Apparently things weren't quite as peaceful on the mountain as I was told yesterday. I heard this morning that the dogs woke up "as dawn broke over Kansas" as the front half of paraplegic Murray had no idea what the back half was doing. Rumor has it that he ate something beyond foul, possibly mixed with a few pine needles. Within a few hours, Bumpy was returning his meals to the mountain (in the "eating in reverse" variety). Between the two of them, they reportedly attracted every single fly in a three-county area. These things alone were enough to make everyone decide the mountain retreat was over. But the Doomsmobile had other plans. There are no smooth roads leading to the Claim. There's no way there without a tough as nails, four wheel drive truck or jeep. The one we take up there is the beater that our daughter rebuilt when she was fifteen years old, that has had to be rebuilt multiple times in more than a decade since then. Normally, it can handle the bruising, rocky trails that are called "roads" up there. This time, the softest, most vulnerable part of it failed. There was a three inch gash in one of the tires, and this was the moment that the Mr learned he had no appropriately-sized lug wrench. I was on call to borrow a Suburban in case I had to rescue him from the mountain (as I did the time he slid off the road and had to go back the next day to have the Doomsmobile towed up and out). Instead, he drew upon his mad MacGuyver skills, and made things work. By the time they all showed up here, they were all so hot and dehydrated they were all quiet and uninterested in much of anything but water.
This morning I went the the open house I'd been waiting months for. As I mentioned recently on Facebook, there was a house in the oldest part of town that we toured two years ago when we were house hunting. It was built in 1910, if I recall correctly. It had a storied history, but the most relevant part of its history was the last twenty years or so, when it served as a flop house for some of the more seedy characters in town. When we toured it, a creepy old man was home, cooking chorizo, and smelling up the whole place, while a tough younger man sat out in a vintage car, along with his scary looking dogs. The dogs had been inside, on the back porch/addition, and had smelled up the place in their own way. The bones of this house were very interesting, but it was obvious from the walk through that it would take at least a hundred thousand dollars and many, many hours of restoration work to bring this house up to livable standards. They were asking $250,000, and we decided they could stuff it for wanting that price in that condition. Barely a month later, I drove past it, and it was boarded up with plywood all around, with city notices plastered on the front door. It was months later when I finally saw in the newspaper what happened there. Apparently that creepy old man was the owner of the house, and a real bad dude. I had imagined that he was someone's grandpa, and the younger man was taking advantage of him. Au contraire! He allowed all kinds of lowlifes to come and go in this place, and among them were people who sampled the methamphetamine pipe once in a while. The rumor is that none was cooked there, only consumed.
Then, a year ago, this condemned house was sold. The couple who bought it couldn't even enter it for the first six months, while a remediation team worked their magic, for far longer than they expected it to take. Starting in January, they set about polishing the diamond out of the lump of coal. I have driven past this house several times a week for months, seeing the "Coming Soon!" sign and wanting to go check out what they had done. Today, finally, they opened up the place. It was amazing. It was completely cleaned up, and showed all the promise that I knew this home held. It was completely neutral inside, with white walls and dark stained trim (as it was before). It felt so much bigger than when we saw it before. Less creepy, less stinky. If a buyer wanted, they could add a deck out of the addition in the back, or build a garage from the alley access, but the restorers would not have gotten their money out if they had done either project. I don't currently have a buyer in that price range in town, but I seriously wish I did. I would give them the full, public truth about this home, but I would never talk someone out of it who wanted to place an offer.
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