My New Home.. in 51 Days

Well..

That may be a little extreme but that's how it's starting to feel.

We have to be out of our current house in 51 days.

We gave notice to our landlord because a woman up in Coal Township led us to believe that she was going to rent us her house with 99.99% certainty. The only thing she wanted to do was talk to our current landlord to verify the length of time we lived here and that we weren't problem tenants.

The only problem was our landlord didn't know we were thinking about moving and if this woman called, well.. we risked him being an obnoxious prick about finding out. So we took a leap of faith.. called and told him ourselves.. and then fell flat on our faces because we never heard from the woman again. She hasn't returned phone calls or emails.

We then moved on to Plan B and decided that a mobile home will keep costs down. We could pick up used ones fairly cheap but the moving of it from point A to point B was going to be expensive. Initially we had a place for a mobile that was going to be rent free but that fell by the wayside because of irrational thinking.. We then thought we were going to be able to get a loan for a new mobile home.. the salesman was POSITIVE that the industry was making a killing with people in our financial situation and that my credit score, although not great, was enough to approve the load.

So with high hopes we went a head and started looking for land to rent. We found someone who answered our ad and he's just thisshort of being great. He wanted a more then reasonable price to rent a half acre and was working with us as far as the septic, well and electricity went.

Things were certainly looking up.. and then they all crashed again.

Our loan application was denied.

So now we have the property.. but nothing to put on it. Except for a tent. And in a county where the blizzards have already started, a tent isn't really viable living conditions. Of course, a box isn't either. No options to rent anywhere and no opportunity to buy anything used that's close enough to not bust our budget to get it moved.

And did I mention my car only sleeps 2? Rather uncomfortable?

So two weeks before Christmas and I can't even think about being in the spirit.

I might not have a tree.. or gifts.. but I do have faith. Nothing can take that away and I my faith tells me that God will take care of us.

Quest For A House Part 6: .. Or Why I REALLY Need A Reality Show!!!!!

Not Getting THIS house

.. ok, so I think I have to bring y'all up to speed.

See this house on the left? Well.. we had the opportunity to get into a lease/purchase deal with the owners. It was a sweet deal that only comes around once in a lifetime.

But not in my lifetime because when all was said and done  the timing was just off. When the owners wanted the down payment versus when we were going to have the down payment just wasn't going to go hand and hand.

Soo... Tim came up with this idea to get a mobile home. So on the internet we comb and came up with a few that were exactly in our price range. The only thing is that we had to have them moved .. and if you think buying an over sized Christmas tree and shoving it into your car is bad.. imagine a house. On wheels. There are a lot of permits and logics and stuff..

But all that wasn't going to be so bad because someone was kind enough to offer us a piece of their property to drop the mobile on.

So we made a few appointments to go see a few. Well, one. Tim found one on Craigslist that was free. In Elizabethtown. 60 miles from where we needed to have it moved. PERFECT!! We were so giddy that we actually splurge on Dunkin' Donuts!!

We drive out there.. IN A TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR.. and you know, sometimes free is just too much to pay. The place was BEYOND anything inhabitable and the kicker was it couldn't be moved. The only thing to really do was tear it down for scrap.

So we turn right back around and start driving the two hours back to where we live.

We were driving down one highway and Tim happened to notice an older model sitting in the parking lot of a business that sells Mobile and Modular homes. It had a "sold" sign on it but he suggested we pull in and see if they had any more.

I rolled my eyes but figured what the hell. No harm in asking, right? So we started talking to the guy and explained to him our situation and he was like, "... yKNOW!! You may just be able to get a new one."

Now, I know all about the things people say when they're on commission but apparently while other business' are tanking, the mobile home business is booming because of people in situations like ours. He said that right now, they were taking half off the down payments and had reduced their credit score criteria.

Hmm.

He took us out to look at one AND O! M! G! .. this place was nicer then my house! And it came with a new fridge and oven AND they gave you the choice of either a 750.00 gift card or a 50" flat screen tv.

I don't think I have to tell you who wanted what and who ISN'T getting what, do I?

The guy suggested I fill out an application.. it was free and the only thing they can say is no. So I did.. and he told me just how to fill it out to maximize my chances and he seemed more then confident that I'd get the loan.

