Want my house?

Want my house?

Here is a picture of my house in Omaha.  Would anybody like to live in Nebraska?  It's up for sale.  Here's a link to the MLS listing.  Want a house?

It's actually been on the market for a long time, and I would really, really like to sell it.  Getting it sold would be a huge burden off my back.  It is a really nice house.  I would live in this house for a long time if I could, but I live in Des Moines now, so unfortunately I have no use for it.  There are others that look sort of like it in the neighborhood, but I'm told that mine has better amenities.  It has beautiful wood floors on the main floor, and a beautiful set of built-in bookshelves and fireplace in the basement.  The furnace is brand new!  It was completely replaced in December.  It's in a good part of town, right on the edge of the country but still close enough to downtown.  There's a huge flood control reservoir right nearby.  If you live on the other side of the street, or stand on top of the roof you can see it.

I'm sure somebody at some point is going to suggest just walking away from the house.  I won't do that for two reasons.  First, that is morally and ethically wrong in my book.  Second, I put 20% down on the house.  I also signed up for a 15 year mortgage, so my mortgage principal has significantly gone down while I have owned it.  So, I would take a huge financial hit if I walked away.  As annoying as it is to pay $1,075.99 every month for a nice house that I don't live in anymore, it is what it is for now, and I can't change it.

I'm sure you all don't want to hear about my financial frustrations, so I'll talk about my current living conditions.

I don't like my current apartment complex at all.  I was really hamstrung by the house payment at the time I was looking.  I needed a place that allowed a dog, had an available unit, had a two bedroom or bigger available (I use the second bedroom as storage for all the stuff that was in my house that isn't needed in an apartment), was close to work, was close to a bicycle path so I don't always have to fight against the auto drivers, and most of all - was cheap.

There is a laundry list of problems with this place.

 
1.  Every day in the hallway is a guessing game called "What's That Smell?”  Not once have I gone into the hallway and thought, "This smells nice" or even "I don't smell anything".  Half the time it smells like weed.  The other times it is usually worse.

2. There is constantly trash strewn about in the common areas.  I have lost track of the number of times I have gone outside with my dog and found discarded 40oz. bottles of Corona, or PBR, or Schlitz, or any of a multitude of cheap beers.  There are also at all times at least 3 or 4 bottles worth of broken glass somewhere in the parking lot.

3. Anybody and everybody seems to dump their trash in our trash bin.  The trash gets collected every Thursday, but good luck finding a place for your trash bag on a Wednesday.  I sometimes see people drive right up to it with their cars, get out and unload an entire trunk load of trash.  Even worse are the people that come with a bunch of big stuff in a pickup.  I'm certain that they don't live in the complex because I don't recognize the car.

4. Within the past 4 months I have received 13 24-hour notices of entry from the apartment management company.  Two were for a required city inspection.  I understand those, that's fine.  The part I don't understand is why they wanted to spray for bugs for every one of the other 11.  For each of these times they want me to close up all open food sources, take everything out of my kitchen cabinets and put them in the living room, pull my fridge and stove a foot away from the wall, and remove my dog for several hours during the day.  That's just ridiculous!  The first time this occurred I was freaked out.  I was given only 24 hours notice and a lot of that was wasted until I got home from work.  There was no way I was going to be able to find someone to watch Scooby that quickly.  I put away all open food sources so they wouldn’t get affected by whatever spray was going to be used, but that was it.  If they want all of the cabinets emptied and moved, or the appliances moved, they can do it themselves.  It turns out I wasn’t the only one who thought they were being too demanding.  I talked to a couple neighbors and they said they refused to do those steps as well.

5. I could go on about the little kids in the apartment above me or the windows that keep getting broken from the inside in the apartment next to me, but I’m tired and have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow.


Edit: Click here for the update to this post. House has sold!