My Guy and I have had a week of Real Estate Madness. I had an open house for realtors on Tuesday, and we both had open houses for the public today. His open house for realtors is this Tuesday - about the time of my impending mental breakdown.
I like New Realtor Guy - he seems to me making things happen. But I don't like all these people traipsing about my house. I can't help it. I came home after the realtor open house to find that my house smelled like cheap, stale pizza; one of my bedroom windows had been left unlocked (super cool!), and someone had used the bathroom and left the lid up (bad feng shui and a personal pet peeve).
And then? Then, there was the feedback from the realtors.
I got a lot of "Rooms are too small" and even one "Garage too small."
Dude. It's a post-war, two-bedroom ranch. What do you expect? This actually made me think of Roger Ebert - the great thing about his movie reviews is that he judges a film based on what it's trying to be. He doesn't judge something like The Hangover against Citizen Kane. He seems like a very karmically minded guy who tries to see the best in every movie, and I like that.
The realtors might take a few notes on that approach.
Along with the "too small" comments, it was suggested that I put a rug down in the mudroom. Fine. Done. But the real kicker?
I have a huge, gorgeous, framed copy of this in my living room:
I adore it. However, there is evidently a Puritan Organization Of Professional realtors (POOP) in my town. And all of POOP's members saw fit to provide feedback saying "Replace naked lady picture in living room - inappropriate."
So ... I had been having this DAY, you know? And my house smelled like cheap pizza and someone was obviously planning on breaking in later through the unlocked window, and people had been touching my stuff. And I lost it.
I cried. Ugly cried.
But then I went out for Chinese food with my friend L to That Place That's Always Closed and had some restorative hot and sour soup and then things were better. However, I've realized that I am one of Those People who are emotionally attached to their home. Freakishly attached.
But, if we're being kind ... who could blame me? I had $25.35 to my name when I decided to leave an abusive relationship. I worked my ass off and bought a house a year and a half later. I've remodeled the house, and figured out who I am in the house.
Now, I've emptied the house of almost all of my personal stuff in hopes of selling Casa de Cha Cha - and I get razzed for the one Cha Cha-type thing left in the house.
Well, POOP can suck it. I'm tempted to put a pasty on the one exposed nipple on the picture and call it good. But my mom really put it in perspective and made me laugh and laugh and laugh. She e-mailed, "Betcha they were really snooty realtors who won't touch a property that lists under $2,000,000,000,000,000.00."
I don't even know how to say that number.
I like New Realtor Guy - he seems to me making things happen. But I don't like all these people traipsing about my house. I can't help it. I came home after the realtor open house to find that my house smelled like cheap, stale pizza; one of my bedroom windows had been left unlocked (super cool!), and someone had used the bathroom and left the lid up (bad feng shui and a personal pet peeve).
And then? Then, there was the feedback from the realtors.
I got a lot of "Rooms are too small" and even one "Garage too small."
Dude. It's a post-war, two-bedroom ranch. What do you expect? This actually made me think of Roger Ebert - the great thing about his movie reviews is that he judges a film based on what it's trying to be. He doesn't judge something like The Hangover against Citizen Kane. He seems like a very karmically minded guy who tries to see the best in every movie, and I like that.
The realtors might take a few notes on that approach.
Along with the "too small" comments, it was suggested that I put a rug down in the mudroom. Fine. Done. But the real kicker?
I have a huge, gorgeous, framed copy of this in my living room:
I adore it. However, there is evidently a Puritan Organization Of Professional realtors (POOP) in my town. And all of POOP's members saw fit to provide feedback saying "Replace naked lady picture in living room - inappropriate."So ... I had been having this DAY, you know? And my house smelled like cheap pizza and someone was obviously planning on breaking in later through the unlocked window, and people had been touching my stuff. And I lost it.
I cried. Ugly cried.
But then I went out for Chinese food with my friend L to That Place That's Always Closed and had some restorative hot and sour soup and then things were better. However, I've realized that I am one of Those People who are emotionally attached to their home. Freakishly attached.
But, if we're being kind ... who could blame me? I had $25.35 to my name when I decided to leave an abusive relationship. I worked my ass off and bought a house a year and a half later. I've remodeled the house, and figured out who I am in the house.
Now, I've emptied the house of almost all of my personal stuff in hopes of selling Casa de Cha Cha - and I get razzed for the one Cha Cha-type thing left in the house.
Well, POOP can suck it. I'm tempted to put a pasty on the one exposed nipple on the picture and call it good. But my mom really put it in perspective and made me laugh and laugh and laugh. She e-mailed, "Betcha they were really snooty realtors who won't touch a property that lists under $2,000,000,000,000,000.00."
I don't even know how to say that number.
In our real estate wanderings, My Guy and I found a $4.5 million home that has - are you ready? - a ball pit, complete with slide from the story above. Yes. There's a home in town that was designed with a ball pit, like they have at Chuck E. Cheese.
That's probably why our houses aren't selling. No ball pits.
That's probably why our houses aren't selling. No ball pits.
Image courtesy of allposters.com.
Wow, your realtors should avoid coming to France, then... If they find your (lovely but come on, pretty tame in the porn stakes) poster offensive, their eyes would fall out at all the gratuitous flesh on view here in France in public! Though of course if they stayed as long as I have (moved here in 1992 - wow, I'm ooooollllddd) they probably wouldn't notice it any more...
ReplyDeleteGood luck, keep strong, it's for a good cause!
Some day it will all be over -- they'll be sold and you'll be coming home every day to your home together. It's rough though. Hope they sell soon.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the pic. stupid POOP
That is the PITS. And I just cannot GET the people who cannot see past a person's STUFF and see the HOUSE. Morons. All of 'em. Chin up. It'll sell.
ReplyDeleteDearest Cha Cha,
ReplyDeleteThe house is the place where all of that happened, but your future house is where even better stuff will happen. Now, if you want the clients of the POOPS to pay top dollar, give the picture a big kiss and put it away.
I'm not sure that you can trust a real estate agent that says the bedrooms are too small cause really there's not a whole hellofalot you can do about that, but take everything else under the heading of how to get more money for the house. Cause in the end, if you can buy an effing ball pit with the extra money, you should do what they say.
xoxo
P.S. There certainly is someone out there who will buy your house and make their own memories there next. That is a good thing. Hang in there.
Yup, it's definitely the ball pit.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with the print. POOP can suck it!...ok, easy for me to say, but you had your ugly cry, now chin up, and go get some plastic balls and a pit!
We have two categories other than POOPs to put these people into:
ReplyDeleteSFP (Stupid F-ing People)
MTMs (Mean to Me's)
Either way...unfortunately we need them for the sale, so we have to take the homes we have lovingly created to welcome ourselves, our families, our "kind of people", into a bland, humorless, styleless hotel space to accommodate POOPs and SFPs and MTMs and also PWIs (People without Imagination).
That POOP group could suck it if it was me. Nothing wrong with your art work.
ReplyDeleteseriously. i hope those realtors don't ever attend a fine art exhibit. they might pass out from "the vapors."
ReplyDeletei remember giggling at a painting of a naked lady when i was little. my grandma told me that it wasn't dirty, that the human body was beautiful. that was when i knew my grandma was a tramp. ;)
hang in there.