Endings and Beginnings - and the Chaos that rules the spaces between them
There is a very wise saying that goes, "Whenever you want to make God/The Universe/Whatever laugh, make plans."
Well...
Setting the scene:
For a very long time, I have been very happy living in the house that my parents bought 59 years ago this August - to the point that I've said I don't know how many hundreds of times, "They're gonna have to carry me out of this place in a box." Little did I know it, however, but The Universe/Whatever has been laughing up its sleeve at me for a while; and only now am I entering that chaotic space between leaving the house I grew up in and raised my kids in, and the mobile home that I'm in the process of buying that will house me and my son JJ from now on.
The home I've known for more than 2/3s of my life is over 100 yrs old, with a total of 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms, 1 dining room, a fireplace (it is a 4br, 1bath house with an attached 1br, 1bath apartment) - sitting smack dab in the middle of a "double-wide, double-deep" lot that includes 2 orange trees, a lemon tree, a 100 yr old Concord grape arbor, a 50+ yr old magnolia tree in the front yard surrounded by a 75 yr old hedge, and a driveway lined with mature avocado trees that rain fruit very liberally on us in season (like right now - have had over 10 ripe/nearly ripe dumped on my counter in the last week alone. No, I'm not complaining; I gladly share them with my friends.) They bought the house when the area was quite depressed from the ending of construction of a nearby military base, when the larger town to the south of us stood nearly 50% empty with all the houses that had been literally abandoned as the jobs there evaporated. The price they paid back for this place in the mid-60's wouldn't even buy a barely-running used car today - that's how bad the economy here was then. The infamous Prop 13 has kept the property taxes here from going through the roof literally and figuratively because the property never sold and thus was never reassessed, to the point that it's almost embarrassing how *little* I pay each year as a result.
My folks bought this place fully - and I *do* mean *FULLY* furnished: bedroom sets, dining table with chairs, sofa and reclining chairs, kitchen & laundry appliances, bookcases, the lot. You should have seen the maze that necessarily existed between the boxes of our stuff fresh from Minnesota and the furnishings that were already fully populating the house; we darned near needed a road map to get from the front door to the kitchen in the back. I still have some of those furnishings as they were too nice to just dump: my pedestal dining table, a lovely carved oval table (Hubby stripped and completely refinished it), and the vanity of an Art Noveau bedroom set that desperately needs refinishing now.
Time passes, as it tends to do...
Over the decades, my folks added two large bedrooms to make the house more fully square by removing an old bay laurel tree and the goldfish pond at its feet, and then shifted a room from the "main" part of the house to serve as kitchen to the apartment when I was pregnant with twins and they were tired of being two old folks in a VERY big house (Mom called it being "two farts in a lantern.") Then came the roughly 20 years of this house holding seven people (4 adults and 3 growing children) followed by years of first one and then the next leaving our number for one reason or another (including my parents eventually passing away about 16 years ago and younger twin moving out to be with his (now her) wife in OR.) Still, that left my hubby, me, disabled son and manicurist daughter still in residence - daughter took over my parents' old apartment and remodelled it very nicely.
Time continued to pass... Funny how that process never ends...
I lost my husband 4 years ago, which punched a HUGE hole in my world. Daughter Súl took in someone who started out as a stray - a lovely and quite shy young man who'd been chucked out the door by his parents for the most idiotic of reasons after a lifetime of serious emotional and psychological abuse of someone "on the spectrum" - who is now her fiance/unofficial hubby of 4 years as of next month. Youngest twin came out as first gay, then bi, and then trans during the years bouncing between OR and WA; separated from wife for a few years while she (younger trans twin) figured stuff out and then, 2 yrs ago, reunited with her still-wife back here in CA.
But, like I say, the Universe has been laughing at me. Unknown to me all this time, we've had a case of toxic mold start up and gain a solid foothold (20 years of leaky roof tends to do that, it seems.) We also learned, during Súl's remodelling, that some of her flooring was asbestos tile - which she decided to just cover up with a form of concrete used to level the floor and then covered again with laminate flooring. Lately we've had serious sewer issues that, we now know, will require our entire lateral line to be replaced (tearing out a concrete threshold and approximately 20 feet of ancient hedge.) And to top it off, Súl's fiance didn't grow up in the gradually worsening mold environment, and as a result has had health issues because of it that necessitate the two of them either seeing it fixed (a VERY expensive proposition) or moving.
Now, I knew deep down that I existed in a proverbial house of cards, I really did. But Súl and Galadon's decision to buy a condo and move out was that last card that brings the whole thing tumbling down at last. This house is simply too much for me to maintain properly with my own medical issues, and the landscaping is a massive job that neither JJ nor Galadon (both physically disabled) can keep on top of. Worse: there isn't the possibility of getting a loan large enough to handle the reconstruction/repairs needed, and I couldn't afford the repayments either on a fixed Social Security income.
