Why own when you can rent?

Did I tell you we have birds living in our walls? We have birds living in our walls. Jack's wall, to be specific. We hear them tweet tweet tweeting and Jack goes, "OOOH!" and we look at each other like, "In this moment it completely sucks to not have a landlord."

We had a Woodpecker Problem at our old apartment. Except we didn't really know it. We'd hear this knocking sound on the wall and say, "Gee! I wonder what's making that noise!" And we did that for, I don't know, MONTHS, until we finally called the landlord. The landlord sent an exterminator over (which made my poor sensitive heart break for our wittle woodpeckers) and the exterminator informed us that woodpeckers are some sort of Endangered Species and very special care would have to be taken to fix our Woodpecker Problem. I'm not entirely sure what ended up happening, only that 1) the woodpeckers were allowed to continue existing, just 2) not in our house and 3) we didn't have to pay for it.

Today we paid $130 to have some dude climb a ladder and nail a screen over a gap between the roof and the siding. No birds were there so no birds were harmed. We weren't excited about the $130, but it's not like we own a ladder three stories tall.

Ah, home ownership.

We also trekked out to the Eastside to sign refinancing papers for the Chinese Mafia Mortgage Company this morning. I am not entirely sure how we scored ourselves a no-fee lower-rate lower-mortgage-payment deal, but we did and I am not asking questions. Also: we don't have to pay the mortgage next month! Something about just making the term of the loan longer? And closing dates? I don't know. The dollar signs flashing in my eyeballs prohibited my ability to think.

All this Dealing With Our House stuff forced Phillip to work from home. Tragic! I lifted maybe half a finger today, what with my sisters around in the morning (sleeping off the post-Oscar party) (drink when you see an ugly dress!) and my inlaws around in the afternoon. And my brother showing up during nap time to ask me how big I want my garden box because (GASP OF ASTONISHMENT) he is going to build it for me. Either my brother is super crazy bored or he really IS making up for eighteen years of torment. I don't care, all I see is My Future Perfect Vegetable Garden. Oh, and he sent me this link, and I don't know what to think about the upside down tomato thing. Should I try it?

Our house is feeling small and cluttered and cramped and the carpet on the stairs depresses me, but we're making it work. I have no idea how long we'll keep the baby in the closet, or what exactly we're going to do about nowhere to put a play kitchen (I WANT A PLAY KITCHEN) but we'll figure it out.

Last week, though, Phillip found us our Perfect House. I don't know why he was cruising around Redfin as we are sooo not in the market to buy or sell (MOSTLY SELL, OMG, WILL BE HERE FOREVER) but he was and, misfortune of misfortunes, happened upon The Perfect House.

It's an older but updated house not too far from where we live right now, still in the city. It has four bedrooms and two bathrooms. It has a white, bright, happy kitchen. It has a huuuuuuge yard. It has an upstairs loft-ish area that screams PLAYROOM. It doesn't need paint or someone to refinish the floors and rip out the 1970s era bathroom cabinets. I love it. I would like to move in tomorrow, please. I just need someone to buy my house for way more than I paid for it. What do you think? Good plan?

Comments

[Lindsay]

Stupid birds. I am incredibly jealous of your Oscar party. Those Hollywood types seem like fake intellectuals to me I must say though. Drink everytime one of them tries to say something profound or opens up a crinkled receipt to read the names of their supposed biggest supporters. Pshaw. And oh my hell, that house sounds LOVELY. What a kick in the pants. Like it's not enough to have birds in the walls.

[Lindsay]

Sounds like a solid plan to me! It also sounds like you came up with said plan during your assessment of ugly Oscar dresses. ;)

[blog nerd]

Here I am Stormy McStormcloud: but I'm not sure now is the time to be doing any real estate deals. But then again, I could have sour grapes as just this morning I was fervently wishing we had decided to rent rather than buy when we moved here.

[Sarah]

We are in the exact same boat, except that we want to buy a farm and sell our house. Any Canadians out there who like living in small towns?

[Jess]

We have also found our perfect house. But we are not ready to buy. It's very sad. However, at least we don't have to sell.

[Elizabeth]

Oooh, I want to see the house. Is that too stalkery of me?
Sorry, today is one of those days when my own house is feeling VERY small.

Are you starting your tomatoes from seeds, or are you buying plants? I need to know, for my own personal information.

[Lisa]

My husband does that cruising-the-internet-for-fabulous-new-houses thing. It drives me crazy. About twice a month he find the absolute perfect house for us that is in our price range and often less than what we paid for this house with twice the square footage (buyers market and all). It drives me batty because we still own this house (or 40 percent of it anyway) and would have to sell it first, and DID YOU KNOW THAT IT'S NOT A SELLER'S MARKET? It makes my head spin. Plus, we can't move now...homestudy ready and all. We'd need an update and MORE MONEY and just wait until we get another baby and get through finalization. Is that so hard?

[forcryingoutloud]

I want to say that you can't move because I love that place, but at the same time, you can't pass up the "perfect" house. More space = perfect in my opinion. But I will say, timing is everything and there are plenty of perfect houses out there if this one doesn't work out. (This is Melissa by the way.)

[forcryingoutloud]

Oh, and at least your house hasn't been tagged!

[Jen]

Our house is on the market and I have these weird daydreams about someone showing up and saying "wow, I love this house, let me give you lots more than your asking price!"

Somehow, I don't see that happening.

[Angela Noelle]

That sentence toward the end there? About finding someone to pay more for your house than you did? Yeah, I need one of those people too. Where does one FIND those people??