Lien On Me.

That title is terrible. My apologies.

So. I got a call from John McCann, Realtor yesterday letting me know that the house can't be sold yet. Sweet. He told me that the city still has a lien on the house because of 'basement issues'. I was delighted...

I gave the city inspectors office a call this morning and arranged to meet with an inspector at the house around noon. That wasn't so bad, since I was meeting the pest sprayer fellow there as well. I rolled up the driveway and let the inspector in. We walked into the basement, he pantsed (this looks terrible, but I assume that how it's spelled) me, asked me to close my eyes and got to work.

He decided that instead of clearing the house, as his office had done on two separate occasions, he was going to make me angry. He told me to tear down yet another wall (I already tore down one) down there and told me I needed to vent the bathroom. The first thing isn't a big deal; it's a pain the the bottom, but not too bad. The second thing is terrible.

Here's the first thing:

Not a big deal. Just cut out the wall that is currently enclosing the oil tank. He said that you need three feet around it to service the tank, so the doorway wall needs to go.

The second thing, as noted above, is terrible. Not only was there no mention of the problem in the 75 thousand inspections, but no one, not one worker, inspector or otherwise, had ever even looked at it. Here's the problem:

In the bathroom, there is a shower. Since there's a shower, there is also an exhaust fan. That exhaust fan is connected to a little bit of ducting. That ducting currently leads to nowhere. See?

This is an obvious code violation. You can't have an exhaust fan just kind of dumping out to nowhere. The inspectors solution? More code violations! Here's what I have to do to pass inspection:

1. Break out some bricks in the basement (seen below.)

2. Cut through the houses firewall system (bad. code violation)
3. Cut through the exterior of the house
4. Install an exterior vent
5. Connect the current ducting to the vent

Step number 2 there is illegal. Also illegal? Putting a vent to the exterior within three feet of a window. The nearest window? 4 inches away. They just make this crap up as they go. Ugh.

I gave the sterling Al Medina, General Contractor a call and he came over to take a look. He'll fix it all up tomorrow for $300. The inspector is scheduled to come back on Wednesday to probably bend me over again. Hooray.

On an unrelated front, that crazy woman featured last Friday never showed up. I was both disappointed and relieved. Amanda was only relieved, as she is scared. Here's the nice, unsolicited email I got from her:

Received December 11th at 9:50pm:

I had every intention of going there for 5 but there was an emergency with my brother whom is at a hospital in Boston, that is where I was at 5. I know ur going to have a hard time believing being you thought I was a hoax to begin with. again I apologize but Family before furniture..... if you would allow me to still view ur items I would love to. But that is 100% ur decision. Monday at 5 is good u mentioned in a previous email. sincerly sorry Christina...

There's still a glimmer of hope that she will show up tonight.

In yet other news, the movers are scheduled to show up on Wednesday, I have been calling all over the place to switch/cancel utilities and other crap, and the pest guy finished up today. As long as the inspector gives me the passing grade he owes me, we're still closing on Friday.

Craig.

It's been a long time since I've written. Not much has happened.

We had that aforementioned moving sale and made about $1500 that day. All of the repairs are finished up and the exterminator will spray the basement on Monday. Ho hum.

In the last few weeks, we've posted all kinds of stuff on Craigslist for sale. Everything that we didn't sell at the moving sale is basically up on Craigslist. It's a lot of stuff, and thus, has generated a lot of interest. While I haven't had many hilarious emails from foreign people (like in my last post), I am currently involved in a very good email string. I am going to post is, verbatim, for your (and my) reading pleasure. I am really enjoying it, and hopefully it will go on for a few more days.

Please note that, towards the end, I come of as kind of a deeword. Which is fine, as I can be kind of a deeword. I was attempting to draw out the conversation as far as possible. I could have shown some restraint, to be sure, but it was, and remains, a little too surreal to not pursue.

