House hunting

(or haunting?)

Tom and I have been hitting open houses as much as we can and I thought I'd share our last house encounter.

As we're walking up to the house (which was an old 30's box style craftsman) there was a head stone in the front yard. I grabbed Tom and said, "We can't live here! Someone's buried in their front yard!" Tom said, "Ummmm...dipshit, it's a Halloween decoration." But, to my defense, this tombstone looked authentic. And, they had no other Halloween decorations around the yard or house so it looked as though it very well could have been someone's great Aunt buried right out in front. And I have been so out of sorts that I completely forgot Halloween is just around the corner.

So we enter the home and the agent greets us. It's toasty warm and had an adorable front room with a cute little kitty sleeping on the couch, which of course I had to pet. Then, we follow the agent into the kitchen and it's a disaster. It has this weird stand alone counter with these 2 gigantic barrel things underneath that were cracked and rusty. I say to Tom, "What the heck is this???" Tom sort of laughs and says, "Maybe they have coal heating." I say, "This is 2008! Who the hell heats their house with coal?!?" Tom gives me this weird look and I mumble some more nonsense about the bootleg kitchen as the agent takes us through to the basement.

There were so many rooms down there, none of which were finished and the agent explains to us that in the 40's this house was used as a boarding house for students. I peep my head into all the dark rooms each with a tiny window the size of a shoe box and said, "That's creepy! People actually lived in here? Could this be haunted?? This reminds me of the basement in Silence of the Lambs." The agent sort of laughs as Tom is now shuffling me rather quickly through the basement back up the stairs. We follow the agent up another flight to the 2nd floor.

We walk into the master bedroom which was pretty cool, tons of windows as well as this closed in porch with windows all around. I open the door to walk out onto the porch and after one step the floor buckles. Tom's about to follow me out and I yell, "Don't move! The floor's going to cave in!!!" Then I hop back into the bedroom and tell him how freaky that was and how I felt like I was going to fall to my death. By this time the agent has left the bedroom and Tom tells me to please just stop talking.

So now we enter the bathroom and it's as though it was never updated. Tiny tub, pedestal sink and cock eyed toilet. I ask, "Where's the master bathroom?" The agent says, "This is the only bathroom." Tom starts to thank the agent for his time but of course I interrupt and say, "I don't understand how a house this size can have only one bathroom! Or why wouldn't the owners at least update the one they have?" And that's when "the agent" says, "Well we've been here over 10 years with 2 kids and haven't had any problems!"

Holy shit. This guy owns the place. All of the things I had previously said start playing in my head and I feel like a complete and total ass. I quickly try to back track over the bathroom comment and tell him that since we moved from out of state, we plan on having a lot of out of town visitors and it's more challenging to share a bath when it's not family. I don't think it mattered though.

We say our goodbyes and the second we step outside I see the sign, FOR SALE BY OWNER. How the hell did I miss that coming in??? Tom then says, "OMG you are so f*cking embarrassing! Next time either keep your mouth shut or just assume that every open house we go into is shown by the owners. I can't BELIEVE the things you said in there!"

As we walked to the car Tom went over all of the things I said and I wanted to go back to the house and apologize to the guy. I probably would have if his shit splat house wasn't so outrageously overpriced.