Buying a house during the election year was a bad idea. I feel like I am being pulled in every direction, and I spend half the day on the phone arranging things. I hate it.
On the upside, the home owner’s insurance is done, today the chest high weeds in the yard were dealt with and it looks like an actual yard now, and tomorrow, the 30′ dumpster arrives so we can clean out the basement so we can get the plumber in to fix the pipes down there so we can turn the water on so we can start the upstairs cleanup. Woo.
Got my deed in the mail, and that has to go to the safety deposit box. The whole deed thing feels kind anachronistic. I mean, what happens if I lose it? Do I lose my house? Of course not. Ridiculous.
At any rate, here’s a video of Walter:
Dog Dawg Damn
Totally agree. We just closed last week, and this year has been a wild ride. Grandma had the nerve to pass away one week after closing. I’m totally with you though. Having a nervous breakdown while the country is having a nervous breakdown is too much for one to bear.
Major Major Major Major
Walter! Yayyyy. Such a happy dog.
Politically Lost
Anachronistic has to be the mildest description of the absolute ancient clusterfuck that is property law and the recording of deeds.
Mnemosyne
I see Walter is taking his squirrel patrol duties very seriously — can’t risk letting even one of those little bastards getting into the yard.
SiubhanDuinne
Walter! I can go to sleep happy :-)
seaboogie
Walter looks like he has a happy expectation of good things to come; I’m going to go contrary to my own nature and try to take a similar outlook.
Thank you for the late-night Walter post.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: They are bastards, they used to torture our poor Wendy.
burnspbesq
Naah, no worries.
Umm … you did remember to record the deed, did you not?
SgrAstar
Walter is the canine happy pill. Thanks, John and Debit.
Chris T.
You don’t lose the house, no, but you have to pay $30 and wait six weeks to get a copy of the deed from the registrar.
(Unless, that is, they don’t have a copy. Which has occurred with alarming frequency because of the mortgage shenanigans that all collapsed eight years ago. If that happens, you wind up in Legal Limbo.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@burnspbesq:
Does it sing?
divF
@Politically Lost:
Real estate law has its roots in practices that date to the Norman Conquest, so this is no big surprise.
ETA: The Wikipedia entry on the subject has a subsection entitled “Medieval conveyancing”, which pretty much says it all.
divF
Also, too: another vote of thanks for keeping the Walter Chronicles coming.
Frankensteinbeck
I have finished writing another book. It is the gripping story of a four foot tall, hyperactively cheerful superheroine and her best friend, the immortal ten year old child cursed to carry Death’s scythe. Together, they will save the heroes and villains of Los Angeles from taking their battles too seriously. It is called I Did Not Give That Spider Superhuman Intelligence.
Having finished the burrito that will settle my blood sugar, I now collapse into bed. Maybe I can fall asleep before I fall into the hole in my head.
John Revolta
Don’t lose the deed, Cole.
rikyrah
Thanks for the house and Walter updates.?☺?
rikyrah
Oh yeah. ..
Deed=Safety Deposit box
BR
Bill Clinton did a surprisingly good job in his speech in Vegas today.
SectionH
@divF: Yeah, and the fucking practical monopoly that’s Real Estate Agents. They’re all horrible parasites, until you find a good one, and then it’s like OhThankFSM! And no, I still hate the way it works, but I’ve looked at what happens in Australia and in the UK, and those are just as scary.
John, there’s never a good time to buy a house, except, well, when you buy a house and save a life.
opiejeanne
@Frankensteinbeck: Congrats! I will pick it up online.
opiejeanne
@Dog Dawg Damn: Look on the bright side: The house nervous breakdown can distract you from the national nervous breakdown.
TaMara (HFG)
Glad I stayed up for Walter, ended a weird day on a nice note
John, I completely understand, and my home repairs have only been minimal, so I feel for you big guy. I cannot seem to keep all the threads going every day.
Speaking of Big Guys, the beast needs a sister – we cannot do enough playdates to keep him happy. His breeder, who I adore, isn’t breeding any longer and I’m not sure I could raise another puppy. So i spent the last two hours filling out an application at a rescue group that has a beautiful young Dane that has stolen my heart. I will be bummed if she’s already spoken for – glad for her, bummed for me and Bixby.