Initial email:

Thursday, December 10th at 1:18am:

I am a 32 yr old medically disabled female(liver) fresh out of a 7 yr relationship trying to start all over again on my own on a fixed income NOT EASY!!!Please call 774-955-8068 christina call any anytime or text or email thanks and God Bless !? I WANTED TO KNOW IF THERE WAS ANYTHING I COULD LOOK AT???WHERE ARE U LOCATED I WOULD LOVE TO TAKE A LOOK AND MAYBE NEGOTIATE SOME PRICES..... I HOPE U GET BACK TO ME 774-955-8068 CHRISTINA I'M DISABLED SO I DON'T WORK SO I CAN WORK AROUND UR SCHEDULE TO VIEW... THANKS FOR UR TIME I DONT NEED BIG FURNITUREALTHOUGH I NEED CHAIR TO GO WITH MY COUCH

My response, December 10th at 7:42am:

Hi Christina,

The chairs are already sold, so unfortunately, I have no chairs to offer (other than an office chair). As for the rest of the stuff, I will be available today and tomorrow after 5pm. If you can make it either day, it would be great.

Ryan

December 10th at 10:29am:

I'M GOING TO TAUNTON TODAY FOR 6PM I DON'T KNOW WHERE U ARE LOCATED IF AFTER TAUNTON IS GOOD OR TOMORROW???? COULD U JUST KIND ME A BRIEF LIST OF WHAT U HAVE TO OFFER. AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN NEGOTIATE A PRICE... THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS CHRISTINA TEXT ME AT *phone number omitted* LET ME KNOW WHAT WORKS FOR U!!

December 10th at 10:43am:

Hi Christina,

During work hours, email is the best way to get in contact with me.

I'm on River Ave in Providence.

The Craigslist post is updated with what is still available, so you can check that out to see what's left:

http://providence.craigslist.org/fuo/1500902471.html

Tomorrow will work for me if you can't make it this evening.

Ryan

December 10th at 12:00pm:

well cosidering my circumstances I would only be able to buy the less expensive items: the Karby rug ur asking 10-ikea pillows ur asking 2 each-ikea vasesur asking 2 each and then it states "and lots more) like what???

December 10th at 12:10pm:

I've got DVDs, a few rugs, some records, vases, candles, candle trays/holders, pillows, twin bedding, artwork and probably some more stuff that I'm forgetting about.

December 10th at 12:58pm:

WOULD U BE WILLING TO NEGOTIATE ON PRICES FOR ME BEING ON A FIXED INCOME AND NEEDING TO FURNISH AN APT. BY MYSELF IS NOT EASY AT ALL

December 10th at 1:03pm:

Everything is negotiable.

December 10th at 2:15pm:

WHEN WOULD I BE ABLE TO VIEW THE ITEMS???? JUST KNOW UR NOT GONNA GET RICH OFF ME CUZ I HAVE VERY LIMITED FUNDS Lol. THANKS FOR BEING ABLE TO NEGOTIATE

December 10th at 3:45pm:

I get the message. I understand that you're not rolling in money. That's fine. If you make an offer on something and I deem it too low, then we won't have a deal. I am pretty flexible though, as we have to move in a few weeks, so who knows.

If you can come by after 5pm today or tomorrow, it would work.

Ryan

December 11th at 10:25am:

ARE U STILL WILLING TO LE ME VIEW UR ITEMS?? IF WHEN WHAT TIME AND WHERE??

December 11th at 10:27am:

As I emailed before, after 5 today would work. After 5 on Monday would work as well.

December 11th at 10:36am:

I'M SORRY IF I REPEATED A QUESTION I CAN DO TODAY SO AT FIVE WHERE??

December 11th at 10:40am:

5 o'clock today is fine.

439 River Ave in Providence.

December 11th at 10:41am:

ONE QUESTION AND I APOLOGIZE I DONT WANT TO ANGER YOU I THINK I DID ALREADY BY REPEATING MY QUESTION BEFORE... RIVER AVE IS WAY INTO PROV?? I'M HORRIFIC WITH DIRECTIONS

December 11th at 10:44am:

I'm not angry, I'm just starting to think that this may be some sort of joke.

