Moving In

 

Getting out of the closing, I immediately get a call from the movers that they are 30 minutes away.  This is followed by a call from the realtor that Trent has not signed one of the papers and must return.  He goes back and I race to the house to meet the movers.  As I drive I realize 1) it takes 27 minutes to get to the new house, and 2) Trent has the keys to said new house.  Having accomplished a lot over the past couple weeks, this does not ruffle me. Sure, I can break into a house in less than 3 minutes.  And I do, leaving time to open all the windows and post the floor plan on all doors. 

As I walk quickly through the house I am a ball of trepidation - what have we done? oh it's not so moldy when we have the windows open, can I possibly be happy here? can I possibly be unhappy here?

The movers are a bit pokier and slackish today.  Maybe now I am just noticing the behavior.  Or maybe I was a bit more praise-ful yesterday.  Boxes are clearly labeled but going to the first available room so I am stuck redirecting.  And several times I see a mover making a trip to the furthest room with just a lampshade or other small bauble.  Finally I buckle on my drill Sargent hat. It's delivered sweetly but succinctly.  They just look at me but do return for the other half of the item all the same.

In our exhaustion during the walk-through, we have forgotten to check the storage room and the garage at the new house.  Both are stacked with unwanted junk... a large broken ladder, an old hose, lots of expired hazardous waste chemicals and used motor oil, rotting building materials, a whole lot of dirt and grime I was too overwhelmed to notice before. I am left to clean out a second fridge in the same morning, as this one has spilled goo with inset hair and dried kale. I start to clean out the kitchen cabinets, which are 1977 rusted metal.  But then I give up.  "Meh" sums it up.

Over the next 24 hours I am off work and get to know the house as I unpack.  These metal cabinets, I surmise, must've been top notch in their day.  Each has pull-out shelves and fancy sliders.  Now, they would make a great workshop or laundry room addition.  Trent says their kitchen days are over.  One has a whole front missing, cardboard-y door with loose wood wedge in its place. We also find a hole in the faux granite painted counters under a cutting board.  The microwave is 6 feet in the air and I am 5 feet tall. The oven isn't large enough to fit a sheet pan.  Opening the cabinet we find the plumbing is, well, not cool. Two toilets and the shower leak, and there is a pan under the sink in the ceiling below, a drain which runs from the pan into our storage room.

 

And we CANNOT fathom the light switches.  There are switches everywhere.  Some go to a line of recessed lights, some to one recessed light, and several to nothing we can find. I giggle as I run through a jumble of switches unsuccessfully, but deep down the humor is just to cover the sting of the cost of rewiring. 

We are uncovering some quirky things, but later we will learn this is the tip of the iceberg.  Our adventure just got more rockier.  Oh what fun this will be!!