RouletteWeekend

We are selling my mother in law’s house and we did not come upon the decision lightly. When we moved here, we came with two dogs ( a rottweiler and a German Shepherd), seven “stray” cats and a parrot. We couldn’t bring the cats to my mother in law’s house because they have HOA rules and technically, there’s not even supposed to be more than two dogs in a house. The cats, which were strays turned family went to go stay at my sister’s house. They have always been indoor / outdoor cats and this house was already super fucked when we got here so keeping 7 cats inside a house that was already a smelly wreck was not really something we could do. So my sister generously agreed to put a cat door in her shed and let them come live at her house. We weren’t sure whether it was temporary or permanent, but we can go see them whenever we want and so far, there’s only one that has gone MIA. It seemed like a reasonable solution and hopefully a temporary one.

Originially we thought we would stay in this house until his mom died or went into a nursing home, whichever came first. Will is the only living heir so it’s going to him in the end anyway and he’s her POA as well, so he has the power to make any decisions that are in her best interest. After living here for 4 months or so, we realized that the house is part of the problem.

It’s like Will’s mom only has bad memories associated with the house. Especially the living room where she spends most of her days when we don’t have her out doing something. I’m not psychologist, but I do believe that this house is what is causing her terrible mood swings and freak outs. It’s almost like she walks into the living room some days and remembers all the terrible things that happened in there… her son doing drugs on the couch, his dope dealers sitting in there, the verbal abuse she suffered from him, the physical abuse she says occured, and who knows what else. Some days, she sits in there quietly watching TV, other days she’s stomping around mad at the world telling us she hates this house, which is a complete turnaround from a few months ago when she said she was never leaving this house, she’d rather die.

Yes, it has been a roller coaster of emotions…for all of us. Unfortunately, dementia has given her the gift of not always being able to remember her emotions or her hateful words to us. Unfortunately, we do not get the benefit of that gift.

So we made the decision together that maybe moving to a new place would be healthier. We went and looked at dozens of houses. Dozens of houses that, every time we walked into one, she would say “Blair and I looked at this house.” Blair is Will’s dead brother. The son who overdosed on her couch huffing nitrous oxide. The son who she refuses to say had a drug problem and only says “he was sick” or “he had mental health problems.” The son who spent (stole) all her money before dying. The son who left her in a house that was a complete biohazard. But I digress.

We looked at dozens of houses and found “the one.” It’s a 1951 brick house that is pretty much a time capsule. One of the bathrooms has been updated but other than that, it looks exactly the way it probably looked when they finished building it in the 50’s. And I fell in love. For so many reasons.

• It’s in the city. Close to everything but on a quiet road that feels secluded.
• We can get our cats back
• The bedrooms are all on the same floor so we can hear when she’s up at night wandering and help her get back to sleep
• It’s one level so there’s no up and down the stairs, especially for our big dogs who’s hips are showing signs of aging.
• Being on one level will allow us to spend time as a family. Right now it feels like we live two sometimes three separate lives.
• It’s not as big so I have less to clean.
• It’s not filled with 50 years of a life that is not mine.
• We can make it “ours.”

So we made an offer before our house was even ready to go on the market not thinking that they would even entertain the offer. Not only did they entertain it, they accepted it, with one change. Instead of giving us two weeks to get the house we are in on the market, they gave us 3 days.

I cannot emphasize enough how much stuff was in this house. We ordered one of those pods that comes to your driveway and you fill it and we packed everything from the parts of the house that we were using and put anything that wasn’t a daily use item into that pod and had them come get it. Then we got a second pod that we filled with everything from the attic that we could fit and we could not fit it all. Then we took pictures one room at a time, staging, photographing, staging, photographing, because having a photographer come in during that chaos seemed too overwhelming.

I knew there was no way I could get it organized and cleaned enough to do it all in one fell swoop. We were still emptying the contents of the attic into the pod when the listing went live. So, while the pictures were fine, they were not professional real estate photos. But they were photos.

And then Will, being a realtor, and usually being a pretty good numbers guy came up with the price of this house. He used comps from other homes in the neighborhood that sold and he gave in to his emotions like most homeowners have a tendency to do and he listed it for top dollar.

I wanted to list for bottom dollar. What’s the least we can take to pay off the mortgage here, buy the new house and have a nest egg for his mom’s future care?

He thought my method was not right and, of course, we went with his method.

