Homeownership, part 2: The Story

The story of buying the house begins a year and a half ago, in the spring of 2010 when I was promoted to a librarian position at Bluebell. The job was not only salaried, but involved a very nice bump in salary which I had to figure out what to do with. I ended up deciding to live on 60% of my salary and put the rest into savings. This decision meant I was actually living on less money than I did while I worked in Circulation, but although it meant some belt-tightening, I was pleased to see the savings build up. I wasn’t starting from zero, but didn’t have a large starting point, as I’d been channeling an amount of money into stocks. I stopped doing this and focused everything on savings. Still, the plan wasn’t to buy a house in 2011. I was intending to live on 60% of my salary for two years, and start house-hunting in the spring of 2012, partly because I was counting on the housing market to still be in a slump then (which seems to continue to be a good bet) and because by that point I was hoping to be able to afford a down payment of 20% on a house near the top of my intended price range. Other than needing to buy a new laptop (which was expected) and get some car repairs done (unexpected; aren’t they always?) during the past 18 months, nothing specifically conspired to derail my savings plan, the way the world tends to do whenever anyone tries to save money for anything. So that was nice.

Bluebell has a staff newsletter which includes a classifieds section, and I tend to read through that pretty regularly. Around Eastertime, I was surprised to see a friend’s name and email associated with a for-sale listing; Quadratic is a faculty member at Bluebell in the math department and lived a minute’s walk from my apartment. It was amazing to me that he would selling his very nice and very quirky house, so I emailed him to ask what was up. It turns out he and his girlfriend had decided to get married. She was moving in with him, and it wasn’t his house they were selling, but hers. Before getting a realtor and listing the home publicly, they’d decided to try advertising to the college community first. He invited me to go take a look at it, and I said sure: I wasn’t really looking for a house at the time, but hey, why not? A few days later I went over and met Annatto, his fiancée, and toured her house, which she’d lived in since 1989 and was built in 1981. The house (as you’ve seen in the photos) was small but cozy, almost tucked away, ideal for one or two people. The neighborhood was definitely residential, but not exactly suburban, on a side road which branched to other side roads but also ended in a cul-de-sac. The main road it connected to was a local route which went from the center of Bluebell Town through a stretch of lightly developed lands to the next town over, with small residential sections in between broken up by farms, fields, and an apple orchard. The positioning seemed almost perfect to me: not quite in town but walking distance from it, not quite among the fields and farms but a short drive away, neighbors within shouting distance but not close enough to see inside windows. Or rather, one neighbor close enough to see inside windows, but there were also tall pine trees along the property line to block the sightlines.

The house itself was the strongest selling point, especially in its small size but also in its upkeep and general condition. Annatto had replaced the roof, updated all the windows, and put in gorgeous cherry wood flooring throughout the house (minus the bathroom, which had tile) only three years ago. The vinyl siding was only a decade old and still in great condition. The foundation was strong and well-reinforced; half the basement was finished. Because Bluebell Town is on the south end of a long valley, most of it is, while not in a flood plain, below the water table; this means anyone with a basement has to guard against water incursions. But the basement had a well-maintained sump pump and Annatto had had water in the basement exactly once in the 20+ years she’d lived there. (To swing the pendulum the other way, my old apartment building, even with a built-in drainage system and sump pump, gets flooded or partially flooded at least 2-3 times a year. There’s nothing quite like doing your laundry with the washer and dryer units themselves surrounded by an inch of water.) The heating system in the house, while old, still worked quite well, and was your standard oil heat. (Most everyone here is on oil or propane; for as environmentally conscious as most people here are, there’s very few natural gas lines into and around my state, which is too bad.) There was the propane fireplace, as already mentioned, and of course electricity to keep pilot lights lit and plugs working. So, three energy bills isn’t my favorite thing ever, but it’s workable for right now. Not a day goes by I don’t consider ripping the fireplace out of the wall, but we’ll see how useful it is in the winter. There’s central vac as well, a perk which initially didn’t mean much to me, but is useful.

