happens, we won't be pursuing that house further.
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Shame... any more on the list of visiting?
 
HomeLAN said:
You've already gotten as many as you're going to get.
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I'm gonna assume he meant details as to the renovations you have planned...but it's Prof so really it could go either way...
 
I actually made another assumption, since the renovation plans have already been outlined in another thread.
 
HomeLAN said:
I actually made another assumption, since the renovation plans have already been outlined in another thread.
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Yeah, I remember seeing them somewheres...quite a large list if I remember correctly.
 
MrBishop said:
Shame... any more on the list of visiting?
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Quite a few more. The agent forwarded me the listing of all the agents in the area, within our budget. Most of which I already had, but at least she tried. That said, something drastic may well be in the works. No details for now. Don't wanna jinx it. But someone said something to someone else at my archery class last night that might require a speedy rethink all around.
 
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