...and the walls come tumbling' down!

Today was another adventure in house shopping with 4. She had previewed and preselected several, with "the one" on the leaderboard. She was convinced. Cute, Clean, in her price range.

I was less sure, but we went there second. (The first house was cute, inexpensive, painted by someone who had no clue how to paint, had a doggie door that 4 felt no need for, and needed new windows and some siding--making it ultimately, not cheap!)

The pines towered above the house, being planted as tiny things 60 years ago...She thought they were charming. I saw sticky gutter clogers that were going to be expensive to cut down without damaging the house....

The porch was covered with "artificial grass"--probably glued on with some kind of absolutely super sticky stuff that would never cove off--She had not noticed?? (Was she blind!)? We ducked under the pines, scooted past the tacky fake flowers on the step, and behold the lovely floors within.

Really very nice, except for the place where there once was something (a fireplace?) and the floor was patched, oddly. Nice paint, nice redone kitchen, nice bath, three bedrooms, one down, two up. Sparkling, new paint everywhere! (windows hard to open--original, but painted nicely!) Eye candy!!

Then we went to the basement.... 4 pulled out her flashlight!! (MR. CP would have been so proud!!) and began to inspect the rear wall with great interest (I did not share her interest...so I began to look around. Something was not quite right. Two jack stands...not where one would expect jack stands...then I saw it!!

The basement walls were "pushed in"! Second row of cinder block slanted out---below slanted in. Other side was opposite....whole house was going south!!! (Lest you fear for our lives, it probably had been leaning this way for quite some time....). 4 had the "reject look" when she stopped inspecting the wall.

I explained hydrostatic forces (or attempted to). The realtor looked annoyed (or mystified by my explanation of why the house had a bad foundation!). We scampered out , gave the back a courtesy look, and said "not our house". The realtor later called insisting that the owner would call in a structural engineer to certify that the foundation was o.k.---caveat emptor!!

Turns out that the interest in wall inspection was due to new paint since 2 days ago visit! Seems 4 had taken exception to "mold" on that wall, which must have been in the feed back to the owner/flipper.

So, flipper person...We are not buying your house, or your little game. Caveat emptor--or why it is good to take your mother along when deciding on a house. Turns out, she knows a few things from life experience....our pictures are probably up on the realtors board---first an attic with asbestos (hope the buyers will not get cancer---and glad it is them, not us, dealing with it!) Now the hydrostatic action......

For the happy ending, we did come away with 5 possibilities. One of the first two will probably be "the one". Both are sound, cute, affordable, and close to a starbucks ( C1 was right....First find the starbucks, and it will lead you to the right neighborhoods!).....Offer(s) to follow!