Drama selling the house has me fuming. When the buyers came to see the house, I said that it had 20 year shingles and they are 19 years old and I knew it would need a roof soon so I had reflected that in the price, asking $6000 less since a roof costs $6000. The rest of the house is 40 years old, and buying a 40 year old house you have to know what you are getting into. Keep in mind it sold in 2 days, with 1 picture. My neighborhood is the last neighborhood in the good school district, on the correct side of warrenton to commute into DC, with houses less than half a million dollars, and all the houses were built in the late 70s/early 80s.

Home inspection time, inspector is unreasonably thorough. He’s nitpicking things like the saying the deck rails are 6” apart, and says even though it was to code when it was built, it’s not code now. Electrical panel was code when built, not code now. Insulation was code when it was built, not code now. Etc etc, all **** that is grandfathered in. Then he finds issues with the roof, and admittedly I did not know about the spot by the chimney where old flashing had leaked and there’s a bad spot, he says it needs a roof. No ****. Sellers come back, 10 days before closing now, asking for $7000 seller credit for repairs. I had fixed the "leak" i knew about, where tar to the flashing around the bathroom fart fan pipe had cracked and drips had been coming in through the fart fan.

So now I’m bent over, *** in the air. We have about the only house that I can deal with in the neighborhood we like all lined up, if we lose this house it’s likely a house with 1/4-1/5 of an acre, since all other houses on near 1/2 acre are $100,000 more than my budget. If I say **** you, fix the roof for $6000, and list it for $15,000 more I’d probably get it, but I’d have to show the house with 2 kids (miserable trying to keep a house clean with a toddler) and we would likely lose this house, and possibly not get the rent back we want for easy moving with kids. Or I can cough up $7000 or some negotiated amount, say bye bye to installing a fence for the dog or a shed for the boat, and just get into the new house. Shitty situation, and we still haven’t done the septic inspection which I’m praying comes back fine, since my neighbors who sold his last year needed a tank for $6000. Face down, booty up, thats the way we like to sell houses.

I could fix the spot by the chimney, and the rest of the flashing around the gutters where you can tell water goes behind the gutters that the inspector bitched about for $0 and 1 day of PTO since I have the material here, but apparently thats not an option they want to consider, they want a new roof.

Here’s what happens when you pack up half of a toddlers toys, they find something else to play with. He even spilled the dog water into the flour and it looked like Ted Bundy murdered the pilsbury dough boy. This is why I dont want to relist it and go through doing showings, we would have to get the house cleaned up every time before someone came, and it also puts the risk of my wife hitting another Lexus...

Aired up the tires on the camaro and went to move it and opened the door and the lights didn’t come on. Dead battery. Went to charge it and immediately the charger said “charged” which means bad battery. Great. Looked for the reciept for my only 3 year old battery that has a 5 year warranty and can’t find it, it’s a Walmart battery and I’m hoping they will look at the sticker from 2016 and still honor it. If not, I’ll have to either take the Tahoe battery which is larger and bungee cord it to the engine bay to make the 1 mile drive, or spend $100 on a new battery for a 1 mile drive, or call AAA for a 1 mile tow.


Little more more info on the house drama yesterday. The inspection report said there was “possibly mold in the attic due to inadequate ventilation”. The inspector was an older, fatter guy who was only able to stick his head in the attic and not crawl around on the rafters, and he saw the black stains on wood in there and to cover his *** said “could be mold”, but really it’s just stains from the old leaks. Found out the buyer has Leukemia, and they are concerned with his weakened immune system that mold is bad. I thought they were just being dicks, now I feel like a dick. Contractor verified that it’s just stains, but did find some specs and things in the crawl space that could be the start of some mold so my realtor said to fog the crawl space for $400 to make them feel better, and we got a $6500 quote to replace the roof and 6 boards to get rid of the stains and have a new roof. Since my wife and I have lived through a few people in our family with cancer and the pain that comes with it, we feel that everything happens for a reason, we’ll give $7000 back. Hoping they take it and everything continues smoothly and he has a healthy recovery because they have a 6 year old son.

They never even tested for mold, he just said it “could be” and we didn’t test if there was mold in the crawl space because we might as well spend the $400 to fog it.

Walmart gave me a free exchange on the battery since it was only 3 years old. Put it in, aired up the tires, where are my keys? What the **** where are my keys? I’ve searched high and low and can’t find them, and all I can think is they were in my night stand any my toddler took them.

How do you get new new keys? By VIN at the dealer? How long does that take? I have no spare set.

$61 at the dealer and it’ll be here tomorrow.

I posted this in general repairs but the dealer key doesn’t work. I get a ding ding ding when I stick it in but can’t turn it. In my searching for the keys I found the spare keys from my old 79 K10 which is a similar shape but no resistor and when I stick that in I don’t get the ding ding ding so does that mean the resistor is correct? If the resistor is correct, then maybe it’s just that the new key is too big/not worn enough? I’m going to try to sand the key down a little and a hair dryer on the ignition because it’s so cold out and some WD40 as lube.

if that fails how else can I get the wheel turning? The steering lock is on, and unfortunately the wheels are turned slightly the wrong direction to get it out of the garage, so my last ditch effort will be to pull the steering shaft and turn the wheels by hand and push it out for AAA to tow it the 1 mile to the new house. This really screws me over since I need to put the car in the street to move furniture out of the house. The house has French doors on the back deck, and the easiest way to get furniture out of the house is onto the deck then through the garage rather than carrying it around a ton of obstacles.

My other idea is to spend $60 and rent a uhaul trailer so i can get it right behind the car in the garage and use my ATV winch to winch it up. I can maneuver a trailer easier than a flatbed will be able to get it positioned right.

Just picked up 2 harbor freight wheel dollys, going to push her into the street tonight if I can’t get my tongue in the corner of my mouth while jiggling and rocking properly with heat and lube. Then I’ll call AAA when the time comes to haul it to the new house, and hope the keys turn up while unpacking.

With all this crap going on I got a meeting invite to go to HR today, and I’m thinking aw **** who did I **** off, am I getting fired, do I need to cancel this house buy, WTF. Promotion. And raise. At least 1 thing went right this month!

Or a new ignition for my LT1...and tires...and a battery Tender...

Pictures won’t work from my phone but I got it to the street. Dollys and a strap behind the Tahoe and a toddler in my lap.

I appreciate the offer and I’ll definitely let you know if AAA gives me crap.