Home sweet someone else's home

Dear tenants in our old house, Today is move-in day for your new home and let me be the first to say welcome! I know you were hoping to move into another house with a more modern kitchen, but that house sold, so you're managing with our house. The appliances are older here, but it's still very nice. Since it's your first night here, I wanted to give you a few hints about the place.

The upstairs will always be warmer than the downstairs. That's just the way it is with single zone heat in a two story house. You'll get used to it. I suggest putting computers downstairs, though. Also, the air return is in the living room and it's really loud but it's the only place it could go without a lot of work to move it to the hall. Again, you'll get used to it. Just keep the remote handy when you're watching TV in there.

All the keys for the house (front and back doors, door knobs and dead bolts) are keyed with the same key. My father did that for me before I moved into the house back in 2002. It's incredibly handy to not have more keys than a janitor on your key chain. The front porch lights are on a timer that's incredibly complicated to set. Honestly, I've never set it myself but just let my father mess with it when he was house-sitting. Maybe he'll house-sit for you too and fix your timer as the seasons change. Take note that you have to have at least one non-fluorescent light bulb in the lights to power the timer. I'm still not sure why that's the case, but I just accepted it. Daddy could explain it to you, but it wouldn't be a short explanation.

We repainted the upstairs bathroom for you so it's no longer Pepto pink with flower basket borders around the top. Trust me, it was just as horrible as it sounds. You're welcome. Daddy even threw in a new vent cover for the AC vent. For that matter, we painted the entire house except for the closets to give you a fresh start. We also replaced all the carpet in the house and most of the tile. The carpet is significantly nicer than anything we ever had living there, so please try to keep it nice. I can recommend a good shampoo unit for your dog's inevitable accidents. Our dogs had plenty of their own there (hence your new carpet).

We've already run DirecTV and cable lines all through the house. Please don't let the installation punks staple coax cable to the outside of the house; it's ghetto and unnecessary. We also replaced the roof and pressure washed the entire outside of the house so it has that new house smell inside and out. I called and changed over the insurance from vacant property to rental property and you've signed the lease. You've got keys to the place and when I drove by this evening I could see you prepping for your move. The rental agency assures us everything is squared away.

The neighbors are nice enough and tend to keep to themselves. The old lady next door frets if your dog barks too much, so try not to stress her out. And the sheriff on the other side lets his dogs wander into the front yard to poop. It's very annoying; feel free to fuss at him about that.

I'm nervous about renting to you. It's not you really - it's me. I'm nervous about someone else living in my house ... OUR house. That house was a rental property of my parents' before I moved there and there were some disastrous mishaps there (one day I'll tell you the long story of the ice maker ruining the floor and my father scarring his arms to bleach the floor boards under the house). I rented that house from my parents and then bought the house from them. It was my safe haven after the divorce. It was the home where my neurotic dog Sarah blossomed into the fantastic elder stateshound that she is today. It's where my aloof cat Isis learned to snuggle. Eventually I convinced Rich to move here from Richmond and it's where Rich and I got our first live Christmas tree together (and kept it up until February). It's where we had one absolutely epic fight by the front door at 1am and where years later we spent our wedding night. We've had sex in every room of that house (you're glad for the new paint and carpet, aren't you?).

My parents have counseled me on house buying over the years. They own over a dozen rental properties in the area, so they've gotten pretty good at buying houses. But in their entire lives my parents have never sold a house. So I'm not very good at letting go of a home and letting someone else take it over. If the mortgage were a little less (and the insurance not so much) I could have been tempted to leave it vacant.

Try to remember that this isn't just a random investment property of ours. It's not a house someone in New York bought to flip before the bottom fell out of the market. It's not someone's eventual retirement home that you're just squatting in for a few years. It's our first home. We're willing to share it with you for awhile, but please be good to it. Seeing that house get trashed might break my heart. But seeing you take care of it and enjoy it could really do me some good.

Oh, and don't eat the apples off the tree in the front yard. They're a novelty the first year, but you'll grow to hate them. We just keep the tree up for the doves that nest in it each year. Consider them sub-letters.

I hope you like it here in Ocean View.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Genie

My Dad can beat up your teenage son

At 11:30 last night I got an email from my mother with the subject of "Robbery" and the only line in it saying "are you up?". I called and Mom said that someone tried to rob my father in their front yard but that he overpowered the kid and took his gun from him. Apparently the only injury he sustained was a dislocated shoulder. It's just another example of how my father continually amazes me. He had gone out to make sure the cars were locked, armed only with his trusty flashlight (it's really more of a spotlight). When he was out at the street he noticed three teenagers walking down the middle of the road. Once he had made it back to the middle of the front yard, he heard the "whump whump whump" of someone trying to stop after a sprint. He turned and there was a kid, maybe 15, hopping around and waving his extended arm in his face.

