Inspection Period Complete

The sellers of Dream House accepted all of our "Requests to Remedy" with no negotiation at all!

Happy Mother's Day and Birthday to me!

So things are moving right along (as Kermie and Fozzie would say) this week. 

Today is the FINAL WALK THROUGH on our current house.  I hope Jack and Jill love their new radon mitigation system. 

Thursday is the CLOSING on our current house. 

Saturday or Sunday the kids will say goodbye to the only house they've ever known and head to Molly's Parents house for an extended vacation.

Monday the moving men come and take it all away to storage and we start our adventure in apartment living.

P.S. Trying to set up RL with Molly's Mom because 1) I think they would be great friends and 2) I think they could actually work together if Molly's Mom ever moves here.

Inspection Round #2

So we had the inspection on Dream House on Wednesday morning.  I got to spend 4 hours in the house and when I walked out of it I loved it 10 times more than the first 2 times I had been in it... if that is even possible.

Nothing major went on in the inspection, so that was a good thing.  We submitted our "Request to Remedy" yesterday and now (according to the contract) there are 3 days for us to work out an agreement.  I'm stressing a little bit b/c they haven't gotten back to us yet.  Once it becomes the weekend it's harder for us to get the signatures scanned and sent electronically.  Especially since we are going out of town this weekend. 

Before you say anything - I know it's stupid to go out of town when you are moving in less than 2 weeks and haven't packed a box yet.  But it's my Birthday and Mother's Day and this was planned before we even put our house on the market. 

Here's some things I noticed about the Dream House that I hadn't noticed before (or paid too much attention to):

• There are speakers in the ceilings in the kitchen and other rooms.  I suspect they are hooked up to some central system.  Not sure if it is still functional but if it is that's kind of cool.
• No official pantry in the kitchen.  Lots of cabinets though so not a huge deal.
• The kids rooms also have built ins in the closets.... soooo nice!  I thought it was just the walk in closets in the master and the guest suite but it's all the bedrooms!
• The master bath has little towel holders mounted to the wall.  This is so cool b/c you don't have to take up room on your counter for towels.  There are also 2 awesome chandelier type light fixtures in the master bath and the shower has like 5 nozzles and a rain shower thing.  The jets in the jacuzzi work too.  I may actually never leave the bathroom.
• The crawl space in the basement is seriously huge.  It runs the entire length of the house and in the back you can stand up in it.
• There are SIX cable outlets in the basement.  SIX.
• There are 2 a/c units and 2 furnaces and a 75g water tank and a humidifier hooked up to the furnace.
• There is a back up battery on the sump pump.
• The roof is only 4-5 yrs old.
• You can walk to a huge pond from our house in like 2 minutes.
• The current owners have a huge golden retriever dog.  They hid it so well that I never even considered they had a pet.
• The double ovens are actually 1 oven and one micro/oven.  I never noticed that there is not an official microwave, just a "micro-oven."
• There's a big closet in the basement that I didn't notice before.
• Two things that I wonder if they will leave: a huge trampoline hiding behind the pine trees in the backyard; and a portable fire pit on the patio.

Inspection Results

It's always interesting when someone evaluates your home.  We've been living in it for 6 years and never had a problem.  The house is only 6yrs old so what could possibly be wrong??  They came up with 7 things.

1)  Radon.  I expected that there would be radon b/c all the neighbors had it.  We've never had it tested b/c we never go in our basement.  Apparently on a Radon test 0-4 is "safe".  Our score was.... drum roll please.... 14.  The opposite of safe.

2) Sump Pump.  One of the disadvantages of our current back yard is that it is completely sloped which means you can't put a big patio or a swing set.  At the bottom corner of our yard is a drain (think grate where you don't want to know what weirdo things are dwelling down there).  Because of our elevation and the grate, we would never get water in our basement.  Most of our basement is probably above the grate.  As such, in 6 yrs I have NEVER heard the sump pump go on.  According the the inspector that is because the sump pump doesn't work.  Huh.  I guess you have to periodically put water in the hole in the ground. 

3)  Squishy wood.  The wood trim around the window in the front of the house was squishy in one spot.  They asked us to caulk around the window.  I went out there to inspect the squishyness and when I pressed on it the thing practically caved in.  So now it looks worse than when it was inspected. Awesome.

4)  Pipe caps.  On the roof of your house there are pipes that let the sewage smells escape your house.  Ours still had the caps on them as if they had just come out of the factory (6 yrs ago).  For 6 yrs we have been trying to find out why the jacuzzi tub smells like sewer after you take a shower.  Now we know.  Thanks MI Homes... you are going to get your asses out here and fix that.

Those 4 are the ones we agreed to.  4 out of the 7.  The next three were ridiculous and we said no way Jose.  As a testament to how stupid these requests were, when we responded with "no way Jose" the buyers just signed it.  No ifs ands or buts.

5)  Slanty AC.  The air conditioner is not level and that MAY decrease the life of the a/c.  You should have someone come out and inspect it and make it level and possibly replace it.  Um, no.  It works fine. If you want it level, stick a brick under it when you move in. 

6)  Heater.  The heater "turns off before it reaches the correct heat."  What?  Um, no.  It works fine.  Plus we had it inspected in October - here's the invoice suckers! - and we already bought you a 1yr warranty on all appliances.  

7)  Lightening.  If your house got struck by lightening, it would probably catch fire because of "blah blah blah".  No shit Sherlock.  If the house got struck by lightening that would not be cool.  However, all those "blah blah blah"s you speak of were built like that 6 yrs ago and are up to code.  If you are worried about lightening striking then YOU can pay to get it inspected.

I'm glad the inspection stuff is over.  Now on to the appraisal. 

Inspection Day

As I write this an inspector and Jack and Jill are going through the house.  I'm sure they will not find anything but radon b/c the house is only 6yrs old but you never know.  I don't really care about the inspection at all, except that I feel bad for my in laws who planned a trip out here long before we even started cleaning out closets.  All they wanted was to keep the boys home from school and have a low key day with them and instead they had to be "displaced" for 3 hours (during nap time) for the inspection.  Ah well, we are lucky they are here because they can watch the kids while we go out again tomorrow and look for houses.  Again.

I am not that excited about any of the houses we are seeing tomorrow.  So I'm not even going to write about that.

Instead we are researching apartments to live in as temporary housing.  This, I kind of AM excited about.  Weirdly.  Seems like such a simple life to live in a furnished apartment for the summer.  Plus there will be no pressure to find a house immediately so we won't worry about making a bad decision.  And most apartment complexes have pools.  This is looking better every day.

Here's hoping that more houses go on the market next week!  Fingers crossed

p.s. HELLO to my readers in Russia and Germany!  The internet is so fascinating sometimes.