So I've had to sell the place and find somewhere new - and much smaller and easier to maintain - to live with JJ from now on. This place has been sold "as is" - probably more a case of the value being in the actual land and not so much in the house itself - and the proceeds will be split properly between me and my brother as heirs. And as of this morning, I have that new place to hang my hat, as the sellers of a cute double-wide mobile home in a nearby town have accepted my offer. So now comes the process of undoing 59 years of living in one place with a family of near-hoarders (JJ *IS* a hoarder, something I have to fight against constantly; my parents both were as well to a lesser extent - and, truth be told, I tell myself I'm a "collector", but I suppose I have some tendencies myself.)
Now I'm in that not-so-nice chaotic space between ending one era of my life in a house that sheltered 3 generations of my family and beginning a new era in a much smaller space with less inherited "junk" and stuff around me (and a place much easier to keep clean!!) I'm dealing with two cash escrows, all the various documentations and declarations and disclosures - altho' on that final point I was quite up front and very public about the problems of this house when my buyers first expressed interest, as I refuse to sell anyone a "pig in a poke" when there are THAT many *H*U*G*E* issues. To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me at all in the end to see this house bulldozed and a new one built - maybe two, as this lot is big enough to fit 2 houses easily without losing too much of the fruit-bearing plants.
And yesterday, in the mail, as if to poke me in the ribs just to see me jump, I got a jury summons with the beginning date right smack dab in the middle of when my biggest push to clean out/get rid of/estate sale/start moving out will need to be in process. In a fit of extreme insomnia, I spent time applying for a postponement/dismissal; I can only hope they hear how hard it would be to have to try to concentrate on a court case while I have that many imminent and urgent personal matters that need immediate attention. But wouldn't you know it that the Universe just had to make sure there was at least one other bump in my current bumpy road to a new life.
I'm ready for this mess to be over & done with, and I dread the stress and complexities of getting from point A to point B. But the end is worth is, so I shall endure - not that I have any real choice in the matter, right? :-p
If you've stuck with me to this point - or even if you skipped the cut entirely - please keep your fingers crossed for me that all goes smoothly, that I don't have to sit in a jury box (yet), and that I am nicely settle into a lovely little home by the end of summer or beginning of autumn.
Well...
Setting the scene:
For a very long time, I have been very happy living in the house that my parents bought 59 years ago this August - to the point that I've said I don't know how many hundreds of times, "They're gonna have to carry me out of this place in a box." Little did I know it, however, but The Universe/Whatever has been laughing up its sleeve at me for a while; and only now am I entering that chaotic space between leaving the house I grew up in and raised my kids in, and the mobile home that I'm in the process of buying that will house me and my son JJ from now on.
The home I've known for more than 2/3s of my life is over 100 yrs old, with a total of 5 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 kitchens, 2 living rooms, 1 dining room, a fireplace (it is a 4br, 1bath house with an attached 1br, 1bath apartment) - sitting smack dab in the middle of a "double-wide, double-deep" lot that includes 2 orange trees, a lemon tree, a 100 yr old Concord grape arbor, a 50+ yr old magnolia tree in the front yard surrounded by a 75 yr old hedge, and a driveway lined with mature avocado trees that rain fruit very liberally on us in season (like right now - have had over 10 ripe/nearly ripe dumped on my counter in the last week alone. No, I'm not complaining; I gladly share them with my friends.) They bought the house when the area was quite depressed from the ending of construction of a nearby military base, when the larger town to the south of us stood nearly 50% empty with all the houses that had been literally abandoned as the jobs there evaporated. The price they paid back for this place in the mid-60's wouldn't even buy a barely-running used car today - that's how bad the economy here was then. The infamous Prop 13 has kept the property taxes here from going through the roof literally and figuratively because the property never sold and thus was never reassessed, to the point that it's almost embarrassing how *little* I pay each year as a result.
My folks bought this place fully - and I *do* mean *FULLY* furnished: bedroom sets, dining table with chairs, sofa and reclining chairs, kitchen & laundry appliances, bookcases, the lot. You should have seen the maze that necessarily existed between the boxes of our stuff fresh from Minnesota and the furnishings that were already fully populating the house; we darned near needed a road map to get from the front door to the kitchen in the back. I still have some of those furnishings as they were too nice to just dump: my pedestal dining table, a lovely carved oval table (Hubby stripped and completely refinished it), and the vanity of an Art Noveau bedroom set that desperately needs refinishing now.
Time passes, as it tends to do...
