I have a confession. Please don’t judge me. I don’t hurt children or animals. I don’t sleep around, steal (on purpose), or wear a regular bra with a strapless shirt. I do, however, wear white after Labor Day (I’m sorry; it’s a stupid “rule”).
But. I stalk owners of the homes we didn’t get.
We moved into our house in April 2001 when our daughter was five months old. I credit her with our even getting the house. Sometimes kids are useful like that. Take a kid with you to jury duty and you’ll likely get out of it. Take a snot-nosed and disheveled kid with you to meet an auditor and you might owe less. Our daughter cooed and smiled at the sellers and once the wife said, “I think she’d enjoy growing up here” I knew we had it. I wasn’t sure, at first, that we wanted it, though, because I hated the kitchen (I still do). And then we saw the backyard.
Sold.
Before we chose this house, though, we’d see nearly three or more a week. I lost count of how many contracts we put on houses; we were always met with “Someone bid $10K over the asking price” or “Your offer has been accepted as back-up.” Now, 11 years later, since we’re still in the same house and had been looking in nearby neighborhoods, I see those other houses pretty regularly. There’s the one that had a huge foyer with a rocking chair and fireplace. We dubbed it the Nat King Cole room. It just seemed like a space where you’d sit and listen to old music, comfortably, with tea. And cigars. In silk smoking jackets with matching ascots. We may have gone a bit overboard with that vision.
There was the house that had glass French doors at every room’s entrance, the house that came with a piano, the house with the deep brown floors and claw foot tub. There was the house with the red door, the house with a hidden attic room, and of course the money pit with an inch of water in the basement.
Stalking doesn’t come new to my husband or me. When we were first looking, if your lawn was unkempt or it seemed like your mailbox was overflowing, we’d send you a letter asking if you were preparing to sell. You couldn’t just be on vacation, no. Oh, you recently had surgery and are just temporarily immobile? We’re sorry to hear that SELL US YOUR HOUSE!
While I can see in passing some external things done to the homes: gardens, room additions, solar panels, it pains me to not know if the Nat King Cole room has been changed. What color did they paint it? Did that one with the huge open basement (skateboardable, we thought), get divided into separate rooms? Did the one with the gutted kitchen get laid out the way we’d have done it?
I fixate on these other houses because if I’m honest, I really don’t like our house much.
And it’s our own fault. We are lazy. Also poor. We have done only a handful of the projects we knew needed to be tackled when we bought the house. Now, these things still exist and a smattering of new things need attention too (think earthquake caused drywall cracks and holes in two ceilings). And yet, amid the disappointment, I still love this house. It’s our first house. Except for five months with our oldest, our children have never lived anyplace else. Sure, I wish we could easily get rid of the white painted brick (who DOES that?) on the front and why did the previous owners like popcorn ceilings AND WALLS so much? But overall? This is our house. It always will be (because, there’s still one absolute that will never change: we are not moving. Ever. If we win the lottery, sure, we might buy a new house. But, we would also have to buy all new things because if there is one experience in life I never want to relive, it is packing and moving. Also c-sections, falling, shitting myself as an adult, car accidents, seeing a mouse in my kitchen, and tasting pigs’ feet).
There is so much left that can be done to our house, to make it more ours, to have it evolve into what we want and need it to be. I can wonder about those other houses, but I will always come back to being glad we chose this one. Who knows, maybe there’s a couple out there who wanted our house but didn’t have a cute kid to get it for them. Relax, couple. That tiny bathtub on the first floor you’d have removed? Still there.
That’s funny, I’ve never ever wondered about the houses that didn’t become my home. I actually wonder about the houses I used to live in. Who lives there now? Did they fix that termite problem (hah!)? Do they hate the upstairs neighbor?
Also, what is with popcorn colored walls?
Alison recently posted..Off He Goes
Alison, I hadn’t thought of that. I do wonder about the apartment we lived in and my childhood home. I even drive by the apartment every now and then. I giggle that it’s renting for more than my mortgage yet it can fit in my basement.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
I have never thought to stalk the homes I didn’t get, but it did make me wonder about a few! I’m about to sell the first house I ever loved, and I really hope it goes to a good home. As if it were a pet, or a cherished book, or toy…
Kristin Shaw (Two Cannoli) recently posted..Stuck in Someday
It’s inevitable, I think (I typed unevitable first and it took me a minute to figure out why it seemed…wrong). Anyway, yeah, I think that if I sold this house I’d be unbelievably interested in what the new owners did (which is another reason why I’m never moving. They’d have me arrested, I think).
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
Yeah, I totally obsess about the ones that got away. Just lost a great one last week during our house search. But I also wonder how our lives would be different if we had gotten them. Could we have avoided tragedy? I don’t know. Depends on how all of that works.
p.s. I stalk my childhood home and send periodic letters asking them to sell…
anna whiston-donaldson recently posted..Turn Down Service
Oh, the wondering gets me. I imagine entirely different lives based on house location, so I can only imagine what that does for you in regard to Jack. You are staying in VA? Do the people who live in your childhood home entertain you with a response?
