April 25, 2006--A place to live

Yesterday I did some calling around to see if I could find a place to move to next month. We are needing to find a place that we can live in temporarily until our house sells and we are in a position to buy. I called on one house, and it was a nice house, but it was right by the railroad tracks and $615 a month. A little out of our price range, but they are sending us an application anyway. I figured I might as well in case I couldn't find anything better.

I also called our landlady from ten years ago that we rented from back when we first got married. She's such a sweet lady. I told her my name and said that I didn't know if she remembered me, but that we had rented from her ten years ago, and she said, "Of course I remember you. I was just about to call you. The offer on the blue house didn't go through, so if you want to buy it, you can." I was kind of surprised, because I was going to ask about renting the blue house, and I was thinking she must have an amazing memory. Then she said, "You were a Luper before you got married, right?" and I realized she was thinking I was my sister-in-law who shares the same name as me. So I explained that no, I was a Luper after I got married and that I was not one of the Luper girls, but that I married the oldest Luper boy. So she finally figured out who I was, and she said to give them some time to think it over and to call them back about the blue house on Saturday or Sunday. It's in the same town as my in-laws, the same town we lived in before we moved her to Missouri. I think (from what she was trying to explain to her husband) that she thinks we want to rent for awhile and then buy it, though, and if my sister-in-law is interested in it, I wouldn't want to rent it out from under them, either.

The third house I called about yesterday sounded the most promising. It's in the same town as my parents. In fact, their backyard touches the backyard of this house. It it owned by a Hispanic family. A couple of years ago, a car off the highway swerved to miss a cat and became airborne and went through the side of this house. They weren't home at the time and no one got hurt, but they had to move out. They collected $20-some thousand in insurance, and went to fix it up. In the process they found termites and most of the insurance money was spent fixing that problem. They've run out of insurance money, and the house isn't ready, but they are really needing to sell it or rent it. She is willing to let us live there free for the first month if we do work on the house in exchange for rent, and if there is still work to be done after that month, to let us live there for very little in exchange for work on the house. It needs carpet, the kitchen is not quite complete, and the yard is trashed. My dad is a good friend of theirs, and he is going to work on an agreement for us. They speak very little English, so it's important to have someone who can make sure that both of us are getting a good deal that would work for both of us. Erick isn't terribly thrilled at the idea of living that close to my parents, but I reminded him I lived in his parents backyard, literally, for a month, and then down the street from them for five years. This would only be a few months.

Btw, showings have picked back up some on the house. We've had three showings since Saturday.