Pretty much by the end of that first afternoon, I knew the house would be a great one for me. So I pursued it, slowly at first, but as things went along it became clear that there were few surprises about its condition and upkeep; Annatto had done a good job caring for it overall, and had represented it well to me. Additionally, I liked the idea of buying it from her because of my friendship with Quadratic, whom I’ve known for a few years now and found a consistently sensible, reasonable person with more humility than the average Bluebell professor. Of course, there were and are a few drawbacks, one of them more major than I had realized at first. I mentioned before how Annatto’s aesthetic sense didn’t quite match my own, concerning the yellow walls, for example. The difference in our attitudes towards the yard, its contents and care, is even more pronounced, and frankly she’s allowed some serious damage to the flora and fauna.

Looking at the clues to be seen, a combination of preservationist ideologies and practical laziness seems to have been her general attitude. The various bushes and flowers, clearly selected piecemeal, not only don’t mesh well together, but have been allowed to grow wild. Daylilies planted in erratic clumps throughout the yard, and a batch of ferns near the side entrance, are both tender types of plants to begin with. But by the day I’d moved in, they’d obviously been neglected for some time and were quite dead. As you can see in the photo of the front lawn, a giant overgrown bush with beautiful white flowers sits to the left of the front steps, while two giant bushes with deep red branches and small red flowers are on the right. While very pretty individually, the overall effect only looks attractive if you’re designing the place for the Queen of Hearts, in Wonderland. Moreover, the two huge red bushes have prickers, or rather needles, literally an inch long each, every 2-3 inches on the branches. The lawn is at least half clover or weeds, with a dry culvert at the front of the yard which I deliberately excised from my outdoor pictures, because it was overgrown with weeds and tall grasses almost as high as myself. (To solve this problem for the present my father, bless his destructive heart, took a hedge trimmer to the culvert and razed them to the ground.) There are several large trees on the property, but a few of them have fungus or root rot problems which were never addressed; at least three have to be ripped out entirely because they’re clearly dying, while several others have to be cut back and pruned because, even though they’re deciduous trees, their branches have been allowed to grow so much, several literally touch the ground.

Finally, on three out of the house’s four sides, there’s several weed clusters which have grown up naturally among the actual flowers and flowering shrubs (just like in the parable in Matthew 13) and are so entangled, they may not be able to be taken out without removing the flowers. The backyard contains two relatively small tree stumps which were cut many years ago, but the stumps were never removed and are rotting. There’s also a very alive weed tree at the left front corner of the house. If it’s allowed to continue growing, the roots will destroy that corner of the house’s foundation. So to undersell the point, there’s a lot of work to be done in the yard. However, the total land is only 0.3 of an acre, nice and small, what I wanted. I don’t mind putting money into the property to make it healthy again, and the good thing is that it doesn’t need to all be done at once. The various other drawbacks, things like some beat-up heat registers and a screen door which doesn’t close all the way, I can take care of in the next few months. And a few random other things like a leaky showerhead and cupboards which were emptied but not cleaned, are things I’ve already addressed. But overall, apart from the yard, there’s no major work which needs to be done on the house, making it pretty easy for me to, over the past three weeks, just move in and figure out where all my stuff goes and start getting settled.

I’ve jumped ahead in my general story and now I’ll go back: when in late May I told Annatto and Quadratic that I was definitely interested in moving forward, they told me there had been interest from another college staffer but it hadn’t been as intent as mine, and they felt I was more organized in any case, so they were pleased to move forward with me on the sale. And the house, after the inspection and appraisal and some negotiating with Annatto over price, ended up appraised well below the high end of my price range, and I paid 6K less than that. However, because it was a year earlier than I’d planned, I still needed to ask my parents for help with the down-payment, which they very graciously gave me. Part of the plan of waiting two years was to not have to ask my parents for any money, but letting some pride go is usually a good thing for me. I sold some stocks as well, which had always been part of the plan, and over 20% of the down-payment came from money I’ve made in the market over the past three years.