My father's first reaction was confusion at what his problem was. Then he saw there was a handgun at the end of that extended arm and confusion turned to rage. My father made a noise like a grizzly bear, shined his trusty spotlight right in the kid's face and lunged for him. In the scuffle the light hit the ground just before Daddy and the kid hit the ground. He managed to get both of his hands on the gun so the kid let go. At that point, he had the kid pinned behind him on the ground and had turned the gun over his own right shoulder, trying to fire it at the kid with his thumb. That's when he realized the chamber was empty and wouldn't fire. That's also when the kid realized he was in way over his head and took off in a sprint.

My mother had heard the commotion and came out just as they had hit the ground but all she could do was scream angrily from the front porch. After the kid took off, my parents just stood in the middle of the street and called 911. Then Mom came inside to email me.

When I first heard all of this, I was furious. I wanted to take a baseball bat to the punk who tried to ruin it for everyone in MY neighborhood. That worthless criminal was in the front yard of my childhood home. I had been out walking my dog not an hour before this thug had accosted my father. What if it had been my mother out there? Who does this kid think he is?

After talking to my father more, I was actually more angry at their next door neighbor. He was in his conversion van in the driveway next to this scuffle and DIDN'T DO A GODDAMN THING. He can't call 911? He can't peek out the window to see if maybe my father is making a noise from the Edge because he's wrestling with some kid one fourth his age 30 FEET AWAY. Fuck him.

So to recap, I'll be taking a 9 iron with me on my evening walks, my parents are getting a new light in the front yard, their neighbor is a coward and my father is a one man Neighborhod Watch Machine. As Rich noted, the kid tried to rob an old man and that old man kicked his ass and took his gun from him in front of his friends. Short of peeing on him I'm not sure my father could have shamed the little shithead any more.

Settling down and soaking it all in

I promise to tell you all about how successful the Nosy Neighbor Open House was, but right now I'm weary from moving and could use some cheering up.  I took another truckload of junk from the old house to the new house and then decided to wander around our new home marveling that we're actually living here. So to share in the fun and to spare you my whining about how much crap we have moved this week, let's take a close up tour of some of my favorite parts of the new home.

This house was originally built in 1947, and while we've upgraded many things (can I get an AMEN that I can print and the lights don't dim?!), we have tried to keep many things as they were. One of the little joys I have is the doorknobs downstairs. Some are glass and some are cast metal but they're all precious and remind me of my grandmother's apartment when I was little.

Our front door has a snazzy feature of its own, in that the door knocker is a chime. No one will know how to use it without instructions and you can't really hear it beyond the front room, but it's a very pleasant chime all the same if you happen to be within 20 feet of the front door.

When we created the new master bath, I lobbied for a double vanity. My father thought it was extravagant and Rich reminded me that he does most of his morning ritual in the shower so he doesn't really need his own sink, but I wanted some breathing room and a place for all my stuff without being crowded by all his shit (as George Carlin would say). This vanity will save us a lot of money in marriage counseling at some point down the road, I'm sure of it.

After the construction fiasco was over, we still had to decide on flooring for the house. I got fairly fretty about all of our flooring options because none of them were cheap and they were all a commitment to what would be all under all our furniture for many years to come. We decided to re-carpet the entire upstairs in a light something-or-other that had something to do with ducks as far as stain resistance. Within 24 hours of moving into the house, Emily couldn't bear the stress of it all and showed it by puking on our brand new carpet. I got it up with paper towels and a smidge of 409. It was wonderous. Whatever marketing they used for this carpet about water off a duck's back was right. This carpet kicks ass. It's also about 4" thick so it's like walking on marshmallows. I love our carpet (and so do the kitties).

Speaking of kitties, we added a door from my sewing room out to our new laundry room in the remodel. Last night we added a cat door to that door so the kitties can get out to the laundry room to get to their litter boxes. This is great because we don't have to create elaborate defenses against the dogs around the boxes and we no longer have kitty poo in our living space. With three indoor kitties that's a lot of poo and I'm happy to provide them with their own doorway to get to their facilities. While they're out there, you'd think they could be helpful and move the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Ungrateful cats.