There is an older girl there that is adorable, but my better sense tells me Bixby would overwhelm her.
Mary G
After almost two years of dicking around with plumbing it’s all done and we’re starting to relandscape the front yard with succulents. We’ve been looking at rocks and I am going to buy a metal sculpture made out of recycled oil drums in Haiti. The lawyer next door who’s only spoken to me once or twice in ten years even said it’s looking great.
Here’s a picture of my inspiration garden. It won’t look as great for years, but that’s what I am shooting for.
So nice to see Walter on patrol! Thanks JC and debit.
Amir Khalid
@BR: ‘
i suspect Bill did a much better job campaigning for Hillary in the primaries than the Bernistas cared to admit. They were ever so quick to magnify and pounce on anything from her camp that they could construe as a gaffe.
MomSense
I fell asleep early and now I’m wide awake. The 6 am walk the dog alarm is not going to be fun. The only upside is finding a Walter video. It looks like his gait has improved.
MomSense
@Mary G:
Gorgeous garden. I hope we will get to see some photos of your work in progress.
Botsplainer
It should be stamped or otherwise notated with the deed book and page number of the recording with your county clerk. As insurance, you might doublecheck that the recording info is accurate.
Patricia Kayden
I’m glad you bought that house since it saved Walter’s life. Nice video.
raven
We did a reverse mortgage and refinanced our rental house this summer. It was a double pain in the ass now we see if it all works like it’l supposed to!
J R in WV
Well, the best thing will be to find good repair guys, ask around about who’s work seems to last.
Kinda sounds like you already have people on tap for much of that. So just don’t worry about it. It is what it is was a saying one of my bosses had, seems to work for me mostly.
House stuff, all houses need rehab from time to time. When was this house you bought built? You might want to look into insulation. I’ve been seeing several inches of foam sheeting applied, with new vinyl siding over that, which should work well – not cheap, but neither is running the HVAC plant…
Lately we’ve entered the time of year when we don’t really run AC or heat very much. Open a couple of windows in the evening, close them in the morning, cool the house overnight. As long as the leaves stay on the trees we don’t gain much heat from the shade. Once the leaves are gone, we do pick up some heat and may run the AC some until things cool off a little more.
We have 6 inches of fiberglass and 4 inches of foam on most of the WV house. The roof is mostly 11 inches of fiberglass. So it holds heat well in the winter.
I have found a shop that does lots of commercial work, but which is happy to do individual homeowner work between commercial obligations. So that works well. They are 24/7, but of course nights and weekends costs more, so we are inclined to let it go until regular hours, so far.
They don’t do well/pump work so much, but I know a local well driller who does. And a guy who does maintenance contracts on home aeration units for septage treatment, where actual septic systems won’t work due to ground conditions. We have a septic system, but it uses a pump to get the fluid up to the dispersal field… nothing is easy.
You can build a house most anywhere, but the more interesting the place you build, the trickier things can get.
Hang in there, feel free to email me for a second opinion if things seem hinky. And don’t worry about it, it will work out OK.
joel hanes
If the title chain for your house ever went through the MERS system, hang onto that paper deed.
Iowa Old Lady
@Frankensteinbeck: You’re really kicking out the words. Sound like a fun story.
Bobby Thomson
The deed just needs to be recorded at the county courthouse or wherever people record those things in West Virginia. It’s not a bearer bond and possession of the physical paper doesn’t mean ownership of the house. That’s like saying people aren’t married if they lose the copy of their marriage license. I’m not sure why you would ever need a copy of it. When it comes time to sell the house, people are going to do a search of the official records, not something from your safe deposit box that could be forged or incomplete.
satby
I feel for you John! I’m waiting now for a plumber to call back to get the main drain to the sewer unblocked, pretty sure that’s what caused the flood night before last. A single toilet flush now causes water to come back up the drain, so I’m not running any that can back up. I’m off today, so I can try to unpack and find more of my stuff, and with luck I should also get internet finally installed.
Being back at a commuter job with long hours is kicking my ass. So everything is behind.
Joy
Awwwww. He looks so happy and content. Thanks for keeping us updated.