We left really optimistic because the payment would only be around 200 bucks.. and because it would be on private property and we wouldn't have to pay a rental fee, it would allow us to save more money faster.

I honestly felt more settled then I've been in a long time.

Until I got home and read an email from the person who was going to let us use his property.. only we couldn't use his property anymore because someone else thought that something else was going on and it was so randomly bizarre that I was practically speechless. I know. Hard for me.

But regardless of how off mark the assumptions were, there really isn't anything I can do about it except appreciate the offer and go back to square one.

So the last couple of days, me and Tim have been looking for some type of land or property to buy that's reasonable inexpensive. We've found more then few in our price range but the only problem is is that we can't put a mobile home on it .. the mobile home we're justthisclose to buying.

And time is ticking down .. we only have until January 31st to get all this together and it seems that whenever we get one step a head, we're pushed three steps back.

But I'm sure we'll find something.. I do, after all, have hope.

Quest For A House Part 3: .. Or How Some Home Owners Are COMPLETELY Delusional

... so I apologize for being MIA. There's been a lot going on.. a lot of roads traveled.. and a lot of coffee consumed in this quest for a house.

Believe me.. I'll be glad when this is all over with!

But back to last weekend.

To bring you up to speed, we decided to spend the weekend in the Williamsport area to give us a leg up on finding a house to rent. The internet is all finThe.. well.. and good but we figured that spending the night, combing through the local paper and then having Sunday to check out whatever we find would probably be the most responsible thing to do.

So we found two properties listed in the paper so I called. The first one answered and he said that he was going to have a kind of open house on Sunday after 12:30 and I had to leave a voice mail for the second. I stressed that we were only in town until Sunday afternoon and if at all possible, would like to see the house before we left. I went on the whole spiel about living 3.5 hours away .. blah blah blah.

The hotel had a free continental breakfast thing going on and so Sunday morning Tim was trying to use his mental man skills to wake me up early. I was NOT going to be woken early .. I used my mental woman skills to subvert his. He tried making noises.. turning on lights.. putting his face two inches from mine and staring at me but nope.. wasn't going to happen. There's nothing I hate more then waking up early.

I was up in plenty of time to get the free breakfast .. which basically consisted of eggs from a carton.. Jimmy Dean sausage links.. make-your-own waffles.. and cereal from this weird container. No bacon though. How the hell do you have breakfast without bacon.

I'm a really, really picky eater so the only thing I can say about that breakfast is that they had good toast.

My cell rang when we got back to the room and it was about the house that I had left a message for the night before. The woman was all "hun" this and "hun" that and told me that we could see the property after 1pm because her and her husband were going to church.

So we felt very optimistic.

We had to check out of the hotel by 11 and so we figured we'd drive by the houses prior to our appointments just to get the feel of the neighborhood and where they were at.. what was surrounding them and what they looked like.

The first house was.. well.. I want to say "ghetto" but not sure if that would be a compliment or not. We didn't even get out of the car and look in the windows.

Disappointed, we drove to the second house and I literally wanted to cry. I remember saying, "... the power of words" and Tim was like, ".. I didn't say anything." and I was like, ".. No, I meant that they worded the ad like they were renting something beyond spectacular."

They didn't lie about the size of the house.. it was huge. We got out and walked around.. looking in the windows. They were obviously painting it and cleaning it but there's only so much you can do with "bad". The little alley way was covered with pigeon shit and feather.. there was no fence so there was full view of  the back of the houses on the street that ran perpendicular and all their lovely piles of trash. Most not in trash bags.

The street itself looked like run down and anyone who knows me well knows that I have this thing about blinds and curtains. I don't understand how people can NOT keep their blinds straight or knot their curtains. I moved once when the people who moved in across the street from me doing that.

To me, moving into that house would be a step back and I may only make baby steps going forward but at least it's in the right direction. Plus, neighborhood don't usually frighten me.. this one kinda did.