If, in fact, it's not, River Ave is off of Smith Street.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=439+River+Ave,+Providence,+RI+02908&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.215051,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=439+River+Ave,+Providence,+Rhode+Island+02908&z=16&iwloc=A

December 11th at 10:48am:

SORT OF A JOKE?? WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING??? MY LIFE STORY IS 100% REALITY I WISH IT WEREN'T BUT IT IS. I HAVE NOT LIED OR JOKED ABOUT ANYTHING IF U DONT WANT ME TO VIEW THE FURNITURE THAT IS UR DECISION

December 11th at 10:56am:

I'm not implying anything, but apparently you're inferring something. I'm merely stating that the writing style and the constant use of all caps is a little fishy. Strangely, the beginning of the initial email is not in all caps, and leads me to believe that it is used over and over to start many email correspondences. After that leading explicative paragraph, you resorted to all caps, and have used them ever since, thus furthering my suspicions.

Also, the constant implication that you're poor isn't socially normal. I understood from the initial email that you have short funds. I have no problem with that and have been willing to negotiate from the beginning. There is no real need to bring it up (and other aspects of your 'life story') over and over to a complete stranger.

That said, if you're actually interested in purchasing anything, I am willing to show you around today at 5.

Ryan

December 11th at 11:07am:

I JUST NOT 5 MINUTES AGO WENT THROUGH THIS WITH A WOMEN ON CRAIGS LIST SHE THOUGHT I WAS YELLING AT HER BECAUSE OF WRITING IN CAPS. THAT SURELY WAS NOT THE CASE. AND ABOUT " MY LIFE STORY" I DONT THINK I HAVE BROUGHT IT UP OVER AND OVER IF I DID I APOLOGIZE, I'M UNDER ALOT OF STRESS SO IF SOMETHING SEEMS TO COME ACROSS NEGATIVE TO YOU THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT FOR. OH AND AS OF NOW no more caps.. again i apologize.. i didnt even realize i started off writing to you in lower case and then ended up in upper case letters.. i apologize. i'm 100% genuine i am interested in your furniture I am not poor but do have limited funds ie: a budget, if u would still allow me to view the furniture i would love to do so if not I understand

December 11th at 11:23am:

As stated previously, if you show up today at 5pm, you can take a look around.

While I understand that your circumstances, and thus, budget may be difficult, they don't much matter in the 'buying things from Craigslist' scheme of things, at least as far as I am concerned. If I have items that you'd like to buy, and we can agree on a price, they're yours. If not, no big deal.

I apologize if I seem to be furthering this line of emails with my seemingly dismissive and terse responses, but again, the mentioned circumstances are yours alone. They have little to do with the matter at hand.

See you at five.

Ryan

End

That's where we stand as of now. I hope to keep getting great, all caps, or even lowercase emails from this crazy person, as I am really enjoying this.

And for the record, I am not sorry (as written in my last email) for furthering the email string. I am doing my best to keep it going for both my own, and hopefully your amusement.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

*ALMOST IMMEDIATE UPDATE*

The following was sent at 11:17 this morning. You'll note that it was sent before I even replied the last time:

It was not a reply, but a separate email. This is the subject line of the email:

please reply i'm not using caps anymore it gets me in trouble I didnt realise it came off as if I were upset or angry.. i apologize

And here is the email's body:

please if u feel as if i'm phisy or phony then we can forget the meeting at 5 im not on craigslist speaking to people feeling the need to explain myself or at that matter make me feel like crap....

*SECOND ALMOST IMMEDIATE UPDATE*

This was was sent in response to my last email. It was sent at 11:32am.

