Rain, rain, go away, and don’t come back for many a day! It seems it’s a never ending circle of days filled with gray skies and rain. I was all the more disgusted when seeing this coming week’s forecast where we’re supposed to get more R A I N!
Late last night I missed a phone message from a client of mine, and when listening to it this morning, he sounded a bit upset over some work he’s been having done by a contractor on his house. Since I know he doesn’t get up that early, I waited until around 9:00 to return his call. He didn’t sound as disgusted, but still stirring.
The only consolation I could offer him was to go over this afternoon and help straighten out the mess that guy had made. Thank goodness this rain and cold lightened my appointment load, so I was able to spend nearly three hours doing what I could to get things back on track for him. He’s much better now, but still burning over paying someone to do something right, and in the middle of it all, finding it was being done wrong.
It seems to becoming all the more commonplace in North Iowa where I’ve seen work performed by supposed “professionals” appearing similar to something a grade schooler would do. And of course, the people these so-called talented tradespeople go after, are our overly-trusting elderly. There were enough times in years past I’ve intervened with those slick-talkers when trying to manipulate elderly family and non-family members. One of the most heated exchanges was with a window salesman who almost got a near and dear one talked into replacing perfectly good windows with super-expensive and flimsily constructed plastic pieces of shite.
The rest of my afternoon was spent with some out-of-town buyers who’ll be around for the next three days, and hopefully I can get them sold something while they’re here. One of the homes I showed them was an acreage type setting that has a house on it that has had at least four additions added since it was built. As far as poor workmanship goes, it was one of the worst I’ve seen in years. The floors were all un-even due to whomever put the additions on, having little or no carpentry skills. From one area of the house to the other, there were step-ups and step-downs. The basement stairway was akin to a stepladder slid down into a dark hole. The real kicker was noticing what was once a double attached garage having been transformed into a dark and overly-sized master bedroom. I couldn’t help but teasingly say, “I’d hate living in this house when finding during the night, my having to go to the bathroom, because I’m sure I’d be either tripping and/or stubbing my toes in the dark over all these raised steps and thresholds.”
Thank goodness they hated the house and the only thing I was happy about, was seeing it in my rearview mirror as I was driving away. I’m going to pray it sells soon so I don’t have to show it again.
After we arrived at our next appointment, I found I’d become slap-happy from the previous dysfunctional house, to where we were both comparing all the positive features of the one we standing in, to the negatives of the one we just left. By the time we were finished looking around, I finally regained my composure after getting rid of all that bad juju from the previous.
On my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about that slapped together house that should have been bull-dozed instead of having additions made. Evidently its owners could hear it screaming, “It’s time for me to be scraped!” Fortunately the buyers didn’t see what I was looking at after climbing down that ladder stair for a quick look at its basement. There were very weak looking floor joists, hap-hazard wiring that was hot, boarded over basement windows, and a mix-match of cobbled plumbing. Without a doubt, Younker’s cosmetic counter wouldn’t have had enough lipstick on hand to make that pig look presentable.
I hope you’ve all had a productive work week so you can now have a stress-free weekend, but don’t forget about my “must be sold quickly” open house tomorrow at 1042 – 1st St. NE.
Tonight’s one-liner is: The superior person always thinks of virtue; the common always thinks of comfort.