Tim had a different point of view. We could stick it out for a year, he said. It's not THAT bad, he said. He said some other things that made me thing that he was doing his best to put a round peg into a square hole and I had to tell him that, look.. I don't think this is going to work. I'm not moving to someplace like THIS. And it was kind of like he thought that I was saying I was too good to live in a place like that and that wasn't it at all and if I wasn't in the middle of driving in an area that I wasn't familiar with, I would have punched his bald head. He should know me by now. If it was just me and him then that would be a whole different thing but I wasn't comfortable bringing the kids into that area.

We went in search of the Sunday edition of the newspaper thinking that there may be more ads. We stopped at this little deli and when we walked it, it looked exactly like ours did.. except everything was behind the counters. The behind the counter said he didn't sell the paper and I forget who mentioned our deli first but it was brought up and the guy was like, ".. you want to buy this one? It's only 125gs and you get the apartments upstairs!"

Apparently this guy opened this place 7 months ago.. ONLY had 2 problems that he took care of (read into that what you will) but now he want out. Honestly, I would have considered renting it from him if he didn't seem so damn desperate.

We wound up finding a paper but there was nothing new in it .. and with a bladder that was stretched from here to Arizona, we found a McDonald's and lamented on what our next move was.

Fortunately, I had my iPod on me and with the free WiFi at Mickey Dee's I was able to pull up an email attachment that a realtor had sent me during the week. It was a list of properties that were for rent and even though it was kind of old, we found ones in our price range. We also checked Craigslist and called a few that were a little further out from where we were originally looking.

There was hope.

Well, there's always hope but sometimes it's more obvious then not.

Since the two houses from the realtor's list was in the general vicinity of the pigeon shit house we had an appointment to see, we went to look at them. Both were in neighborhoods that looked a hell of a whole lot better then the one's we saw from the paper and both had fireplaces.

Yes, there was hope.

Tim being Tim said to screw the pigeon shit house all together but I couldn't do that. I made an appointment and I was going to keep it.

So I call the woman and she said she was sending her husband over to meet us. We got there first and parked a little ways down from the house. While we were waiting, we happened to see a cat sitting on a front porch. To entertain himself, Tim was psst psst psst to it and the damn thing got off the porch and came over to the car.. stretching his paws up to the window's edge.

We were laughing hard and then the damn cat jumped into the car. Literally. Jumped right into the damn car.

I had a better picture where the damn thing had just plopped himself on its back and wanted Tim to rub it's stomach but it didn't save on my camera phone.

Now, I could make a witty, sarcastic comment about Tim's ability to attract dirty, back alley pussy but I'm going to refrain.

Anyway.. there were these two guys in their early 20's that were walking by and Tim asked them if they owned the cat. One dude said that it was just the neighborhood cat named Smokey .. will refrain from a witty, sarcastic comment again .. and that he's always siding up to people.

I happened to ask the guys if they lived in the neighborhood. They said they did and that it really wasn't as bad as it looked. They've been living there for about 3 years.. each had young children.. and that basically people did their thing and were into whatever they were into but it didn't spill out into the street or anything like that.

For some reason, that made me feel better and that maybe I would be able to deal with this. I can deal with a lot for 650.00 a month.

The husband shows up and we go into the house.

Let me just say this... the house was not without it's charm. Unfortunately, the owners didn't do anything to improve ANYTHING from when the house was first built .. probably around 1920 .. the previous tenets had been college kids and they trashed the place. Instead of properly fixing the holes in the wall, the owners tried to hide them.. and honestly believe that a coat of paint will hide a lot of sins. There had been a leak in the roof and you could still smell the wet lathe.

But the most RIDICULOUS thing was the kitchen. I wish I had taken pictures of it. It was seriously that bad.

It was big. Big enough for a washer and dryer but apparently, not big enough for a sink. Yep.. there was no sink in the kitchen.

The sink was located in what I guess they would call a mud room. Why the hell they didn't just put the sink where the washer and dryer was is beyond me. Beyond Tim too.. and when he asked the husband why they didn't do that the husband (who reeked of whiskey, btw) was like "... oh!! You're going to have to take to me wife. This is her property, I'm just the handy man."

So the wife shows up and at this point, I'm thinking that maybe this is kind of do-able. Not by dream house but I felt a little bit more comfortable about the area and like Tim had said, it was only going to be for a year. Tim asks her if she would consider switching the sink with the washer and dryer if we moved in and she said that she would rather he didn't.

