No Place Like Home

My son and his wife moved into their new house last week.

Yes, my son is now one of us: those with a mortgage.  So, in a little while, he'll have something else: equity.  Even though there are positives to living a rental life:  you don't have to make the repairs yourself and if you live in an apartment you don't have to mow a yard, it doesn't beat having equity.

My wife and I lived in an apartment for three years.  I loved it. Didn't mow a yard once in that time. However, the apartment was flooded, twice.

There were the occasional loud parties. And my upstairs neighbors.

We lived on the ground floor and the neighbors on the second floor were newlyweds like we were.

Around two o'clock in the morning, usually on a Saturday or a Sunday, we would hear "Thud. Thud. Thud, Thud. Thud. THUDTHUDTHUD" followed by a giggle. Ah, young love.

Being the wise man I am, of course my son sought my advice when buying a house. I told him, "Never buy a house that has a mechanic's lien on it".  It is advice like that gets me the cool Father's Day presents.

When my wife and I bought our first home, it was in a subdivision being built by a builder that had hair like a professional surfer.  It was blonde and kind of shaggy.  That was my second bit of advice to my son:  Never buy a house from a builder that has blonde, shaggy hair.  I really should write a book about it.

We met him at the closing and we gave him the list of items we noticed for the "punch list". That is, things around the house that need to be completed or corrected. By law, the builder is responsible for corrections made on a newly built house.

One of the corrections on the punch list was on the walkway from the driveway to the front porch. It had a size 11 footprint in the concrete.*  Yes, I know, picky, picky, picky.

About a week or so after we moved in, the shelf in the closet of our bedroom fell because it was not screwed into studs, but simply screwed into the sheetrock.  I called the subdivision's superintendent and asked him to go and fix it.  I must say he did. That was the only thing he fixed.

Two weeks later, the builder declared bankruptcy and skipped town. He took the superintendent, who seemed like a well-meaning guy and the superintendent's sorry son-in-law who keyed my car (I asked him when they were going to fix something).  This winner was also a Peeping Tom that saw our next door neighbor's wife naked.

The hits just kept coming at that place.  We bought a corner lot and put the mailbox next to the driveway, which was another street, not the actual address street.  No mail.  Finally, I had to call the post office and spoke to the Post Master.

The Post Master said it was against the law to deliver the mail in the mailbox at my driveway. The mailbox would have to be moved to in front of the house for it to be legal.  I am not making this up.

I told the PostMaster that I lived at 460 Holt Road in Marietta, Georgia for 9 years and our mailbox was on Beckwith Trail.  The PostMaster said that my parents and their mailbox were in violation of the law.

If you can believe it, this conversation ended with both of us screaming at each other. The Post Master said, again, this is the truth because I am not making any of this up, the fire department would not be able to find my house in case of a fire if my mailbox stayed by my driveway.  I replied, in a loud voice, that I thought the flames shooting out of my house would be a big enough clue.

I moved the mailbox.

Which means the mail was finally delivered and then came the cherry on top of this new homeowners dessert nightmare: a mechanic's lien.

When builders skipped town, they don't pay their subcontractors. The subcontractors are forced to hire an attorney to slap liens on the houses in the subdivision that the builder didn't pay. The idea is to somehow pressure the builder (or somebody) to pay the subcontractors because nobody will buy a house that has a lien on it.

My mom was still alive back then and I told her about the mechanic's lien. She said, "Alan, how many times have I told you not to buy a house that has a mechanic's lien on it.?!"   Being the loving son, I said, "None" and then Mom insisted that she told me in some great real estate seminar that she taught one day when we went to Burger Chef to pick up lunch.

When we closed on the house, the house was free and clear of liens, which meant that the liens were exhausted.  So, the builder kept his money. The subcontractor didn't get any money. I got a lot of hassle and had to prove the house was free and clear of liens when we closed. Plus, I got a free real estate seminar from my mom.  The only person who got paid was the subcontractor's attorney.  Funny how that works out that way.

Eight years later we sold that house.  A few weeks after we moved, we went back to see one of our old neighbors.

The guy we sold the house to moved the mailbox to right beside the driveway.

I pray there is never a fire.

*This may come as a big surprise, but that footprint was still there when we moved from the house. It was a great conversation piece.