The House That Slobs Built

I hate our house.  I mean, I really hate it.  If it were a person, I would punch it in the face.  If I saw this house walking down the street and it waved at me, I would purposely ignore it and then, when it passed by me,  I would whisper loudly to my friend “Ewwwww!! Can you believe she just tried to talk to us? Did you see the siding she was wearing? What a skank!”.  I would make it’s life miserable. If I were the head cheerleader and this house was president of the student council, I would shove her into lockers and tell everyone she still wears training bras. I would publicly shun her and give her horrible self esteem.  I hate this house.

So, I know what you’re thinking. Kel, how can you be so cruel? This nastiness is not like you!  What did that poor little house ever do to you?  Oh, dear readers, you have no idea.  This house is a bitch. She is a mean little witch.  She presses my buttons every chance she can get.  She enjoys making my life miserable. She may look innocent enough, but she’s evil to core, people.  Evil, I tell you.

This house has been a total jerk since the day we moved in.  Granted, we weren’t exactly the most excited pair of new homeowners.  We were kind of miserable actually.  We were not carrying each other over the threshold (Craig said something about it being embarrassing if I dropped him again or something.. whatever.).  We were not boasting to our friends about our new home. We did not have a housewarming party.  We pretty much just threw our few scant belonging in the living room, looked at each other and said, “Meh.. it’ll do for now, I guess.”

We were not in a great position to buy a home. Hubby had just started a brand new career with great potential for growth but quite a minuscule starting salary. He was working a part time second job to help us scrape by.  I, on the other hand, was home with a three year old who never slept and was in the midst of the temper tantrum phase (I liked to call it World War Three Year Old).  On top of that nonsense, I was also working at home 30 hours a week and cleaning houses about 20 hours a week.  We had moved in with my parents 6 months prior in order to save for a new home, and well...I love my parents, but things were not exactly copacetic.  The stress was about to kill us all. We had no money and we had no place to live.  

Enter in the housing boom of 2005. We called a mortgage broke to find out how much money we would need to buy a home. We wanted to start preparing. We did not expect the peppy, twenty year old girl on the other end of the phone to say, “Why, you guys can buy a house right now, silly!”.  Huh? What  was she smoking? WE WERE BROKE!  And they want to give us a house?  Craig and I looked and each other, grinning, and said, “Stupid bastards.”

There were only two houses in my hometown that were in our price range at that moment. Yep, that should tell you something right there.  There were not the beautiful new model homes that had sprung  up on the outskirts of town. Nor were they the handsome 5 bedroom split levels in the great school district. Hell, they weren’t even the cute little 3 bedroom cottages by the river.  They were both two bedroom houses that needed a crapload of work.  We picked the one that was not currently being rented by a bunch of drifters with 8 kids and 3 dogs.  We chose the one that was not in the running for a upcoming spot on Hoarders.

Settlement was a disaster. Of course, this a-hole of a house decided that it needed tons of stuff done to pass inspection. So, what do we smart and savvy home buyers do? We skip the inspection of course! Duh.  That was super smart.

We moved in without a cent in our pockets, let alone our bank account. We didn’t even have beds. Seriously. We slept on air mattresses. We had just enough money to buy a beat up, scratch-n-dent refrigerator. We didn’t have any food to put in it.  

But, we had a house. So, yay!! Right?  Nope. We were depressed. This was not our dream house. This house was, and still is, a nightmare. It needs so much work, it’s overwhelming. And we have not had the money or the expertise to fix anything.  Craig does not know how to do any carpentry and besides, we don’t have the cash to pay for it. This house is in shambles. It’s embarrassing and it sucks.

We need carpeting. We can’t afford it. We would actually prefer hardwood, so imagine our excitement when we pulled up the corner of the carpets and found pretty hardwood!  Then, imagine our disgust and disappointment when we pulled back a little farther and found that the other part of the floor was plywood. We quickly tucked the carpet back down and tried to forget about it until the money fairies come and leave a deposit under our pillows. (Still waiting..)

The basement is musty and it floods. The kitchen needs new flooring. The stove is old and barely works. The cabinets are falling apart. The heater is a temperamental jerk-off that only works when it feels like making the effort. The central air is filthy slut that strains our electric bill and costs us hundreds a month in the summer.  The windows all need to be relpaced. The back deck is decaying at an alarming rate and the driveway needs to be paved.  There is no landscaping and a humongous tree in the backyard looms over the back porch menacingly during every windy storm.

So, you’d think this jackass of a house would eventually give us a break, right? Nope, I told you, she’s a total asshole. Now, it’s the roof.  We have a leak. Or we thought we had a leak. Turns out we need a new roof. I mean, I’m not shocked or anything. We knew we were gonna need a roof soon.  Just not this soon. We were planning on waiting until we refinanced or got some extra money somehow. Well, those freakin’ money fairies must have relocated to the overpriced McMansions on the other side of town, because I haven’t seen those flying morons in years.

We, simply put, don’t have the money to fix it. We are trying to rig it until we can afford to get an entire new roof. I don’t see that happening until at least the spring.  At least.  And even then, it will be crazy tight.  And neither one of us want to put any money into this crapshoot, hell hole of a house.  This is not the house we wanted. This not were we wanted to be.

And before you say it, yes, I know... we are lucky just to have a roof over our heads. But it’s leaking on our heads right now and it’s slowly disintegrating before our eyes. 

 Yes, I’m happy we have a place to live, but I still want to give this house a swift roundhouse kick right in the back porch. And I totally would, if I wasn't so sure it would completely collapse.