Tim and the husband go outside and I'm talking to the wife inside.. spilling out about how much charm the place has (barf) .. but really, what was I going to say? If I was TIM, I would say that the place was a shit hole. I know that's what he would say because that's what he DID say to the husband outside.

Have I mentioned that I'm the nicer one of the two?

At any rate.. we had to get out of there because we still had a 3 hour ride ahead of us so we told them that we would make a decision and get back to them.

So we left feeling a little deflated.. but a little elated because we had found the two houses on the realtor's list AND we found a drive in movie theater that was still in operation! Fun times. We definitely have our priorities straight, huh?

But what it all meant is that we would have to make yet another trip up.. but this time it was going to have to be a one day trip because we had a catering order that had to go out on Saturday.

The novelty is definitely wearing off...

Quest For A House Part 2... Or How The TomTom Is Out To Kill Me

Seriously.. does this LOOK like a road?

Ok..

So you know we're on a quest to move 200 miles away into the mountains of north central Pennsylvania.

BEAUTIFUL area far, far away from the city and all the crap that it is and will fast become.

200 miles ONE WAY is a long way to drive.. about 3.5 hours if you stick to the highways .. more if you take local roads .. so after making the round trip in one day last week, we decided that this weekend we were going to stay over night.
It's HARD trying to rent a house and a store from far away.. Craigslist only has so much and driving aimlessly around an area that your not familiar with is even worse. Like, the PERFECT house could be one road over and you'd never know it ..

So the King and Queen of Idiocy decided it was best to grab a local paper, stay over night and spend Sunday checking out places.

We did have an appointment to see one house.. the blue one on the right. It was advertised on Craigslist as a four bedroom farmhouse with an assumable mortgage currently at 527.00 a month.

This was located near Rt 87, and according to the Tom Tom, we just had to take the road that ran parallel to Rt 87 on the other side of the creek.

At first, the road wasn't bad. Wasn't paved.. but wasn't really what I would call a "dirt" road. I've since learned that what I consider a dirt road is a what locals call a damn super highway! What I didn't know is that the damn TomTom was taking us UP and AROUND the outside of a damn mountain. I mean that literally. There were some place that were no wider then  my car with a 300 foot drop to nothing and no guard rail. It didn't help that there was a local driving right on my bumper because OBVIOUSLY he knew where he was going and what to expect and was really, really pissed off that I didn't.

When we got to the house, the owner explained that someone had already looked at it and looks like a deal was cut. He felt horrible because we have drove so far and honestly, I felt a little let down but after we saw the inside, it wasn't going to work for us anyway. It used to be a duplex that was re-converted into a single home but all the bedrooms were open and there wasn't any kind of privacy. The dude was a trip. This was actually his vacation home (he lived in florida) and looked like he could have been cast in an old episode of the Soprano's.. complete with gold 9mm Glock earring, pinkie ring, 4th wife and coiffed hair. It was ridiculous that he lived there but he had a great personality and I did like him.

So with no other prospects yet and time on our hands, Tim wanted to show me the mountain house that his father built in Shunk, Pa. So I punch that in the TomTom and start following the.. This time, instead of taking us AROUND it took us THROUGH the mountain in what I can only call a secondary access road or a damn fire road.

If I thought the other road was bad.. OMG!!! This one was sooooooooo much worse. Only as wide as  my car but filled with pot holes and rocks sticking up and the HUGE drop into nothing.

No.. I'm sorry.. THIS ISN'T A ROAD!!

It was getting late.. I didn't have cell service because I was IN a damn mountain .. my back driver side tire has a habit of leaking air and all you heard from underneath the car was SCRAAAAP!! BANNNNG!!! BAMMMM!!!

All that and trying to avoid the pot holes and sticking up rocks? Yea.. I was more nervous then a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I kept on having to swerve to avoid the holes and rocks and at one point when Tim was looking over the 300ft drop, I swerved and his sphincter immediately cramped.

