Just when you thought it was over

This just in, the basement at the old house flooded with the torrent of rain we had last week.

Naturally I get a call from Rob: the buyers agent for our old house called and they want us to pay for repairs to ensure that the basement doesn't get wet again!

They are getting a mold analysis today and they already have a quote to fix the sidewalk $930!

So the good news is that Rob and his lawyer don't thing we are liable as that area of the house was never wet while we lived there. We also disclosed when the basement did get wet while we lived there, so what would our motivation have been to hide an alleged wet basement...

Just another chapter in a book we thought we had finished.

Old House is Sold

Well our old house is officially out of our hands now. We closed last Friday, went pretty smoothly except that our realtor didn't show up, didn't call us to let us know he wouldn't be there and didn't get us the settlement statement before hand.

Jen called him today, here is what he said:

• Guys I was at a family reunion, I sent Shelly in my place. She said no one asked about me. Fact is that we definitely asked about him, we made fun of him for probably about 10 minutes, with the other realtor... She might have been there, we weren't sure. There was a woman there that we thought was from the bank, because she didn't introduce herself and defend Rob at all.
  
• Sorry guys I forgot to call...
• Guys the settlement statement should be given to you by the title company... Maybe, I don't know. But the woman who was there said that our realtor should have given it to us...
• Bonus point, he said he would charge us 4.75% commission. But had to write it up as 5% for Keller Williams. Of course talking with him today, no guys that was only if I sold the house by myself... However, he also told us that he would not do that because of the conflict of interest.

So anyways, we won't be using him again. It is too bad, because he is a really nice guy and good at drawing houses. But clearly, we can't tolerate him lying to us.

We ended up paying the 5% ($10,000) for realtor commissions, then about 1700 in other bullshit fees that get piled on.

Also, we had to go recover the old fridge, the buyers didn't want that... Anyone interested in an old fridge?

We have ants!

So big bummer, we have ant problems. Jen has been seeing quite a few of them recently. I would say I kill a random ant about 4 times a day... Jen said she found about 10 in the garage bag in the kitchen yesterday (she decided we could use a new one...).

I sprayed the perimeter of the house with some home protect stuff (will check the brand later) on Friday, hopefully that will help.

Pull-up Bar

The homemade pull-up bar I constructed. 1/2 inch vertical pipes, and a 3/4 inch horizontal bar. Couldn't find a 3/4 inch flange to attach to the joist. Also, I am not sure the larger flange would have fit on the joist.

I attached some 2x4's to the webbing to hopefully add some support to the flange screws. I don't have any concerns about the vertical force on the joists, but I am a bit concerned with lateral movements.

It has worked really well for the sets I have done so far. If it ever feels unsecured, I figure I can put blocking between the joists. Total cost was about $35.

[rebates] IPod, Activa

Apparently there is a class action against Apple for the 1st gen nano's. Because the scratch... Jen and I both have one, and they are scratch, so why not. The rebate amount depends on the number of participants, so it is variable.

Sent in a rebate for Activa, it will reimburse the cost of the product, so we picked up a pack and sent in the rebate. 6.99

Long lost update

So needless to say it has been awhile. Jen and I have had a busy life the last couple weeks. We introduced our new son, Nicholas, into the world and finished moving into the house.

Our folks have been over numerous times, we planted seed on the hillsides around the house to slow erosion. Then of course it didn't rain for 2 weeks... But it finally is today, hurray!

Today I am finally running some Cat5 to the bedroom, so the internet isn't so slow. I can now just remote desktop to my PC and work from there.

Concrete problems

Looks like Lighthouse is going to have to come out and do some work... Like jack hammering up all the surface concrete they poured. I just hope it doesn't look like that under the garage floor. We haven't even started driving on the apron or garage floor yet, but I suspect they would crack pretty badly if we did...

Would love any advise people would have on alternatives and if they would be sufficient or not. I am sure LH will try to fix this as cheaply as possible. Or maybe it will be the responsibility of the sub that poured the concrete. Not sure.