The one stipulation Annatto had was that she wanted to stay in the house through July, which was fine with me, as it gave me extra time to pack, and to save a little more cash for a cushion. My landlord, however, proved far less easy to please, and initially wanted to hold me to my year-long lease, which I had signed in late March, well in advance of even knowing about the house’s existence. The “deal” he offered me was that I’d only have to pay the lease if he couldn’t rent the apartment to someone else before it ended. This was of course no deal at all, as it’s illegal to charge two different tenants for the same apartment at the same time, so he wasn’t offering me anything by saying I’d only pay until he found another tenant. We haggled some after that. Then he offered to amend the lease to expire at the end of September, knowing I’d be moving in August and, I imagine, wanting to screw me just a little bit if he couldn’t screw me a lot. From having this landlord for seven years I knew I wouldn’t be getting a better deal, so I agreed. It’s not that he imagines himself a wheeler-dealer, it’s just that he seems completely indifferent to anyone’s interests save his own. I’ve seen him cheat other tenants out of services he said he’d provide, or delay repairs he said he’d make until they had moved out (and never actually make the repairs). Meanwhile when an apartment turned over, he’d raise the rent indiscriminately, because he could get away with it; at one point, the apartment under mine, exactly the same as mine in all respects, was renting for $160 more per month than my own rent, just because he kept raising it every time someone moved out. In any case, I knew there would be an uphill battle on extracting myself from my renting situation cleanly. I was thankful for only having to pay rent through September, but to be honest, still expected another shoe to drop at some point.

The various processes involved with buying a house proceeded: lawyers were hired (first time I’ve had to do that), inspectors were inspecting, appraisers were appraising, a veritable 12 days of Christmas with the different people involved. I had two excellent loan officers at my local bank who were invaluable, and my lawyer distinguished himself by getting back to me, regardless of my query, the same day I asked it. A Purchase & Sales form was signed, unofficial offers of payment were made and accepted, followed by official offers made and accepted. Financing was worked out, including an exception which was made at Bluebell for me to take advantage of a reduced interest rate on half of my mortgage for as long as I continue to work for the college, which was a shot in the dark on my part and a real blessing – it’s a benefit open to someone in my job, but only after 4 years, and while I’ve been a college employee for 7, I’ve only been in this job for a little over a year. My boss, her boss, and our Dean all vouched to college administration on my behalf, and I’m very grateful.

Meanwhile I was tackling my apartment and throwing things out (why on earth did I still have my broken stand-alone CD burner from 2005, for example), giving other things away (like a hideous bookcase a friend of mine actually liked and wanted), and packing up the rest in Amazon boxes large and small I’ve been saving since grad school, which is when I learned how annoying moving is without enough boxes. By the week before the closing, I’ve got anything that isn’t furniture or necessary for day-to-day living packed up and in my second bedroom, and I’ve also got some nosy neighbors who are wondering what the all noise is about. (By the way, if you’re keeping track of these things, the guy who freaked out about the landing windows staying closed ignored that issue once summer started, but suddenly decided in early July that the cellar door should remain open at all times and kept leaving it wide, swinging in front of another tenant’s apartment door, whenever he entered or left the building.) So, the closing will be on Monday August 1; it’s Friday, July 29. I get a frantic email from my loan officer, saying she and Annatto’s lawyer have been trying to contact Annatto for figures on the water/sewer proration for the house in July which she was supposed to have gotten from the town’s water department, and we can’t have the closing without it. No one can find her. I try too, and no luck. She eventually leaves a message on my cell: she had decided to go away for a long weekend before the closing and thought everything had been taken care of. The closing gets delayed from Monday morning to Monday afternoon so Annatto and her lawyer can get the figures from the town offices. Fun times.

But once we’re all around a table together at the bank on Monday afternoon, everything goes smoothly and after 90 minutes, I’ve signed my name twenty-three times on various documents, thousands and thousands (and thousands) of dollars have vanished from my bank account, and I hold in my hand one of those stretchy key rings, like a hair scrunchy, with my house keys on it. I allow myself one congratulatory visit to the house, just walking around, touching things, singing under my breath, and then it’s time to change into work clothes and start bringing over boxes. Our local U-Haul branch office is half U-Haul, half candy store (yes, really; while I was waiting for the owner to compute what kind of truck he could get me and when, I was checking out the 15 different kinds of malted milk balls they had in stock). It turned out that I couldn’t rent a truck until the following Monday. So, fine, I spend the week moving the boxes, which were considerable.

