Sandbox

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "He just doesn't want to buy a house in his neighborhood because he wants to wait for the prices there to take a dive after the inevitable and up and coming Armageddon." But that's not it at all. Sure not being a homeowner right now seems like the smart thing, and I do like to think that I'm smart. But here's the real story -- the TRUE real story.

See, we moved to a new town last year. It was like a perpetual vacation. We lived with my mother-in-law for 2 months. No, really, it was fun. I love my mother-in-law. She's truly a gem. Anyway, when we moved here, we had just paid a young couple LOTS of money to take our starter home away from us, and as a result we couldn't afford to buy anything but a dumpster. Not to mention, the 3 bedrooms 2 baths in the new neighborhood were $250,000 on the low end. Can I tell you that that revelation made me leave skid marks just a little? So we decided to rent instead. And where did we sink our (albeit temporary) roots? Yup right there in that neighborhood where the house prices induce BM's. We found a brand-spankin new house for rent. The rent on the aforementioned cottage was roughly half what we would have paid for a monthly mortgage payment on the same dwelling.

So we're in the house for a couple of months when, one morning, Summer (and all of its accompanying sweatiness) rolls up out front (like that dreaded 2nd cousin of yours that you always try to avoid at the family reunions) in a '75 Minni Winnie, accompanied by clouds of poorly combusted fossil fuels, and odors that confess she needs a sanitary dump, (this thing violates so many E.P.A. regulations that Dick Cheney would have skid-marked HIS pants just a little) and loudly announces in front of all my neighbors that it lost it's job and has decided to afford us with a long-awaited visit. Then it informs us that its only staying for about three months. So, we relent, close up all the windows and turn on the A/C.

Its a couple of weeks before we realize that the temperature in one half of the house is hot, and the other half is merely tolerable. Now why is that do you suppose? So we call up the property manager. (normally I just take care of these things myself, but we're obliged to a landlord now, so we let him take care of it) Following is a re-construction of the conversation as best as I can recollect it. "Hello Debbie?" I start the conversation. "Yea, something weird is going on. Half of the house is hot, but the other half isn't" I continue. "Oh" She retorts. " . . ." ( I wait. ) ". . ." "So . . . can you send someone to check into it?" I query ( The vibes I'm getting are giving me flashbacks of a phone call I once made to the DMV. ) "Well" ( the reply finally eeks through the receiver. ) "the house is still under warranty, so if you can find out who the HVAC company is that installed the system you can just call them and schedule an appointment to have them look at it." YES!! that's exactly what I was hoping for. HER letting ME handle it. That's why I rent. I get to take care of the problem and someone else pays for it!

So the HVAC guy comes and goes and the problem is still unresolved. He tells us that the airflow is set just right and blames the anomaly on "solar flares--or something". That was last summer. After the uninvited 2nd cousin left to violate EPA regulations in the southern hemisphere, we noticed that winter brought us icy winds . . . blowing through the closed windows of our little bungalow. "AHA!" I proclaim. "That's why the house feels hot on this side in the summer. Most of the A/C pumps cool air to the other side of the house, and hot air blows in these windows here."

So you see, I'm not necessarily waiting for the Apocalypse before I buy a house here. I just don't want to convert my cash to something akin to a 4H project thats all.

Done.