WTF!!!!! he yelled. And started screaming that he was going to drive .. he made it seem like I didn't know what I was doing or.. worse, that I was SCARED (because, yknow, I don't "get" scared) .. and so I did what every badass city girl does when she's disappointed in house she didn't get and is driving on a PATH through a mountain with pot holes, jutting rocks and a car she doesn't trust ... I stated to cry.

If I was a devious or malicious person, I would SO use that to my advantage because me crying just makes Tim feel horrible.. worse when he causes it! But I think I only had to  let out some emotion and then we were as fine as we were going to be.

We had to be on this semblance of road for 8 miles and at around the almost 6 miles mark, guess what?

Only Me

Yep.. Road Block.

Now to be fair, we DID see home made signs saying that the road was closed but y'know.. nothing official and we really didn't know when they were posted because they looked kind of worn.

Now we knew.

So we had to turn around and do this again for another six miles. I wasn't a happy camper but there was nothing else that could be done.

The ride back wasn't AS bad because I knew what to expect and I there weren't that many holes or jutting rocks on what had become the driver's side.

But I did see the view.. and which I hadn't. It's hard driving with a cramped sphincter!!

We finally made it back to a real, honest to God highway. Rt 14. And it only took me one more time to follow the TomTom directions and it told me to go over a bridge THAT WASN'T THERE ANY LONGER.. that I said, "Screw it .. " and just stayed on the highway. After about 20 minutes of the damn thing telling me to turn around when possible, I won that battle of wills and it recalculated. Made me drive 20 miles out of my way and through southern Tioga county but at least we got to Shunk with both me and the car in tacked.

Tim was going down memory lane.. pointing out this to me and that to me .. Him, his brothers and my BFF Pam (their cousin) had spent a lot of time there when they were young so it was fun for me to see him that animated and full of childhood stories.

He told me about hauling stones as a kid .. and the pool table they had and the pond that used to be on the side of the house that has since been drained.

He told me how the place was actually two houses since his uncle wanted his own kitchen and entrance and whatever .. so the house has two of everything on different levels.

They spent a lot of time up there being boys.. hunting, fishing, etc. and it's a shame that circumstances were what they became and his dad had to sell the property.

You might not be able to see it, but in the middle window there's a wooden sign.

Apparently, it's tradition to "name" your hunting cabins in those parts and so this became "Lazy Acre" because it's located right outside of Lazytown.

Tim's dad had made the sign and it was kind of awesome to see it still there.. it used to hang but for whatever reason, it's now in a window.

Kinda cool, huh?

Okay .. so now that the trip down memory lane was over we had to get back down to business we keyed Williamsport into the TomTom to make our way back to semi-civilization by nightfall.

You  know.. I'm pretty good with directions and landmarks. Once I find my way to someplace, I always remember the way out so after all the previous attempts on my life with the TomTom why I didn't follow my instincts if WAY beyond me.

Maybe I was drive-crazy .. which is exactly like being stir crazy except your in a car for 7 hours driving.

And so, once again, I let the TomTom guide us and ONCE AGAIN the TomTom put us on a damned fire road on a mountain. If I didn't think that we would need the TomTom to help the rescue people find us in the event of an emergency then I would have chucked that thing right down the 300ft drop.

I had a fear that this road was the SAME road that was blocked on our way up and we would have to turn back around but my REAL fear was the bunch of campers that we saw when we had to make a turn. Say I watch too many scary movies but I'm not going to lie and say that being on that road, in that car, at that time of almost-night got me thinking that maybe one or more of them were weekenders that might want to find out if they could murder people in the woods and get away with it.

Fortunately, it wasn't the same road and after six torturous miles, we got back to the highway and made our way to lights, fast food joints and a Dunkin' Donuts!

How Cool Is It That The Quality Inn Gives You
Free All You Can Eat Popcorn?

We check into the Quality and start combing the classifieds.

Found two places listed and made appointments for Sunday to go see them.

I wasn't really that into spending the money to stay over night but it was the best decision and gave us the opportunity to explore more of the area.

And sleep in a King size bed..

Without the dog or the cats stealing the blankets.

Tim, though, was a whole other story and it's amazing to me that no matter how big a bed is, his skinny ass has to take up 90% of it.

I'll post about what happened on Sunday a little later .. you won't want to miss that!!