Man.....I can't wait for the whole house selling/buying crap to be over, and get back to some degree of normalcy.
I mean I can't even leave a pair of shoes laying around anymore because of the constant state of ready that we have to have this house in...It's literally too freakin abby-normal for me.
That all ended yesterday.
What seems like forever ago since we listed this house for sale has netted us a serious full price offer, followed up by the immediate house inspection of this place ordered by that buyer...I think that barring any unreasonable major fix that the buyer requests that will break this deal, I can safely say that we have a contract to sell, and at the same time,...a contract to buy.
What's it been?.........Three weeks?
Now I'm not saying that that's the whole sum of this process, because we've been looking to buy now for months..There have actually been
three houses that we've tried to buy...
The brand new small one in the Ghetto.....
The sprawling old one w/ the red barn and aluminum wiring...
And now the smoked in new(er) one w/ a three car garage and a man cave.
Yeah,.......Smoked in. I mean it freakin reeks.
Call me very skeptical that the seller will ever be able to get that house to a acceptable breathable level, but the contract stipulates that she does. In case she cant, she has set aside an additional 5k for us to use expressly for that purpose.
When you google things like cigarette smoke remediation, you get all kinds of remedies and testimonials.....mostly you get fails.
Nicotine permeates every inch of everything, clings to everything. The solutions out there involve washing down every inch of the inside from top to bottom w/ either vinegar/water, ammonia/water, or the nuclear option,.....trisodium phosphate/water. Opening the place, running fans and airing the house out, cleaning the carpet (4 bedrooms worth),
But there are just as many testimonials out there saying that that didn't work either.
Other procedures involve a process of using an ozone machine, but we "ozone" cars all the time. That sht don't work either.
People out there say that the entire house has to be cleaned first, then primed w/ Kilz, then painted. Carpet has to be steam cleaned, or removed,and replaced and all window coverings cleaned/laundered/replaced and THEN ozoned before the house will ever begin to take on any neutral odor....and all we have is a measly 5k to do that with....
Meh,......I'm not feeling that......... But then again, you don't know my wife.
She's convinced that we can just "clean" the odor away. And we have Mexicans that she can pay to do it.
Maybe she's right.
She said this house would sell at full price and it did. She said that our contingent buyer would sell her house, and she did. (in one day,....for cash) Right now based on those stats, I can't tell her sht.....I've been the naysayer on both counts.
So that means we go forward.
Nothing returns to normal though....Next comes the process of repairing anything that her inspection has picked apart,...packing all of our junk up,....and then the move. All in the next 30 days.
But there is a bright side for me in all of this.....Two separate garages, (Up and down) and a dedicated "male" space.
Go through that door...and there'll be a Monster in there.
What looks like a tool box is actually a sink/counter. There's a "I'm too filthy to come inside" full bathroom behind the red wall.
It's the new "Monster Manor"...Just waiting on My audio system, a 60" LED TV, a couple of arm chairs and a sleeper/sofa.
All on one level,...built in 1996,...out of Big Bad Wolf resistant brick and stone.
Hold on Monster,......30 more days,.....and it'll be me and you again,......like peas and carrots.