Over the decades, my folks added two large bedrooms to make the house more fully square by removing an old bay laurel tree and the goldfish pond at its feet, and then shifted a room from the "main" part of the house to serve as kitchen to the apartment when I was pregnant with twins and they were tired of being two old folks in a VERY big house (Mom called it being "two farts in a lantern.") Then came the roughly 20 years of this house holding seven people (4 adults and 3 growing children) followed by years of first one and then the next leaving our number for one reason or another (including my parents eventually passing away about 16 years ago and younger twin moving out to be with his (now her) wife in OR.) Still, that left my hubby, me, disabled son and manicurist daughter still in residence - daughter took over my parents' old apartment and remodelled it very nicely.
Time continued to pass... Funny how that process never ends...
I lost my husband 4 years ago, which punched a HUGE hole in my world. Daughter Súl took in someone who started out as a stray - a lovely and quite shy young man who'd been chucked out the door by his parents for the most idiotic of reasons after a lifetime of serious emotional and psychological abuse of someone "on the spectrum" - who is now her fiance/unofficial hubby of 4 years as of next month. Youngest twin came out as first gay, then bi, and then trans during the years bouncing between OR and WA; separated from wife for a few years while she (younger trans twin) figured stuff out and then, 2 yrs ago, reunited with her still-wife back here in CA.
But, like I say, the Universe has been laughing at me. Unknown to me all this time, we've had a case of toxic mold start up and gain a solid foothold (20 years of leaky roof tends to do that, it seems.) We also learned, during Súl's remodelling, that some of her flooring was asbestos tile - which she decided to just cover up with a form of concrete used to level the floor and then covered again with laminate flooring. Lately we've had serious sewer issues that, we now know, will require our entire lateral line to be replaced (tearing out a concrete threshold and approximately 20 feet of ancient hedge.) And to top it off, Súl's fiance didn't grow up in the gradually worsening mold environment, and as a result has had health issues because of it that necessitate the two of them either seeing it fixed (a VERY expensive proposition) or moving.
Now, I knew deep down that I existed in a proverbial house of cards, I really did. But Súl and Galadon's decision to buy a condo and move out was that last card that brings the whole thing tumbling down at last. This house is simply too much for me to maintain properly with my own medical issues, and the landscaping is a massive job that neither JJ nor Galadon (both physically disabled) can keep on top of. Worse: there isn't the possibility of getting a loan large enough to handle the reconstruction/repairs needed, and I couldn't afford the repayments either on a fixed Social Security income.
So I've had to sell the place and find somewhere new - and much smaller and easier to maintain - to live with JJ from now on. This place has been sold "as is" - probably more a case of the value being in the actual land and not so much in the house itself - and the proceeds will be split properly between me and my brother as heirs. And as of this morning, I have that new place to hang my hat, as the sellers of a cute double-wide mobile home in a nearby town have accepted my offer. So now comes the process of undoing 59 years of living in one place with a family of near-hoarders (JJ *IS* a hoarder, something I have to fight against constantly; my parents both were as well to a lesser extent - and, truth be told, I tell myself I'm a "collector", but I suppose I have some tendencies myself.)
Now I'm in that not-so-nice chaotic space between ending one era of my life in a house that sheltered 3 generations of my family and beginning a new era in a much smaller space with less inherited "junk" and stuff around me (and a place much easier to keep clean!!) I'm dealing with two cash escrows, all the various documentations and declarations and disclosures - altho' on that final point I was quite up front and very public about the problems of this house when my buyers first expressed interest, as I refuse to sell anyone a "pig in a poke" when there are THAT many *H*U*G*E* issues. To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me at all in the end to see this house bulldozed and a new one built - maybe two, as this lot is big enough to fit 2 houses easily without losing too much of the fruit-bearing plants.
And yesterday, in the mail, as if to poke me in the ribs just to see me jump, I got a jury summons with the beginning date right smack dab in the middle of when my biggest push to clean out/get rid of/estate sale/start moving out will need to be in process. In a fit of extreme insomnia, I spent time applying for a postponement/dismissal; I can only hope they hear how hard it would be to have to try to concentrate on a court case while I have that many imminent and urgent personal matters that need immediate attention. But wouldn't you know it that the Universe just had to make sure there was at least one other bump in my current bumpy road to a new life.
I'm ready for this mess to be over & done with, and I dread the stress and complexities of getting from point A to point B. But the end is worth is, so I shall endure - not that I have any real choice in the matter, right? :-p
If you've stuck with me to this point - or even if you skipped the cut entirely - please keep your fingers crossed for me that all goes smoothly, that I don't have to sit in a jury box (yet), and that I am nicely settle into a lovely little home by the end of summer or beginning of autumn.