The old subject line of the email string, up until this reponse, was 'Moving'. Here is the new one:

lesson learned

And here is the body of the email:

I learned never to write in caps and 2- i learned to keep my business to me, it shouldnt be mentioned and is noones business.. I apologize.. See you at 5. I will say I'm quite ashamed of myself I didn't know that was how I was portraying things

*Updated Stream of Consciousness Commentary*

What? Is this as great as I think it is? Is this person serious? Have I been corresponding with an actual, legitimate retard? I don't think so. Who would date a retard for 7 years? Another retard? Would a retard actually break up with anyone, knowing that their prospects aren't so great?

Is it an elderly woman? If so, should I feel like a jerk?

Is it, as I suspect, a ruse? Does this person just pick out people to email for fun? Is this a little game or something? If so, did I win? I feel like I won, at least a little, because I am deriving so much pleasure from it.

If this woman is serious, how is she still alive? How has she not fallen down into a ditch or something? Who would date this person for 7 years? A convict? Did he break up with her immediately upon release?

Did she really write what she learned? Who could possibly write something like that? Am I supposed to feel like I taught her something? Was it meant to make me feel bad? I realize that I can come off as condesending, what with my enormous words and all (*sarcasm alert*), but really?

Jayword. So many questions. I really hope she shows up tonight at 5.

Minority Report

So, as I mentioned this week, we're having a moving sale this Saturday. We're selling all kinds of stuff. I put some of that stuff up on Craigslist. I've gotten a ton of responses and questions over the past few days. These are my two favorites (these are actual emails from actual people).

Firstly:

for how match you selling for the ps3 and Ninetendo DS

Ritchie

I like this one because of the obvious language butchering, but also the lack of punctuation and capitalization. Richie went out of his (or her) way to capitalize the Nintendo and the DS, but didn't bother with the obvious start of the sentence.

Secondly:

hi what time good for you tomorron an interesig for book case call me *phone number omitted*

Again, no punctuation or capitalization, plus a disregard for spelling and it's super fun to try to say. Go ahead. Say it out loud. It's very fun. Interestig.

All Done.

Just kidding.

There's still a lot left to do.

Over the weekend, I got on that stupid horrifying extension ladder and found that there is, in fact, flashing all the way around the house. That inspector is an idiot. On the bright side, I didn't have to spend four hours peeling shingles back and hammering sheet metal in underneath them.

Home inspection wise, the only thing left to do is get the basement sprayed with chemicals. Hooray.

On the moving front, we secured a residence to move to. It is going to be terrible. We are going from a 2300 square foot house that has been completely rehabilitated, to an outdated 700 square foot one bedroom apartment in a complex. We decided to go there and rough it for awhile for three reasons:

1. It's about half a mile from my job.
2. They will not penalize us if we break the one year lease if it is to move into a house.
3. It's super cheap.

All of those factors make the generally crappy confines a little more tolerable.

Also being done this week? Selling our house full of stuff. I put up a bunch of stuff on Craigslist (here, here, here and here) and we're having a Moving Sale on Saturday morning (here). Basically, we're going to invite a bunch of strangers to traipse around our house and haggle with us. It is going to be an intense four hours or so. Hopefully, we'll be getting a bunch of money for all of our crap.

Once the sale is over, we'll try to sell the rest of the crap via Craigslist and get ready to move to a terrible apartment that barely has enough room for me to lie down comfortably. It's going to be an interesting few weeks, as we're pretty booked up every weekend (Thanksgiving in NJ and NH (11/25-11/29), weekend flight to somewhere (12/4-12/6), get keys to crappy apartment and family Xxxmas party (12/11-12/13), close on the house (12/18), Xxxmas in NH and NJ (12/24-12/31), New Years Eve (Duh).

I may die in the next few months.

Veteran's Day

I have not, nor will I ever fight in a war. Even if our government decides to institute the draft again, I'm now far too old to be of any use. And even if we were in such a huge crisis that I am not too old to be drafted, I'm sure I would be dishonorably discharged after a few days of sarcasm and poor push-up form.

