It's a Done Deal!

Dateline: Houston, Texas
Date: February 14, 2012 (Valentine's Day)
Time: 10:00am

Please sign and initial here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course, here. An hour and a half later, we walk out being the proud new owners of a lovely home in Southwest Houston!

For a couple of reasons, it almost didn't happen. Yesterday I received a call from the insurance company, 24 hours before closing, saying they wouldn't insure the house because they looked at some pictures that indicated to them that the roof was damaged and may have to be replaced if a major storm occurred. Really? You tell me this now? There is nothing wrong with the roof as evidenced by the inspector we hired to inspect it, and he found no problems with it. They wouldn't believe me, but they did offer to sign me up through another insurance entity that would accept the house. I was very upset at the time, but it turned out to be OK as the new insurance cost was substantially lower than the original quote, so we needed over $1000 less at closing! Sweet!

A couple of days before that, I tried to establish water service for the house. I called the city and they said they couldn't sign me up because there was a very large past-due bill for that residence well over $600. Good grief, that's a LOT of water, but no one has lived there for a few months. Lawrence and I went to investigate and noticed the meter was running outside, but no water was flowing inside. This told us there was a break in the line between the meter and the house, which is 4 feet underground. Lovely. Something else to fix. We squawked about it and tried to get the seller to fix it, but we agreed to buy the house as is, so it's our problem. We could have pursued it, but it would have delayed the closing even further, so we told them to never mind. Luckily, Lawrence has a buddy that had the same problem at his own place and he offered to help us fix it. I don't know how much he will charge us, if anything, but I'll have a wad of cash in my pocket just in case. Either way, it will be a lot cheaper than calling a professional plumber!

Beginning this Thursday, we are both off of work for a few days so we can begin on the interior of the house. A daunting thought as we don't really know where to start. There's so much to do, and not enough money to do it, and only limited time. But luckily, as I mentioned before, we still have the free apartment to live in for as long as we want, so there is no hurry to move, although we are anxious to get moved in as soon as we can. In my mind, I'm expecting to move in no less than 4 months. We'll see.

First "big" items to purchase....a Water heater, then a washer and dryer, then a gas stove. There's already a fridge in the house that works well, but is extremely dirty. The inside looks like a lab experiment petri dish exploded. A bucket of water with clorox, eye protection and rubber gloves should do the trick.

We want our friend Stephanie to come over and see the place since she will be helping us with ideas for the restoration, but we need to clean the inside as best we can beforehand. We wouldn't want to alarm the neighbors with a screaming woman running out of the house in terror after what she just witnessed. Doesn't make a good first impression.