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
Loved reading this. I obsess and think about houses way too much. Houses that my husband and I could not agree on and houses that sold before we could sell our house and, thus, make an offer. In the past, I would laugh to myself when I heard someone call their house their ‘forever’ house. That was a concept that was totally foreign to me. My parents bought and sold at the drop of a hat. The running joke was that friends and family began entering their ‘new’ address in address books (remember those?) in pencil. I am the apple that didn’t fall far from that tree. I calculated a few minutes ago: since 2000, we have moved twelve times and have bought and sold six times. Those other six properties were all month to month rentals while we waited for homes to be built or for the market to bottom out. I do think, however, that we are probably in our forever house right now. And, I do ‘get’ the concept, finally, i think. The overwhelming reason why I eschew the thought of moving now: our kids would freak out and the idea of putting possessions in boxes and physically moving them from one location to another absolutely exhausts me and boggles my mind. In order to even think about going anywhere at this point, I would have to get ‘beamed’ to the new location and so would everything we own. I do understand, at last, that there is ‘no place like home,’ and that has less to do with location and much to do with ‘where’ my heart is. PS. My oldest daughter just passed her real estate licensing exam…..another apple that didn’t fall from the tree!
Right, Mariann! Beaming. It’s the only way it could happen for me. The only way. I’M NOT PACKING ANYTHING.
I’d always admired military kids’ moving because I thought it gave them different experiences, perspectives, fun. But then I thought about not feeling settled and leaving friends.
My mother did real estate for a while and she’d bring me to the open houses. I liked to read the listings and correct them or make them “punchier.” And my oldest daughter’s school does something on Capitol Hill where it works with owners of recently remodeled homes and they give a tour. Of course we’re going. Of course.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
Oh my heavens! Where is this event on Capitol Hill??? I must go!!! You make a good point…..for my kids, it’s the friends, the putting down of roots, the ‘knowing’ that moving is not going to happen. I admire military families who do it with such aplomb and matter of factness.
Here, Mariann: http://www.chrs.org
I wish there were more children in our neighborhood. We’re kind of secluded.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
The house we’re (hopefully) closing on this week is basically around the corner from the first house we bid on (and lost to someone putting down 50%. 50%!!!) I am SO interested to see who purchased it.
We looked at just over a million houses the first time, too, and there’s one I ALWAYS wonder about. It went up for sale a couple of years ago, and I considered calling an agent just to go through it.
angela recently posted..Flutters
We’d go back to a few we lost and see what they sold for and just scream. First, WHO DOES THAT? Second, HOW CAN WE GET MONEY ENOUGH TO DO THAT? I wouldn’t be able to contain myself on knowing who put down 50%. I’d be there with brownies while they were still moving in. Because of reasons.
While I have a handful, my husband only has one (it’s not even the Nat King Cole one!) There was one open house he went to alone just by chance, FELL IN LOVE. Rushed home to get me and by the time we got back (20 minutes tops) there were three couples filling out paperwork, all trying to finish before the other.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
I have a deep personal connection to the homes that we grew up in: My first home was owned by the church, but my grandfather essentially built an addition and our bedrooms and so I still feel intimately connected to it. When we sold my second home, a house that I spent most of my life in, I felt incredibly violated that the new owners would come in and change it in any way. I felt the same way when we sold my grandparent’s house after they passed away.
Now, after looking for my own home, I find myself connected to the houses we didn’t buy as well. There are two in particular that I fell in love with. One I am happy we decided not to purchase it. It had too many problems. But I had an alert so I would be emailed about its sale progress. (After not dropping the price for us, the owners eventually dropped far below asking to sell the place). There is another house that I deeply loved (french doors and all) that Dan did not. I think I will forever stalk this home, wondering what our life would look like had we chosen that place instead of the one we are moving in to.
Thank you so much for being on my blog today, Arnebya! I love how you wrote about something that I can deeply relate to. I’m honoured to host your words!
Laura O’Rourke recently posted..Writing Home
Thank you so much for allowing me to participate in this series, Laura. I finally stopped the alerts on the houses, though sometimes I’ll go back and check to see how much one sold for. One of the ones I loved was sold for over $100K more than the asking price, and they resold it a year later for the original asking price.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
I don’t have that experience because we have been fortunate enough to have gotten the houses we have bid on. I can imagine falling in love with a place and wondering about it, though. Houses are so personal and the feeling you get from them can stay with you.
Kim@Co-Pilot Mom recently posted..How You Love Me?
Kim, I just remembered another. I wasn’t particularly attached to it, but it had really vibrant wall colors. It was a four-story narrow house but it was deep/long if that makes sense. It also had an in-law suite which I’m sure is a great income generator. I wonder if the previous owners ever wonder about us/their first house.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
I house shop online all the time, way out of my price range. I have the same feelings about my house as you do yours. I know that if we committed to making some changes (i.e. yank out this nasty carpet and put in hard wood floors), we would like it SO much better. But you know, time, money, all of that. Some days I want to move desperately and get total house envy of some of my suburban friends, but then I also know I would die a slow, painful death in a cookie cutter home in the ‘burbs. So we are aiming to do what we can to make our house more likable, and we’ll move when the time is right.