On August 4th, four days after I closed on the house, my landlord calls to inform me that he was going to start repainting my apartment the following morning because he assumed I was completely moved out. He wasn’t happy when I told him about the U-Haul situation, and got very unhappy when I reminded him that I had already paid all of August’s rent and technically could take the entire month to move. There was more haggling, and eventually he agreed to not come to paint until he talks again with me on Tuesday to see how the U-Haul went and if the furniture is moved by then. I hang up the phone and it suddenly strikes me that I know exactly how this is going to play out. Have you ever worked for a passive-aggressive boss, or had dealings with a passive-aggressive person who perceived themselves in a position of authority over you? I worked for that kind of boss for three years not that long ago, and the lessons I learned popped into my head. Throughout the weekend I stepped up my moving, getting as much as I could out of the apartment. On Monday, I picked up the U-Haul and my parents arrived to help with the furniture, and over that day and the next, we moved beds and furniture and did a bunch of cleaning. Thankfully there were no heart attacks. They left Tuesday and I made another trip to the apartment to gather some smaller things, leftovers really, and by the end of Tuesday the only things still there were some extra boxes and cleaning supplies in the kitchen, and the only thing left to clean was the kitchen itself.

Tuesday evening, I received an email from my landlord, and it said exactly what I thought it would say. There was no conversation, no request involved; he would be arriving the following morning to start repainting, and would put dropcloths over whatever I hadn’t yet moved, but this was the way it had to be and he thanked me for understanding. I wonder what his reaction was when he walked in the door and found I’d understood all too well. A few nights later I went back, took away the extra boxes, and cleaned the kitchen. He had indeed started painting, and I left his equipment alone. So I left, assuming I was completely moved out. Early Monday morning I get an email from my landlord, expressing his hope that I’ve used the weekend to clean the bathroom and kitchen. I wrote back: the bathroom had been cleaned earlier in the week and the kitchen later in the week. All set. Over the next four days, which is this past week, I get multiple emails and phone messages from him, at first requesting and then demanding I come back and clean the bathroom and kitchen, which he claimed were dirty. And there’s our other shoe. Previous tenants had warned me that he might use various things as a pretext for keeping my deposit, as he had done with them; one of them hadn’t cleaned the bathroom to his specifications and so her deposit was kept. At first I repeated that I had indeed cleaned the entire apartment before leaving, but as the days went by and it became clear that he wasn’t going to stop harassing me, I decided to go over Thursday night, late enough that I was sure he wouldn’t be there painting, and I cleaned the specific things he found problems with again (which weren't dirty, of course; I'd cleaned them once already). Before I left, I taped my apartment key and spare key to a note, then went home and emailed him to tell him I had gone back to clean, that I trusted this second cleaning was satisfactory, and to that end, my keys were in the apartment for him to pick up, as I wouldn’t been needing them again.

The kicker: there’s been no response whatever from him since, not even an acknowledgment of my email. One of the things which fascinates me about passive-aggressive people is their need to antagonize. As the repeated communication from him had been to needle and goad me, so now this non-communication is likely intended to needle and goad me. I encountered the same thing in my old boss, and I feel like I understand it without understanding it, if that makes sense. It’s like we’re opponents in some weird way, and the passive-aggressive person permits themselves to get angry, but the other person is not permitted, and if they do, an elaborate victim/martyr routine is the response. And eventually the conversation ends, but only on the passive-aggressive person's terms; they have to have the final word, which is usually a non-word, ie. usually a brush-off. If it wasn’t as frustrating as it is to deal with, I’d be interested in the psychology behind it. As it is, hopefully all the shoes have dropped and I’ll get soaked for rent in September without living there, and then life will go on. Maybe he'll keep my deposit, maybe he won't. Sometimes it’s worth wasting money to keep the high ground.

To end on a happier note, here's some things I've learned in the past three weeks:

• Living on a street corner has its pros and cons; on the one hand, I hear more cars driving by, but on the other, there’s a town bus stop on the opposite corner, which is quite handy.


• When Mormons gather for Sunday worship, they are an exceedingly quiet people, which endears them to me.


• The surrounding neighborhood provides lots of meandering roads for long evening walks. The only drawback: almost no sidewalks or streetlights!


• I’m way too picky about bookcases. At this rate the books and DVDs are going to sit on the floor of the third room for months.


• Adequate closet space is the most undervalued yet essential things in a house. I never knew this before now because I’ve never had adequate closet space before now.


• I can’t tell you how exciting it is to have my own washer and dryer. I’m giddy. I did laundry at 11pm a few days after moving in and not only did no one complain about having to hear the noise when they were trying to sleep, the dryer actually dried my jeans and towels completely. It was domestic bliss.


• The realization hits me each night as I lie in bed that I’m falling asleep in my own house, and that’s so satisfying.