38 Elm Street

The closing, and soon afterwards

Well, we completed the closing on the parsonage. It went a lot less comfortabley than it could, the selling parties, Geoff and Heidi Henson, delivered through their attourney a last minuted addendum for us to sign. The addendum basicallly said that our decision to accept and the inspection report was in no way influenced by anything they, or their agent had said. We refused to sign this, as it was wholly untruthful; we have a copy of a long email from Ms. Henson that clearly stated their feelings on how long the roof would last, and directing her agent to share the information with ours.

Well, after some last minute scrambling, which of course occured as we were trying to leave town, our lawyers sorted it out with theirs, and no addendum was signed. To put it mildly, however, we weren't in the best of humor as a result, and were disapointed to find that a few major pieces of refuse were left at the house during the final walk through.

The closing included Ms Henson and her lawyer, whom, with the listing agent Sandy Allen, asked us to accept, in good faith, that the items would be removed. This was an uncomfortable situation, as the attourney, made sexist comments claiming that Ms Henson was unable to move them herself. We accepted the good faith terms, and were not surprised to be disapointed in the results. Needless to say, after a couple of email exchanges, and blame laid upon a volunteer organization by Ms. Allen, it took over a week for the items to be removed completely.

Still, now this part of the process is over, and we have learned how lightly good faith from the seller's and their representatives should be taken.

We had hoped that this was the end of the disapointment, yet there was more. The work that the previous owners had touted, their pride and joy, was simply poorly done and in a lot of cases incomplete. It wasn't a lack of skills, as apparently base laziness. Here are a few examples of what we mean.

Hey, why disconnect a cable when you can just cut it?
Bathroom door trim. Not only did none of the trim get a primer coat, as indicated by the knots showing through, but this top piece was never even sanded or painted after it was cut and installed. Quality work!
Check out this gap by the bathtub. It's big enough to put a toe under. but hey, this is only a bathroom, right? What are the odds of water going any where?
Again, the master bath floor. Check out the unsealed floor cracks around the toilet! that's pencil width.
The entirity of the wood work in the back staircase/mud area was fortunate to recieve a single coat of polyurthane. Just one. How do we know? After putting 6 coats on our other house, we're pretty damn familiar with this process.
Ah, kitchen pantry. See that unpainted wood? that's the top shelf you can't see from the floor. More quality workmanship.
One of the best things we found was when moving their old frige out, and our better one in place. Look at that. Amazing. Not only was the floor and the wall not painted, but hell, they didn't even bother running the rim across the back. Seriously - WTF?
They obviously had a paint brush in the area, why not take the five minutes to do the whole job? Just bloody laziness. These are not problems with an old house, these are problems that are from poor workmanship. Great pride in their house indeed. Perhaps most sad, is that the floor got painted at all.

This wasn't all we found, but we stopped taking pictures. Speaker wire wrapped around hot electical cables, electical lines that were hot, cut, and not insulated, heating vents that had no support under them, etc. We have also had to replace the pellet stove, as the existing one does not work, and the parts for it's repair are no longer available.

Outside, we wiill be having the trees pulled down. I'm certain that our new neighbors are thinking we're tree haters, but the large maple in the back is hollow with rot, and despite it's good canopy, will fall before too long.

Most sad to us is the chestnut tree that is 6 inches from the foundation; already 4-5 inches in diameter, it's just too close and has to go.

The roof also failed within the first week, requiring an emergency repar on my part. I'm glad I have the previous owner's email, this could come in handy down the road!

Regardless of this we are still happy to have the home, and we know it will be happier with us, as work should get done properly for a change.