The Drama of Buying a Boarding House

David and I have been house-hunting for a couple years (as soon as we learned we had accidentally moved into a crazy violent neighborhood) but the current housing market has made it difficult to buy a house and move.

Friends have made ten, thirteen, fifteen offers on houses only to have each rejected.

Dire situation.

David and I have only made three offers which have been rejected so far but we were still shocked to have our fourth offer accepted last Thursday.

It wasn’t love at first sight. It was more like… “Wow. That house is weird.”

The listing said it had eight bedrooms and we made an appointment to see how big of a lie that was.

Because a new thing about this batshit housing market is how people seem more comfortable with lying in their listing.

For example, we went to see a house that was advertised as being 1900 square feet and it was at best 900 square feet.

1000 square feet off.

Sellers:

So when we went to see this EIGHT BEDROOM house with its THREE CAR GARAGE we were feeling very skeptical.

Yet, the giant box of a house turned out to be as advertised.

✔️ Eight bedrooms

✔️ Three car garage

However, it still came with its surprises.

First of all, it didn’t come with a front door. It had a side door and a back door but… no front door.

At the same time, it was clear where a front door should go, and – on the inside – there was even what looked to be an entry closet close to where the entry area would be… if there was a front door.

So I stepped forward and opened this “entry closet” located near to the front of the house and… it wasn’t a closet at all.

Rather, it was:

It was the entrance to the basement and it caught me completely off guard.

I was so confident about what I expected to see when opening that door it’s lucky I didn’t fall down the stairs in my shock and surprise.

Later, I experienced déjà vu when I stood in the second floor bathroom and opened what I thought was to be some kind of bathroom cupboard.

Nope. It was the stairway to the attic.

The attic was only accessible through the second floor bathroom.

In addition, the eight bedrooms were on the second floor, located on either side of the second floor hallway which made it appear as if there a hotel floor in this house.

Each of the bedrooms was equally sized and each had a closet.

Like a hotel.

Or a boarding house.

Also, when we later went outside to look up at the house, we noticed a squirrel was peering down at us from its place on the roof. It had something big in its mouth.

After a few minutes, right when our realtor kneeled down to examine the house’s foundation, the squirrel dropped what was in its mouth and almost hit our realtor’s head in what appeared to be a failed attempt of murder-by-squirrel.

We had thought the object was concrete but it turned out to be bone.

Not sure if that was a peace offering or something more malevolent… we still liked this house.

We liked all the rooms. And – beyond the odd placement of stairs and there being a potentially homicidal squirrel – we felt the house would work for us.

So when our offer was accepted it felt like new territory.

We scheduled the house inspection and it took place while we attended a family wedding last weekend which was out of town (my beautiful cousin married her love)

and we told my family and other wedding guests that we had bought a BOARDING HOUSE and started booking rooms and then we came home to hear the results of the inspection and

THE RESULTS WERE NOT AWESOME.

The inspector said there were issues with the foundation, electrical, furnace, water heater and basement drain.

That’s pretty much most of what makes up a house.

It’s worth noting that the inspector our realtor picked has apparently been taken to court multiple times because he often breaks house deals as he is so cynical about everything.

He prefers people knowing that he “does things by the book”.

The nail-in-the-coffin was when we learned that the home warranty that would come with the house would NOT cover the furnace which is from an earlier century.

Thus, the house has the potential to be a money pit.

So the inspection results were jarring.

The house had been the most straightforward house we had seen. Besides the furnace, we hadn’t seen any other red flags.

Therefore, we had already been planning big changes in the house such as:

put in a front door, take out most of the first floor walls to create an open space, tear up the carpet and put down flooring on the first floor, turn the attic into a master suite (which would explain the attic stairs in the second floor bathroom), put in central air, put up a fence and create a garden space in the tiny side yard, put a “Cellar Door” sign on the basement stairs and a corresponding mural on the interior wall of the basement stairs, so when you opened the cellar door there the Donnie Darko bunny would be.

Sooooooooooo we wouldn’t have the money to correct all that we now know is wrong.

We already have our hands full with what we wanted to do before we found out that the essential components of the house were in need of repair.

Like… #1 this…basement drain pipe… needs to be… better… as it’s far too easy for baby alligators and sewer gases to enter our home with the current state of the pipe:

🙀‼️

Sigh.

A boarding house would probably be super haunted anyways so it’s likely a good thing this won’t work out.

Though I do like having a back-up life plan and running a boarding house was it for a week.

Oh well! The house hunting continues.

Probably for the best. 🖤