This house is a 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath traditional southern style home with great flow and a “formal” dining and sitting room. They say it’s only a little over 3000 square feet but I swear when I clean it, it feels more like 4500 square feet. And, over the last five years, maintenance was largely neglected. So, it needs a new AC unit ($10k). It needs new carpet or flooring upstairs. Even though we replaced the carpet in our bedroom, the hallway and the stairwell, there are two bedrooms with original carpet and we’ve had dogs up here for 6 months on white carpet. It all needs replaced (in my opinion) so that’s another few thousand. Of course, the new owners will want to paint the whole thing, another few thousand, and then there’s a fascia/soffit issue on a small outside space and a hole in his mom’s bedroom wall from an old leak ($3k more).

We both assumed that the TLC would not be an issue.

The TLC is definitely an issue. People who are buying in the price range we listed don’t want to have to do anything. They want to walk in, fall in love, move in and that’s it.

So, over the last month, we’ve been chasing the market down. Sometimes doing two price drops in one week. Is that the ideal marketing strategy? No. Do I care? Also no.

It’s not like Will WANTS to be doing all these price drops. He’s definitely trying to get me to shut up about how miserable I am in this house and on this side of town. Not that there’s anything wrong with this side of town. It’s just not where I want to play. This side of town has tons of shopping and lots of franchise food. Downtown has lots of art, culture, coffee, and diverse food places in a smaller footprint. It’s a preference thing.

People move over here for the schools. We don’t have kids. The neighborhood has an HOA which I mentioned earlier. We couldn’t even put up a chain link fence. They only allow aluminum, black fences and it has to be approved. So we had to train our dogs on the invisible fence system that was already in place here, and even though those are the rules, the neighbors still shake their heads when they walk by and our 150 lb rottweiler goes running toward them even though he always stops before he gets zapped.

So we lowered the price over $150k. Maybe it was to the detriment of the “perception.” I had a friend tell me that the perception of the excessive price drops was only going to make people think something is wrong with the house. And while that may be true, at the price that it’s listed at now, even if there was something more than the $20k worth of TLC that needed to be done, someone can still get into this “exclusive” neighborhood for under $800k right now. The last time a house in this neighborhood sold for less than $850 was over 5 years ago. And most of the houses in this neighborhood average over $1million.

And realtors talk. It’s not like it’s a big secret. If someone wants to know why the multiple price drops, all they have to do is call Will and I’m sure he will tell them that people in this price range have no vision, so we decided to lower it to a price range where it makes sense, also, he will tell them his fiance is on the verge of cancelling any ideas of a wedding and moving out if she doesn’t get out of this house ASAP.

Living with your mother in law is one thing. Living with your mother in law who has dementia is another. Living with your mother in law who has dementia and also being 40-45 minutes away from every single thing you like to do and feeling like you can’t go do them because you wouldn’t be able to “get right home” if something happened is a whole other situation.

I, personally, don’t think that trying to make everyone happier is a bad thing, but maybe I’m being selfish because I won’t just be happier in a house that feels like mine and is closer to the things I love, I will fee HAPPY, overjoyed even, which is the complete opposite of what I’ve been feeling lately.

Caregiving is hard work. Honestly, it sucks. And it’s not even my mother. So, in my opinion, wanting something in return (aka convenience & friends nearby) doesn’t seem like asking too much for giving up every plan we had for the next 5 (or more) years to help his mom hopefully find some form of happiness because it’s not in this house. And it hasn’t been for quite a while. And if that’s selfish, then so be it.

So we are still waiting for the person who walks in and says, “I love this house, it has so much potential.” And if that person turns out to be a wholesaler who wants to lowball us? Well, we will consider that too. Because at this point, my google search is starting to look like “how to make a deal with the devil.”

This is not a “wait until the spring and relist” kind of situation. Will I die if I have to stay here? Maybe not in the literal, heart will stop beating sense, but I feel like so many parts of me have already died by taking on this challenge and now it’s too late to change my mind and people already think I’m the asshole for trying to make my own life more manageable while assuming that I’ve not taken the whole of the situation into consideration and I’m ok with that. I will be the asshole if it means that I don’t spend my days locked away in the bedroom with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s dreading going downstairs after 7pm because I just need some “me” time that turns into isolation, depression, and 50 extra pounds.

I said yesterday that my favorite quote is “you can’t heal in the place that made you sick,” and I cannot let this place make me sick, too.

So we are waiting impatiently for this new price adjustment to do its thing while hoping that somebody comes along and sees the mature trees, and the front porch, and the water access, and the proximity to the parks and says, “this house is ‘the one’.”