Soprano2
I’m glad to see that we’re not the only people who had to get a six foot fence. We have a dog who can jump over a regular chain link fence without a running jump – we think he’s about half greyhound. He didn’t want to run away, he just wanted to go outside the fence. Unfortunately, that’s illegal in the city. We needed to replace the fence anyway, but we hadn’t planned to put in a six footer.
Good to see Walter, BTW. Looks like he’s doing well.
Cole, a house is a hole in the ground that you pour money into. When the contractor tells you something will be done in two weeks, don’t believe it. Or, you could just watch “The Money Pit”. LOL
philadelphialawyer
@Bobby Thomson: Yeah, I’m not seeing the problem here. The deed is like a receipt, or the title to a car, or even a marriage license or adoption papers, or, dare I say, a birth certificate. Why is having it a negative, rather than a positive? It is evidence of the legal status at issue, in this case ownership of real property, but, if lost, it can be replaced. Most people, I would think, are happy to have it. Particularly for the first house they own.
I think Cole is kinda of a weird property owner. :)
Nice Walter video, though!
Bobbo
I for one would welcome the distraction of a new house during this waking nightmare of an election
Barbara
@Chris T.: There is a process to get out of legal limbo — my father in law was a trust and estate attorney who had to deal innumerable times with property where the record of ownership was lost to history. It’s called an action to quiet title. But yeah, it would be a good idea not to lose the deed (and for heaven’s sake, make several copies that you keep with you). We actually have multiple originals of things like deeds and birth certificates that we keep in a little fireproof safe in our basement. It just saves us hassle when we need them.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Had a golden growing up who could jump a 5 1/2 foot block fence standing next to it. We wondered how she was getting out until I saw her do this one day. Up and over like it was nothing.
bluefish
Nice to see Walter walking around with greater ease. Sweet to see him respond to his name too. He looks great! Walter calms me down and makes me happy. More Walter, please, whenever possible.
SWMBO
Lovely video of Walter.
In trying to decide about contractors, ask the local building inspectors. They will know who works to code and who cuts corners. You want everything done by the book so you don’t have to redo it. My aunts are living in a house that sustained hail damage to the roof. They replaced the roof but the guy didn’t permit it or something. Four years down the road, the roof has leaked into a wall and they are doing mold abatement among other things. THIS time they are calling the inspectors out themselves and making sure everything is up to code. Once burned forever learned. The inspectors know these clowns better than most (except maybe your dad. Didn’t you say he was a handyman at this sort of things?)
Also, how are the piglets?
CONGRATULATIONS!
Even if that house falls into a pile of matchsticks and mud (which it won’t) I’d just look at it this way: you saved a dog from one of the cruelest deaths I can possibly imagine, so even if the house is a write off, wasn’t it worth it anyway? I think so.
But that house looks pretty solid. Might have me looking in your ‘hood for foreclosures. I gotta retire someplace cheap.
Singing Truth to Power
Walter’s new situation looks like dog heaven, especially compared to our first view of him. What a difference1
Kelly
An actual paper deed? Never had one here in Oregon. When vetting the repair folks make sure they’ve done the kind of work you’re asking for. My Mom had her roof replaced by a guy that did very good reasonably priced interior and trim work. The roof leaked and she eventually had half of tore off and redone by a real roofing contractor.
Pinacacci
Oh he looks so happy! Good on yas
opiejeanne
@Mary G: That’s beautiful!
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I am shocked at how gorgeous that garden is. Wow. I had no idea that was even possible.
opiejeanne
@Soprano2: No, not the Money Pit! We watched that in 1984 when we had not quite closed escrow on a big house built in 1912, and had to pause and go for a walk at the point where the tub falls through the floor. Our house turned out to not be a money pit, mainly because there had not been too much screwing around with it over the years. It was a great house for parties and for raising kids. I still miss that house.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: Where she lives it’s very doable. Not so much where I live. I do have some succulents but not like that. A nursery had a lot of them die in their landscaping last winter when we got no snow but it hit 20 degrees and stayed there for about 10 days. We lost some perennials that would have been fine with snow.
skyweaver
Walter! There he is! Hi, boy! And his new friend, Ellie. What a great way to end my Thursday, thanks for posting this.