Sell My House
Okay, maybe Christmas time (call off the ACLU, of course I also meant Kwanzaa time, or Hanukah time, but really I only meant winter, unless calling it that will offend someone too) is not the best time to decide to move. Perhaps adding stress to an already busy season is a little nutty. But, I like nuts, so there you go.
The house down the street is for sale, so I went to look at it. How can that house, only four houses away, be so much better than mine? (I know why, it doesn’t have my old junk in it. It has nice things.) Ignoring the fact that the nice things would go away with the old owners, and that my junky stuff will be with me no matter where I go, I took my husband and my Realtor friend down to see the house too. Although my husband was not as enamored of the house as I was, he did agree that we could move out of our hovel, as soon as we could agree on a new house. Leaving the realm of reality and entering the kingdom of Real Estate Fantasy, I assumed we would soon accomplish that, and made plans to meet again with the Realtor.
The problem with buying a new house, in my opinion, which is the one that counts, since I am the one writing this, is that first you must sell your old house. All the people who have done this before are now nodding, probably with grim expressions on their faces, recalling past disasters, missteps and general house-selling nightmares.
Now, before the listing Realtor came to see my house for the first time, I wanted to clean it. There is nothing like looking around your house with fresh eyes to make you realize what a slob you really are. Or, maybe you can blame the people you live with. Either way, the house’s flaws and dirt suddenly appear in vivid screaming color, crying out for you to Do Something, quick, the Realtor’s on the way!
I started with the most obvious place to clean – the ceiling. I am amazed at the enormous quantity and variety of cobwebs festooning my house like dirty, sad, and tired party favors. Why do they call them cobwebs anyway? Is it a special kind of spiderweb, like a cobb salad is a special kind of salad? I don’t know. I don’t like cobb salad anyway.
Having finished with the ceiling, I moved on to the floor, neatly sidestepping all that stuff in between. As I was vacuuming up enough dog hair to construct several new animals, I found a severed finger behind the easy chair. I guess we didn’t find all the Halloween decorations after all! I vacuumed, I mopped, I wiped the fronts of the cabinets. I reluctantly unplugged my beer mug night light with beer-like stuff that actually appears to bubble. I cleaned the windows. I cleaned the inside of the microwave. I cleaned the light bulbs in my bathroom. I picked up the dog toys, figuring that not everyone would appreciate their storage spot under the piano.
I did all this to avoid picking up the 45,452,561,253 things my children had left lying around the house. When expecting company, I normally hide everything in the bedroom like everyone else, but of course the Realtor is going to look there. I contemplated renting a storage unit to hold some of our stuff, but looking around at the debris littering every flat surface in my house, such as dirty sweatshirts, overdue library books, plastic pencil sharpeners, and empty water bottles, the thought of them strewn carelessly around a storage unit instead of a living room was just too pitiful too consider. After the fourteenth dirty sock and 89th mystery Lego piece, I realized it would be easier to just have the kids move out until the house sold. Sadly, my sister (the only logical baby-sitter, don’t you agree?) did not think this was a reasonable choice, and refused to even consider having them all move in with her until I sold the house, or the kids went to college, whichever happened first. Some people are so selfish.
I knew I had to make my kids pick up after themselves (which, any parent will tell you, takes much more energy than actually doing it yourself, but it builds character). Once the kids picked up the small stuff and put it away (I don’t know where and I don’t care; my character doesn’t need building), and the cobwebs were gone, and the piano was dusted, and the fireplace vacuumed (not the inside, silly! although...) I was finally ready for the Realtor. We discussed the many, many other things I’d have to do to get the house ready, and she left. I, however, had to stay, facing a home-renovation process that makes rebuilding New Orleans look like a snap.
Now I’m arranging my life around a giant “to do” list, and learning all kinds of new things. For instance, I have a lot of Salvation Army furniture that I’ve been dragging around for years (not literally – I go to the gym to work out, actually). I figured the house would look bigger and cleaner, therefore more desirable and more expensive, if this stuff was gone. So I took a couple of pictures and posted them on the Internet. This is when I learned that no one else wanted that furniture either, not even for free.
I’ve also learned that you can indeed paint your deck in winter, even though the paint can tells you not to. What’s the worst that can happen? The warning label is not particularly dire, and if your deck looks bad enough (and mine did), you’re willing to risk any number of consequences, such as paint that bubbles or peels, or dissolves your entire deck, or produces toxic fumes that cause the neighbor’s cat to mutate.
The last important lesson of the week is this: as soon as you begin major cleaning, repairs, and improvements around the house, that’s when your dog will end up accidentally locked in the laundry room and try to chew her way out, destroying the door frame and a bunch of drywall. Although I am now faced with yet another labor-intensive repair before putting my house up for sale, I can’t really blame the dog. I, too, am ready to chew through the walls to get out of here. If I could just figure out how to get my sister to adopt my children and my spiders, I’d be home free (so to speak). Maybe if I promise her a beer mug night light.
