It's One Thing Or The Other

When we stuck the for sale by owner sign in the yard a few weeks ago, before we list with a Realtor, we knew we still had a few things to do to the house before it was ready to show. The sign was meant more as "coming soon" to let folks know the house was going on the market. We then got busy and cleaned the house out and got rid of all the extra unnecessary furniture and other items we had since we had just combined two households, not to mention the children are now grown and one is on her own and the other is off at college.

One of the biggest problems was a leak somewhere in the fireplace that had ruined the upstairs drywall in the bonus room and then ran down to stain the popcorn ceiling in the downstairs great room in the finished basement area.

We had the Fireplace Dr's come out and they replaced some rusted out things in the fireplace and patched up things up there. I'm not sure what they did but when we had the next rain it seemed to have worked. No more dripping or leaks. Sooooooo...

We got the painter/drywall guy out here. He spend 4 or 5 days here putting new drywall in upstairs, painting and repopcorning the ceiling then he repaired the main floor ceiling stain then he repaired the downstairs ceiling. Two thousand dollars later we thought everything was repaired.

Then it rained again.

And the leaking started back! We held our breath as we watch the downstairs ceiling. Luckily, no damage but we had to get somebody back out to find and fix the leak once and for all. The Murph called some other company who sent a guy out late one day last week who looked at it gave us an estimate and said he'd be back the next day. We waited two days but he didn't show up.

Finally, someone from his company showed up day before yesterday after the Murph made several calls. He took one look and said it's a lot more complicated than what the first guy said and it would cost more and they couldn't do it that day but they would be back Friday (today - and they are still a no show as I'm writing this).

That's wasn't good because as anyone who lives in Birmingham knows we had monsoon level rains yesterday. The roof guys did agree to put a tarp on the roof/fireplace Wednesday at the Murph's urging. The Murph wasn't going to let them leave without doing something to stop any leaks since we knew it was going to rain yesterday.

So right now we have a bright blue huge tarp on the roof. It might as well be a bright red flag to potential buyers as they drive past the house. Probably as fast as they can!

It seems like the more things we fix around here, the more other things that were working fine have decided to not work anymore. We've already had to replace a toilet that decided out of the blue to just stop working. Then there were the shower doors that the maids broke with their thorough cleaning job and the outside door that was pulled off the hinges by the carpet cleaning guy. And then there's the vendors that just don't show up.

We were suppose to move last week, but know we've committed to staying here till the first of May to try to get everything repaired and hopefully find a buyer before we leave. We've spent more money to put the house on the MLS so we'll see what happens. Hopefully, we'll find a buyer soon so we don't have to list with a Realtor, which is nuts because I am a Realtor. I just have my license inactive right now because I don't know where we'll end up.

Also, the cat was recently diagnosed with heart disease and has another vet appointment next week to check his blood/kidney levels since he's on a diuretic. He can't be left alone at either place as we move back and forth (we were going to move in two trips and take half the cats and leave the other until we come back) because I have to give him medicine. I also want to have his meds under control by the time we take him to the new place. He's on Atenolol for his heart as well as Lasix, half a pill of each in the morning and 1/4 of Atenolol at night. Try halving one of those already tiny pills! The vet tech was nice enough to do if for me for now, but I still have to halve the halve of Atenolol for his night time dose.

Our plans have kind of changed a little for the moment. Delayed is probably a better word to describe our situation.

As you are driving down the main street in our subdivision toward the house you can't help but notice the bright blue tarp over the roof. I tried to reasure the Murph that it's really not that noticeable. Well, maybe just a little bit, but not too bad.

At least it doesn't leak right now.