So our "Dream Home" became "That of which Nightmares are made".
Its taken me about a month to accept walking away from the"Dream" house. It wasn't quite as heartbreaking as I make it out to be.
The best way I can describe it is that it was like finding an injured animal, thinking you could take it to the vet, and then finding out that you have to put it to sleep and walk away.
We knew walking into it that we had a few things we needed to fix. But then those "Minor" things turned into what could have been a "MAJOR" financial nightmare for a family of our income level.
We knew there was water damage that needed fixing, peeling paint that needed to be painted and a corn stove that needed to either be installed properly or removed.... NO problem.. right.. WRONG.
We were given a decent amount of time to go in before we closed to repair these problems . So it started with myself going to the house and painting a few small spots on the exterior of the house.. no prob.. done.... only took like an hour.
The next step was for us to remove some sheet rock that had been damaged from water leaking..... Here's where the nightmare begins.
So when we initially looked at the house in March, There WAS NO EVIDENCE of water damage....That is because it was MARCH..... everything outside was frozen. If we had seen water damage and or mold we would not have put a bid on the house. Flash Forward to June- VA appraisal says .. "Mold and Water Damage".
My instinct was to get a little worried, The Hubz... not worried. He's handy, he can fix things. We looked into how to remove mold. I learned that If its not a significant amount, you can do it yourself. Its not that hard, Find the source of water, fix that. Then remove the mold, bleach and clean up. Then properly dry the area(Fans, De-humidifiers).
WELLLLLLLL here's where it turned into a shit storm. My mother kept telling me this entire time to go there when it was STORMING... then I could see where the natural source of water was coming from . So that's what I did.
There was a pretty hard storm that Friday morning. ( The evening before The hubz and I removed about 60% of the infected drywall). I showed up at the house while it was pouring rain. The moment I opened the front door I could hear the sound of splashing water coming from the basement. I ran down the stairs, to find the basement window POURING water into the basement. I ran back up the basement stairs through the kitchen to the back of the house to see water falling directly from the CLOGGED GUTTERS, falling straight down to the basement window. So my stupid ass decides I'm going to bail out the window like a man in a sinking dingy, all the while there is an electrical storm. I then proceeded to rig a piece of plywood against the window so the water would hit that and run down into the lawn... It didn't matter because after about 10 minutes I found out that the water from the clogged gutters was running behind the siding of the house and going DIRECTLY into the basement window still.
Here's the basement window looking frighteningly enough like an Aquarium.... This was 10 minutes AFTER I bailed them out. You can see the water pouring down both sides . What you don't see is to the immediate left is the POWER BOX to the whole house.
So here I am, sitting at the top of the steps of this house , crying like I did when I had to put my cat to sleep. There was nothing we could do but to WALK AWAY... I text the hubz( he was at work). Told him this house was going to become a money pit. And that was that, DONE.
Walked away, It hurt because we were so close to being home owners. So now we are taking a break from this and when we feel its right we will start up again. At least its nice to not be as stressed out.
Thinking back on this I kept on "Asking for a sign" weather or not this was the right place. When I went in the back to bail out the window, a HUGE flash of lighting and the loudest crash of thunder I had ever heard.
I also learned the most important thing, NEVER MESS WITH THE 4 Elements, when it comes to a house because, Earth, Air , Fire and Water mean business!
