House Hunting Story

Even though we have opened escrow on a house, our recent days searching for the perfect house are still fresh in my mind. I still have some stories about house hunting. In fact, I think my realtor and I could write a book entitled Adventures in House-Hunting. Maybe we should. One of our most hilarious moments was the evening in February when we looked at a house in the dark. This was before Daylight Savings Time began, back when sunset occurred a few minutes after lunch. We went to see a brand new house, not quite finished, and discovered the electricity was not yet hooked up. We entered the house at dusk. I thought I loved the house and the views from the windows. But of course I couldn’t see. I stumbled down a couple of stairs in the hallway (who puts stairs in a hallway?), felt my way along a wall, and turned into a pitch dark room with no windows. “I think I found the dungeon,” I called. Cindy joined me and we felt around the walls together. “What do you suppose this is?” I asked. Pantry? Library? Photographic Dark Room? “It’s the laundry room!” Cindy exclaimed, “I can feel the washer hook-up.” We felt our way back out and up the stairs to a room with a great view of a darkening forest of live oaks trees dripping with winter lichens. “I love this view. I’ll take it,” I told Cindy. “If you wind up buying this house, it will be one for the history books,” she replied. Later, upon returning in daylight, I discovered that the house has literally no yard whatsoever (the little bit of decking is the only outdoor space), a huge barbed wire fence dividing the back deck from the live oak trees (which are not part of the property), and is situated across the street from the gun club. Pow pow pow, morning, noon, and night. So much for house-hunting after dark.