In my naïveté, I had thought that buying a house would be a fairly straightforward proposition. You tell a realtor what you’re looking for, look at houses, hand over money and move in -basically like ordering a very expensive pizza. Silly me.
My wife is out of town, so it falls on me to do a preliminary check on this particular house by myself. My wife’s confidence in my ability to do this is probably best described as “guardedly dubious”, but she is 2,000 miles away, so she really doesn’t have a choice. As it turns out, this house isn’t actually ready to be viewed quite yet, but our agent thinks it might be a good idea for me to drive by it and check it out so that we can have a jumpstart on making an offer. It is right on my way to work, she tells me, so I can swing by first thing in the morning. The house is located pretty well off the main road, so she gives me complicated set of directions to find it.
Extremely early the next morning, as I bounce around a series of foggy back roads, every house I see seems to fit her description. After half an hour or so, I finally find a road sign, get my bearings and find the place. It’s just after dawn and very foggy, so I turn off my headlights as I pull into the driveway and inch up to the house. I get out of the car and squint through the murk. The place seems awfully nice – surprisingly nice, given our price range – but then again, I can’t really see much and for all I know, I could be looking at picture of a house nailed to a tree. I decide to come back when there’s more light.
The next morning, it is raining really, really hard, so I have to get up very close to the house with my digital camera, so I can email my wife a picture of it. I still haven’t worked out the intricacies of the camera, so in spite of my best efforts, each shot I take sets off the flash. This must be visible inside the house, because lights suddenly go on inside and I see someone coming toward one of the windows. I panic and run back to the car. As I drive away, I try to tell myself that there is nothing creepy about waking up at dawn to find a stranger standing in the rain and taking pictures of your house.
To make a long story short, I’ve been looking at the wrong house. This could definitely put a crimp in our relationship with our new neighbors. (“No, really! I’m not a stalker; I’m just stupid! Can I borrow your lawnmower?”)
Fortunately, the real house still hasn’t been shown yet by the time my wife gets home, so we can go look it over together. It is a really cool old house, built in the mid-1700s. It has four bedrooms, beautiful hardwood floors, horsehair plaster on the ceilings, handcrafted banisters on the staircase – everything we could hope for, in fact, with one exception.
“There’s no bathroom,” I point out to the real estate agent.
She concedes the point. “That’s true,” she says, “but it was built in 1740. Hey, look at this great fireplace!”
We go upstairs to the master bedroom, which has tremendous, exposed oak beams.
“What do you think?” the agent asks.
“There’s no bathroom,” I answer.
We go into a large corner room with windows on two sides, full of yellow sunlight.
“This is probably the best room in the house,” the agent says with a satisfied nod. My wife smiles and nods in agreement.
I decided to join in the spirit of the thing. “Yes,” I agree, “it would make a great bathroom!”
Both women look at me like I’m insane.
“What?!” I ask defensively. “It would! You could take a nice sunny bath!”
My wife sighs heavily. The agent gives her a look of deep sympathy and we continue our tour.
(Later, on the way home, my wife will ask me why anyone would want to take a sunny bath. “Were you planning to photosynthesize?” she will ask.)
Eventually, we look at each room and agree that although it is a great house, it would be too much for us to renovate. Aside from its plumbing issues, the place would need a new heating system and the foundation doesn’t look very good. My wife and I are both a little depressed as we thank the agent and return to our car.
We drive in silence for ten minutes or so. It is a bit of a let-down to find such a great place but to have to let it go. After a few more minutes, I decide to put the best possible spin on the situation.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” I tell my wife. “The neighbors seem a bit iffy.”
