Brickblog

Got an updated appraisal today…

The summary goes something like:
Yes, the things I pointed out have been fixed, but I found new stuff, so um, fix it. Until you do, you can’t close on the house. Tootalo.

For the sake of the children I will not publish the rant I sent to a select few, who might enjoy my grandfather McIntire’s sailer’s mouth coming out of every fiber of my soul.

How is it fair, right, or otherwise to just come back and find something else new that was not previously disclosed? Are we dealing with amateurs here?

This isn’t the first sign of rank stupidity either. Another visit out resulted in asking where the appliances were. Oh, you mean the one’s we’re rolling in to the 203k streamline that will fix the roof as well? Which you know about? The ones we can’t buy until we close on the house? The one’s we’d be pure asses to buy and put in a house WE DON’T YET OWN?!

I better stop, before I go against my better judgement and list the appraiser’s name, or delve in to a swearing rant the likes the internets have never seen.

While I wrote this post, my loving wife, with much more flare for the English language, wrote this:

Last time on “Red Elephant” our hero and heroine had to wait another week for closing because their lender was so far behind. After some heated, but still polite, phone calls from our hero the lender finally agreed that they should pay all the fees for closing late and the fee to extend our rate. Will they ever close? The world may never know.

Meanwhile at the elephant… the big bad appraiser went back out to see how the elephant was looking. Although she agreed that the painting she asked for was done and the water was working… the big bad appraiser is always on the lookout for faults. This time instead of complaining that we didn’t put appliances in a house we don’t own, or that the sink upstairs should be called a kitchen even though there is no plug for a stove, the cunning appraiser decided to identify new places the paint had chipped and take pictures of them to include in the final appraisal.

Disheartened and angry, the hero called the lender saying WTF! (And this time he wasn’t so polite.) The lender quickly replied, “We’ll call it self help…. I think I can get that through in the next 24 hours.” YAY! They all cried (some literally) and survived another crisis.

Stay tuned next time when we find out: will they or won’t they be moving this weekend?

Who needs “General Hospital” when you can have real life! – Amanda

I’m beginning to understand what it might be like to be a bit crazy. I probably shouldn’t put that out there on the intertubes, but WTF.

It feels like our life has been on hold since April. In a lot of ways it has been. See that’s when we put an offer on a house in Sommersworth. It was a short-sale, which turned out to be anything but short. After repeated months of coming to the deadline for the bank (Countrywide/Bank of America) to accept our offer and extending our offer, we finally walked away. It turns out for the better in reality, as the house we found is much larger, on more land, costs less, and has better property taxes then the first. The problem is, the whole waiting thing is part of my history now. It’s hard to not have that there nagging at me when I consider what we’re going through now.

I sit here, on the day we should have been cleaning our new house, the day before we should have been moving, in limbo. We already had to delay the closing once because of some work the seller needed to take care of so we could have inspections done. Turns out things were not completely winterized as they should have been so what should have been a minor repair took a while to get correctly fixed.

As we approached the new closing date, we got the feeling, we just weren’t going to make it. The people doing the 203k Streamline portion of this sale, just kept asking for more paper work, some of which we had provided in the past. I don’t think I have ever managed a project that needed this many phone calls, this much paper work flying around (one day literally as I forgot my folder was on the roof of my car when I left an inspection) to different places, or an entire composition notebook, just to keep everything straight.

See we’re doing an FHA Streamline, which in a lot of ways is awesome. We’re able to include the cost of having the roof being shingled, which on a 2600 finished sq foot home, with attached barn isn’t cheap… The problem is, it adds a third or sixth party to the mix. One, who I guess is a little slower moving then anyone would expect.

I think Ive gone through a wide range of emotions, and they flow pretty quickly right now. It could also be amplified from lack of sleep, as my brain begins to function 110% right now at about 3 am every morning, keeping me awake until 30 minutes to an hour before the alarm goes off. Emotions like sheer rage when I drop the package of Oreos and all but 4 fall out on to the floor, disbelief that we we’ll ever end up in a house, or just being plain old pissy during the day, which I sure owe my family, friends and coworkers an apology for.

But as I sit here typing this because I just can’t bear to move another ehfing box in to the shed right now, or get started on another project on the place were in right now that needs to be done before the end of the month, I’ve come to point where I’m not sure I have any emotion left. Maybe I’ve come to terms that it’s just going to take a while, or maybe I’m too damn tired to give a crap right now. Who knows. What I do know, is we sit here waiting, still.

As I just finished writing this, the reminder popped up that I was supposed to be meeting the Metrocast installer in 15 minutes, to connect the house to cable and internet. Any more salt for the wound anyone?

Yes I know I’m whining, I don’t care. Getting this out there, somehow, made me feel a bit better.

As per rules of the evening, agreed upon moments ago, I will not go in to details. Today’s house buying adventures could easily be a made for tv movie, and not one of those sissy-ass ABC Family ones either. Story of the day relayed prior to leaving work, I entered the house to the following…

1. Dinner cooking.
2. The question Guinness or Rouge?
3. Rogue opened and poured before I could set things down.

Awesome!

Message end.

Why Lego?! Why?! You give us these great themes, and then you take them away too quickly, meanwhile pumping out the vile, putrid, garbage you call Bionicle at the expense of almost alienating the people who actually have the money to pay for your product!

From the Brother’s Brick. http://www.brothers-brick.com/2009/09/18/lego-to-discontinue-pirate-sets-news/

A few days ago, Andrew reported that the Pirate Advent Calendar would not be available in North America. Now we find out that the entire Pirate line will be discontinued by the middle of 2010. This is not to say that it won’t be back, but there are currently no plans for new sets. This is especially frustrating given the fact that LEGO has repeatedly made comments that Pirates would now be a regular theme. In an interview with Gizmodo, LEGO said that Pirates would be an “evergreen” theme. Also, in the 2009 Company Profile, Pirates is called a “perpetual” theme, along with Town and Castle. However, Vikings is also listed and, as we all know, that theme had a very short lease on life. While I am not an avid Pirate collector, I have bought all the sets and I share the frustration of the Pirate fan community.

Ben Ellermann, on Forbidden Cove, has started a petition. You can also make your feelings known here and our resident Lego Ambassador will be able to forward that information onto LEGO.

There is also a thread on Classic Pirates discussing the same issue.

One of the bigger unknowns in this whole house buying ordeal has been the septic. The pipe exited the basement in a bee line for the pool. Our concern had become that the pool may have been improperly placed on top of the tank or the leach field. When the house was originally listed, it was listed as having town sewer. When we called Town Hall to confirm, they laughed and said, “That would be rare indeed.” Turns out no town septic, just water, and only because it was so close to the river, about half the road only had town water, and those were the only houses in the entire town. Water, as it turned out, came from East Rochester! So not knowing where, and how big a tank and system, we decided a long time ago to get the system inspected.

Because of things the seller had to have fixed before we could ever have the system inspected, we actually had to put of the inspection twice. Today we could finally have the inspection. Matt from A-1 Enviro Service came out.I guess he has a nose for this kind of thing. In no time he had located the tank and was uncovering the covers. Turns out the tank and pool are a near 10 feet from each other, but 10 feet is plenty. It also turns out where we thought the leach field was, is correct, and again, the field and pool shall never meet.

One inspection down, and one to go. Later this afternoon we do the full house inspection, and leave behind an electronic radon detector. Crossed fingers, this thing might actually be wrapping up.