A new house has such potential. You can get rid of your old clutter and start fresh. Everything starts out organized and clean. Well, sometimes. In our situation, it didn't happen quite that way. In May, after two years of searching, my husband finally got a job, actually he got two. The first one was in Pennsylvania and we were all set to move in with my mom and step-dad and we put in our 60 day notice to our apartment complex. But of course when it rains it pours and a few weeks before our departure, he ended up with a second job right here in NC. Our apartment had already been rented, so the mad scramble to find a place to live began. We looked at quite a few homes, and in the end, this place seemed easy because it belonged to a friend of ours which seemed to make things easier. Perfect right? Wrong. Since she knew us, I guess she didn't think she needed to put in too much effort. The carpets were horrible, but since we had a dog, she decided she wouldn't have them replaced (but she still demanded a pet fee). Well, fine, at least we wouldn't have to worry about Ollie's poor bladder control, but, we asked if she could at least have them cleaned. Our lease was up on the 15th so we needed to move in on the 14th but she didn't want to move out until the 14th, oh and could she stay over night the night before? Hmm, we guessed it was ok, but would she have all of her stuff out before we were ready to move in?
Moving day arrived and as we pulled our moving truck in front of our house, we realized hers was still there. Inside, the place was semi-cleaned. A couple of the rooms had the carpets cleaned but not all of them. Oh well, let's not be picky, we have a new home and we don't have to share any walls! After waiting to get our moving truck in the driveway and getting everything moved in we were in need of some freshening up. Time to check out our new master bath. That is when it all began. I tried to turn on the hot water, but the knob just spun in a circle. It had been fixed, but unfortunately the person who fixed it had majored in business, and not home improvements. She had purchased the wrong size knob. But why, when she saw that the water couldn't be adjusted didn't she take it back and buy a different one? It just got under my skin. She hadn't had the carpets cleaned like she promised, she hadn't cleaned the house completely, and now she didn't even have the decency to fix the sink properly? Call me petty, but I just couldn't get over it.
After that, any other thing that went wrong, be it big or small, became such a huge deal. The shower head broke, the sliding glass door handle, cabinet knobs, shower curtain rods, floor boards, the water heater, and the water heater again, and the water heater again. They weren't things that we couldn't live with, but every time something broke, I thought about that faucet knob.
I shouldn't complain. There are millions of homeless people who would be so grateful to live in this house. It would seem like a castle to them, I bet. But I just can seem to get past that first day and that stupid broken faucet. Everyday I count down the days until we move out of this lemon and into our new house. And while I am sure our new house will have its fair share of problems and things needing fixing, it will be ours, which will make it feel that much more like home. And hopefully the faucets will all work perfectly.
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