trashed carpet & meth freaks in the garage
(Go buy a No Arguing with Assclowns T-shirt, would ya? Awesome Christmas gift for the wild ones in your life.)
When, pray tell, did buyers start getting a “carpet allowance” when buying a house with a trashed rug?
Back in my day… why you’d better… you had to… (sputter, sputter). Seriously — the first house I bought? It was a drug house. (Not a lab, they just dealt there.) (And shot up.) (And raised snakes, along with a mangy cat, scrawny pit bull and one huge pink pig.) (No, I’m not making that up.) (It was in my price range.) Anyway — trashed carpet? You haven’t seen trashed carpet until you’ve seen one that an un-housebroken pet pig and pit bull have gotten ahold of. I did not receive said “carpet allowance.” There were meth heads living in the garage for five days after we changed the locks and took possession of the house. The cops wouldn’t help, the realtors wouldn’t help. We had to bring in friends and relatives for back-up. It was so nuts. I had to forcibly evict the animals (and their pets) myself. Thank you, I do kick ass.
Why should I put in new carpets when whoever buys the place is going to say, oh ick, carpet. We must have chestnut floors! (To them I say: We have no pet pig here. You git what you git and you don’t have a fit.) Then (likely scenario) they tear it out — the new carpet I paid big cash for — and throw it in the landfill. Brand. New. Carpet.
That is just wasteful and wrong.
I had this discussion (with my husband, with our realtor, with our friends who have sold their places, with my sister) and finally gave in, as you may remember. We have new carpet. It is wheat-colored. It is warm and sunny.
“Is it because of all those home shows?” my sister asked me. “No one’s happy now unless they have granite countertops and a jacuzzi spa?” I think she’s got a point.
Our awesome painter is here today, doing some touch-up work. No, I will not install new patios (per the request of Realtor 2), or prune everything to two feet tall (per the request of Realtor 1). Realtor 3? So great. Gave us a short list of must-do’s, a longer list of maybe-do’s, and told us to put as much of our junk as we can into storage, to make the place look bigger.
Me? I’m cleaning daily, and we’re keeping up with the dishes and laundry. House goes on the market next month. (Fingers crossed.)
Have you ever sold a house? When did you say, “Enough”? What did potential buyers bitch about the most?
All the home shows have flippers putting in wood floors or feaux wood floors. I have to admit that when I was looking for a house last year, I was looking for hard wood floors and that’s one of the things that sold me on my house. But there was new Berber in the upstairs, which I now regret (but don’t tell my mom as she warned me).
My house was a flipped house that they bought before the bank could repossess it, if I understand right. Pretty much everything is new, so I don’t have advice on where to say “Enough.” I basically made deals with the flipper before I bought the house — had him install a garbage disposal and fix a few things. You just have to decide where you are going to draw the line and see if you can get the money you want for it where you drew the line.
November 27th, 2007 | #
We’ve got the hardwoods, and the clawfoot tub, and the double-hung windows. Breakfast nook and built-ins in master. That had better be enough. What color Berber?
November 27th, 2007 | #
Sounds like a walk in the park to me. Try building a house in the *@€%~&= third world. Fuck. Do you know “fuck” is not in blackberry’s dictionary? Interesting. If you read in tomorrow’s papers “regional corporation guy found dead in ditch; white lady wanted for questioning” don’t be surprised. He wants a bribe, I know it. I am an idiot, I should have realised sooner, instead of re-applying over and over. Damn and blast. And fuck.
November 27th, 2007 | #
Nan,
After that pig and all of the needles I cleaned up, anything is a walk in the park. Good luck with your build! Break out the cookies and some bribe $$$.
November 27th, 2007 | #
I have had a moving saga where we sold our house and then I changed my mind….someday when I meet you and we are on our third or fourth beer, I will tell the whole sordid tale. But let’s just say I backed out of moving to hell. So anyways, now I have a deposit on the house I want back and the buyers know it. They pay for a house inspection realizing that no matter what they don’t like, tough shit I ain’t paying for anything. Either give me back my house or take it without any fixes.
Then the house we ended up with was me calling acquaintances who had lived here and were now renting the house.(2 streets over) I asked if they wanted to sell us a house without going through a realtor ( lower than the lowest scum on the earth in my honest opinion) and they walked through ours and we walked through this. They sold it to us for the same price as the one we sold and we ended up with another bathroom, bedroom, screened porch and fugly orange carpet in the living room Then they offered to put in new carpet and I said don’t bother, we have a 12 year old dog, just take that off the price, no problem. Yep, dog died 8 years ago and we still have the fugly carpet. There have been some issues through the years, but we ended up okay.
My opinions after looking at many houses: Wallpaper- it’s a personal preference, but I don’t like it in a house I am looking at.
Do get rid of clutter- We opened a closet in North Carolina and had to step back.
Oh, yeah, the mold on the cabinets- big turn off
The dishwasher is your friend when showing your house- use it to store stuff.
Keep it clean and neat. Good luck. And remember scum = realtors, they are not your friends, they are not selling your house, they are making a profit…can you tell you hit a nerve with me? ouch
November 27th, 2007 | #
I’m afraid the market was the opposite when bought our house. We made five offers, each within the first 24 hours a house was on the market and lost out all but the last time. It was so bad you had to take whatever teh asking price was, you couldn’t even ask to have the carpets cleaned. Feeding frenzy.
November 27th, 2007 | #
We had to deal with a stressed-out realtor when we sold our house, but then someone stopped by the day before the house went on the market and bought it! Before that, though, we’d remodeled the bathroom (desperately needed) and had the hardwoods redone.
Dang I miss that house.
November 28th, 2007 | #