That aside, yesterday was Veteran's Day. That brought with it the ultra rare day off in the middle of the week. It was a little weird, sure, but days that I don't have to go and sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer screen all day are welcomed. With the day off, I planned on doing some of the things pointed out by the buyer (fix the garage door, add flashing to the roof, patch up the garage roof).

After a trip to The Home Depot in the ghetto, I arrived back at the house with some garage door parts, some roofing nails, tin snips and some flashing. I got to work on the roof of the garage and managed to patch it up with the shingles that the previous owner left behind (thanks Haiti) in about an hour and a half, then fixed the tricky garage door in about an hour. After that, it was time to get to work on the roof of the house.

A little background - I have a healthy fear of extension ladders. I cannot explain it. I am not afraid of heights. I have never fallen off of a ladder (I was stung by five or so bees when lifting one, but that doesn't matter here). I don't even know anyone who has fallen off of a ladder. I just hate them a lot. I am not crippled by fear, as I've cleaned out gutters and painted some trim, but it is an uncomfortable experience for me to be sure.

Yesterday was a relatively windy day, as the weather was changing from fairly warm, to getting colder. That wind, along with the aforementioned disdain for work on a ladder, made me decide to scrap my high-wire act for the day. I am such a sissy. It's incredible.

I will now hope for some better weather (read: less windy) this weekend and finish up. If it is again too windy to stifle my uneasiness, I will give Crazy Jeff Doors a call and ask if he can get it done.

Once finished, all that's left is calling an exterminator to spray a few gallons of toxic chemicals around the basement. Hooray.

Fall.

It's fall. I live in New England. I'm sure you've heard by now that the fall in New England means crazy leaf colors. What it means to those of us who live here is indeed crazy leaf colors, coupled with the inevitable result of changing leaves: fallen leaves.

As a kid, I never liked yard work. I avoided it if possible. Luckily, I lived in an apartment, and thus, no yard work needed for most of my childhood. I was only really exposed to the terrors of rakes when cleaning up my little league field, my grandparents' yard (to jump into leaf piles) or watching cartoon characters step on them.

That all changed when my parents bought a house on seven acres of former Tree Farm. It's as if they were trying to make up for lost time or something. That purchase, along with my burgeoning adolescence, and thus, distaste for all tasks handed down to me, led to my current anti-yard work stance. I'm sure my father's constant over the shoulder management style had something to do with it as well (this is a tangent that would take far too long to describe adequately).

This brings us to the present: there are four or five mature, and generally welcomed trees overhanging my back yard. The majority of trees here are shedding more and more leaves with every wind gust. The trees overhanging the yard are no exception:

This is the result of four or five trees continually leaking. This image is a little misleading, as by the garage, there is no visible grass, or even asphalt:

Crap.

On Saturday, I spent the morning raking and mowing. While raking, I counted each leaf. 16 trillion; all of them on our property. Three or so hours later, and the driveway was cleared, for the most part, and the yard was kind of cleared (I half assed this by raking up and removing the big piles, then just mowing over the rest, hoping to catch as many as possible in the mower bag).

In other news, we did a few drive by's of potential properties and apartment rentals. Nothing major.

Also, Amanda's little sister and her boyfriend showed up to watch a movie, eat some food and play some Rock Band. As a result, nothing was finished, or started, house-wise after I put the rake away on Saturday morning. Luckily, we have Wednesday off for Veteran's Day, so I'll get cracking on the roof stuff then.

Lastly, I just noticed that this is the hundredth post. That seems significant considering our love for the deka system.

Update

Not much went on this week. I agreed to fix everything they pointed out (officially) and started the search for the next dump.

As reported earlier, the buyers requested some pest control spray. I didn't see anything on the home inspection that led me to believe there was a pest problem. That's because the buyer had a separate pest inspection done. I got those results, and they apparently showed some sort of pest had been in the basement at some point in this house's long history. Because of that, I have to get the basement sprayed down. Yippee.

I hope to see some houses this weekend, as well as look at apartments to live in once we're kicked out of the house.

Also, we'll probably play Rock Band.