Housing Update 2009

Finally! A Tasty Treat!

We closed on the house! It had all the finality of Voldemort biting the dust, but oh well (oops - spoiler alert!). It's ours! Every dilapidated inch of it! We started tearing out all the nasty carpeting on Sunday - it has nice hardwood floors. It will be about a week or so before the bank sets up monkey for the contractor (oops - that should be "money" - but in these troubled financial times, perhaps banks are bartering with monkeys....)

First impressions: The neighbors on one side informed me that:

a: they wanted to buy the house, and we stole it from them. I don't feel bad, because the house had been sitting vacant since June, and the bank accepted our offer around Thanksgiving. In the words of Mike Doughty, "You snooze you loose, and I snost and lost"

b: The former owners left their pregnant cat, who had 4 kittens this fall, and are all living under our porch and in the garage (where the neighbors have been putting out food for them).

I spend Saturday and Sunday constructing a cat exclosure (to keep them from getting under the porch) with a swanky one-way door in case they are under the porch and need to get out. Once the contractor comes, I'll have him put the garage door back on and this will hopefully further discourage the cats. The neighbors tried to tell me that the cats lived there and I just needed to keep them. I disabused them of this notion.

I also me the neighbor on the other side. Here's how that interaction went:

Her: Did you just move in?

Me: Yes, we just bought the place.

Her: (Pause)...Oh, you and your parents?

Good to know that no matter how old I get, some people will still assume I'm 16. Not too bad.

Pictures to come! And more Whiskey pics too - stay tuned!