Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Moving In
August 09, 2006

Yesterday, Berta and I took a day off work to finalize the purchase of our new home.

We dropped off Abby at school/camp around 8am, then waited around at Manhatten Bagel until 9:15 before our walkthrough of the house at 9:30.

When we arrived at the house, the previous owner had three cars parked in the driveway and a ton of crap still sitting in the garage. Judy, our realtor, drove up shortly after we arrived, and we headed toward the house.

The seller followed us aroudn the house as we looked to make sure everything was still in working order. He would not stop talking. Judy told him, “I’ve done a few of these, I can probably manage on my own,” meaning, “go finish moving,” but he didn’t take the hint. I thought she was going to blow a gasket with all of this jabbering. I was irritated, but I figure that’s easy enough to do that I’ve built up a tolerance for my own irritation.

Apparently, he had some kind of family crisis overnight with his son being manhandled by his ex’s new boyfriend, and he hadn’t had any sleep, nor enough time to move, nor any luck getting a new moving van, since their original van wasn’t large enough to hold everything.

Anyway, aside from the garage and the refrigerator still containing stuff, the house seemed in working order. So we departed for our 10:30 signing of the papers. With about 45 minutes to kill, we stopped at Target and wandered around looking at various things in a weird “no place better to be” sort of pre-mortgage limbo.

The Ant Bully
August 07, 2006

The Ant Bully is yet another computer-animated ant movie that was released recently. The first two were Antz and A Bug’s Life, which were both released in close proximity in 1998 by Dreamworks and Pixar, respectively. Warner’s take on the common six-legged bugs with the Ant Bully is a tad different than the earlier two, yet with some similarities.

The story of The Ant Bully follows the bully himself, Lucas “Peanut the Destroyer” Nickle, who is abused by his “friends” and takes out his frustration on the ants in his yard. The ants subsequently take revenge on Lucas by shrinking him down to their size, and then put him on trial as the destroyer of their home. The queen of the colony sentences Lucas to become an ant and work in the colony to learn some empathy. And so begins his little adventure.

New Home Purchases
August 06, 2006

The TV locationWell, it seems we’re done. Suckered into throwing at the buyers another $4500 plus $500 that our realtor is kicking in from her comission, we are finally parting with our house. Whether the additional $1500 was worth our piece of mind, I can’t say. What I can tell you is that anything not nailed down in the house that was not mentioned in the sales agreement is not remaining in the house, I don’t care if I have to give it away to the neighbors, these buyers aren’t getting another red cent from me. This means when they beg for the bedroom’s window air conditioner because the 2nd floor is so hot they need a new central air system, they can just bugger off. Nevermind that we don’t need it in the new house, I’ll sooner give it to Goodwill than leave it for these greedy buyers. Bah, so angry!

And now on to more pleasant talk, since it’s been on my mind…

Conflict
August 04, 2006

We heard back from our house buyers yesterday. I tried to write about it as soon as I heard, but WordPress ate my post. (There’s a whole new article on conflict, let me tell you…) Essentially, the deal sucks.

They basically want $10,000 to replace the windows and HVAC in our house. We don’t think it’s reasonable to request these repairs, much less ask for so much money to perform them. I seriously question whether these folks actually want the house or if they’re just toying with us.

This mortgage stuff is going to seem complicated later when we look back at it and wonder why we are living in a cardboard box, so I’ll try to record what the deal is as clearly as I can.