Leigh Ann recently posted..Check your skin, part the second
Oh, Leigh Ann, I online shop for million dollar houses in DC all the time too. So, not only am I stalking the ones I’ve seen, I’m also kind of constantly looking at the ones I could never buy. And yeah, the same house thing irks me (but I know plenty of people who love their house and neighborhood and think it’s all about personalizing the inside). I’m with you; trying to make small changes one step at a time (but it’s hard to berate myself for having let so much time pass).
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
That last line reminded me when my mom and I moved in to a tiny apartment where the bathtub was in the kitchen. In NYC pre-war building it was the norm back then. It gave me a giggle. It was just the two of us, we did not need much privacy then.
Love your writing Arnebya!
Alma recently posted..Plucking Petals
Alma, once, we looked at an apartment that had a hide-away kitchen. I am so serious. There was a set of folding closet doors that closed off the kitchen from the living room. And then there was the one that had a bathroom so small that if you sat on the toilet your knees touched the tub (which was in front of, not beside it). And your kitchen tub is making me giggle.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
Oh, I do this all of the time. You’re in good company, sister. Good, slightly crazy, company.
Keely recently posted..Keely Goes Into Sugar Shock At The Windy City Soiree.
Slightly is what makes it okay, right?
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
A friend of mine actually moved into a house we looked at before we bought ours in Texas. She had play dates and I was SO curious to see it and after going there a few times I remembered why it was not the house for us. I stalk houses too. It’s so fun. :)
Elaine A. recently posted..Going Back in Time…
It IS fun, right? In a creepy, don’t let your mail pile up because I’ll beg you to sell your house kind of way.
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
WHat is it about houses? They just pull at my heart and my gut at the same time. We are going through this right now…I’d love a dream home one day but we don’t have the money for the dreams I’m dreaming. I love that you stalk the houses. Brillz.
I remember one of the houses we wanted to see. We had gotten pre-approved and knew what we could spend/buy. This house came on the market, in the ideal neighborhood, perfectly sized, but it didn’t show a price. We called our agent and she laughed very long and very hard saying, “Y’all clearly have champagne dreams on a tap water budget.”
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
I’m guilty of almost every thing in this post – although I’ve never seen a home with a Nat King Cole room. Damn. That would be cool.
My confession: we actually sneaked ONTO THE PROPERTY of the first house we owned and peeked in the backyard to see how the trees and flowers we’d planted were faring. I know. Probably totally illegal. Definitely creepy.
But done only out of love.
(And weirdness. Okay. We’re weird. Don’t tell anyone.)
Oh, Julie. Oh. Yes, that is totally creepy. AND I’VE DONE IT TOO. Except, okay, I’m going to admit something that I had NOT intended (deep breath) I climbed through a window to stand one last time in the basement of the house I grew up in. My mother lost it to foreclosure and I never had a chance to say goodbye to it (although, admittedly, it felt weird because I’d been so determined to leave it). It hadn’t yet been resold so I didn’t break into another person’s home. Oooh, here’s another weird thing: I’d totally like to get into someone’s house (a random person, not even a house I stalk) and change something like redo their pantry moving cans to the left from the right or putting new towels in the bathroom. But then I’d want to know how they reacted and I’m not so good at that (example: I changed the direction of all the toilet paper rolls in my sister-in-laws house and couldn’t even make it home before I called to see if she’d noticed). This comment is going kinda sideways now…
Arnebya recently posted..Guest Posting at Mommy-Miracles
YOU WIN THE WORLD!
(I wish we were neighbors.)
I moved so much during my years in graduate school that my mother wrote my addresses in pencil in her address book (pre smart-phone days; there were dinosaurs in the streets). Moving is fine. It’s the packing and unpacking that are the 9th and 10th rings of hell. I think you’ve got a brilliant idea: move to a new place and then buy all new everything, so you don’t have to pack. I think that’s why god invented Ikea.
deborah quinn recently posted..The Moral of the Skinned Knee
Holy Hell the new IKEA book came last week. I want to dismantle our house, throw everything out (EVERYTHING!) and start all over with the things in that catalog.
Arnebya recently posted..Ten
I obsess over the people that bought our house, or really the people that are living in it now because the first people couldn’t afford it and ended up either selling it or having it repossessed. I don’t know which. I loved that house. I don’t know why. Maybe because it was our first, or because my daddy did all of the stuff to help us get into it… I don’t know. I just wish it was still mine. Only in the town where we live now.
Jennifer recently posted..Summer Loving {Creative Writing}
Oh, there were quite a few houses that I wanted to pick up and move to better neighborhoods.
Arnebya recently posted..Ten