Buying A House With A Credit Card

Well, I am now living in my new house, which has been an adventure. If any of you ever decide to buy a cheap house, you should keep in mind one thing - there is a reason it is cheap! Here are some of the delightful things I have dealt with so far....

First project - fixing the plumbing. I installed a new pump on the well, which took 2 days because there were two pipes coming up out of the crawlspace (which is about 1 1/2 feet in height - lovely for crawling). Since it is a "shallow well", there should only be one pipe, but there are two, which means that it isn't so shallow, or that there are two wells. There is no evidence of a well outside - just two pipes coming in from the crawlspace. Anyway, I finally got it working, at about 200 bucks, which was much cheaper than a plumber.

After that, there were other things to deal with. The kitchen faucet leaked, so i replaced that. Of course, I was missing ONE freaking gasket, so it leaked for 2 days until I finally bought one today. So now I can leave the pump running without slowly flooding the kitchen. Then there was the incident when I decided to move *by myself my washer into its spot in the bathroom, and in doing so, I hit a loose wall, which broke a pipe. So I had water gushing forth in my bathroom. I turned off the pump, fixed the pipe, and got the washer moved. So I went to do my first load, and there was water gushing from the washer! Apparently in moving it, I cracked the drain hose, so I temporarily fixed it with electrical tape and will be buying a new one tonight. Lovely.

Probably the most interesting thing about this house, which I knew when I bought it, is that it is CROOKED. It leans to one corner, and there are a couple spots where the pilings underneath are pushing up on the floor, so there are some hills and valleys in my floor. If you ever have to deal with a foundation expert, remember one thing - they are hard to get a hold of, and once you have reached them, then they don't like to show up. I finally have a guy coming tomorrow, so it will be interesting to hear what he says. I mean, I can live with a crooked house, but I would rather have nice straight floors, because it makes me feel a bit drunk at times to walk across the bathroom.

I want to install a pellet stove in here - they are much more efficient and cheaper than a gas furnace (especially an old Montgomery Ward's model). But, my mom (who now lives close) convinced me to use the gas furnace this year, and the gas water heater, so as of today, I have heat and hot water. I have been either taking showers at my mom's or at work, so it will be nice to finally be able to keep myself clean on a daily basis, the way I like to. But, first I have to deal with the bathtub. It is gross. There were so many layers of caulk on it, that it just peeled off like leather, and what was underneath was shocking. I plan to renovate the bathroom next summer, so I'm trying to deal with what I have for now. But somebody brilliantly installed the bathtub with a subwall of particle board behind it. If you know what particle board is, then you know that it isn't very waterproof. So, when I pulled off the caulking, there was this lovely black, soil-like material that kept coming out from behind where the caulk was. It is basically decomposed particle board, and although it doesn't smell, it is scary looking. So tonight, before work, I am heading to Home Depot to get the most heavy-duty caulk and gasket material I can find, so that I can actually take a shower or bath, and although I still will know that the horrible black stuff is behind the wall, at least I will not have it getting on my body.

Other than that - I had to fix the siding on the front of the house, which I think turned out pretty impressive. I had to replicate 100-year-old wood siding, which isn't an exact match, but I think it will look good when it is painted. Just a quick fix until I can afford to re-side the house. I also put in a toilet, and removed decades worth of carpeting. Whoever had put that carpeting in (back in 1978) decided to line the floor underneath with newspapers. So I have a huge stack of newspapers from 1978, which are quite interesting. A lot of National Enquirers in there too. Lots of exposees on Elvis's death, Patty Hearst, etc. Fun reading, but it will have to wait. The floors underneath are all maple, and will be beautiful when they are finished. God knows why they were ever covered, but I remember well that in the 70s, shag carpet was much cooler than cold wood floors.

I have met three neighbors, and they have all been very cool. Especially Pat, the 63-year old who looks like Uncle Jessie. He likes to come over and chat for an hour at a time, and apparently I must be pretty funny, because it is easy to make him laugh, and he has a very boisterous laugh. His house is an exact copy of mine, except he has a basement, and they have been renovated slightly differently over the years. In fact, if you drive down the streets immediately around this area, you can see many houses that are cookie-cutter copies of this house. Sometimes you have to really look at them to tell though, because over the years people have added additions on, changed windows, etc. But they all have the same "Little House on the Prairie" roofline.

Anyway, at least now I have water, heat, and hopefully tomorrow, a decent place to take a shower. Although a shower will probably be the last thing on my mind when I find out how much it will cost to level the house.

Groan. But I'm having a blast with it.