Kyle Comes Calling

Hurricane Kyle has come and gone. The most damage it did in our neighbourhood was to knock over one of the porta-potties that the snowmobile racing people left in the field down the road. Ewwww...

I guess there were some trees down and some minor flooding along the southern coast of the province, and a bunch of people are without power, but Kyle mostly behaved himself.


In other news, sighs of relief will be heard throughout the country tomorrow when the telemarketing Do-Not-Call List takes effect. Now this is something I can really get behind - I mean, who actually WANTS telemarketers to call? Well, I guess there's my friend Martin, who seems to have a talent for making friends with telemarketers. Once he answered the phone in my house and ended up with the personal home address of a girl in the Bahamas. I am taking creative license because this conversation took place a few years ago, but it went thusly:

TELEMARKETER: Good afternoon sir, I'd like to tell you about my product that blah blah blah....

MARTIN (interrupting): What's your name?

T: My name is Amy. Our product is something you can't live without because blah blah blah...

M: Where are you from?

(telemarketer keeps talking, ignores question, Martin repeats it.)

T: ...uh, Bahamas. Our product-

M: What's the weather like there right now? It's sunny here.

T: It's very nice here today sir.

M: I've never been there. Do you guys get winter?

That was it. She didn't stand a chance. They chatted for a while about this and that, and Martin asked her for her address so he could send her a postcard. I don't think he ever ended up writing to her, but I'd like to think that he brightened her day. I admire his utter enjoyment of other human beings - I never have the patience to try and crack the shell like I've seen him do with strangers.

ANYWAY. Do-Not-Call list for Canada. Go to their website or call 1-866-580-3625 to sign up starting September 30.

Underwhelming

There's a field down the road that we walk past every day with the dogs. It's an empty field that I've never seen a sign of human life at - until this week.

Early in the week, mowers came out and mowed it until it looked spiffy. A few days later a little hut on wheels appeared in the middle of the field. A day after that, men in pickup trucks brought three or four more little huts, and some bright orange temporary fencing that they put up all over the place.

After all that work, the field was ready to do its duty. Today, a great many country folk showed up towing trailers full of snowmobiles!! Some sort of non-snow snowmobile race took place, and you can bet we went and gawked for a while. There were a lot of gawkers - tons of people were buzzing around the general area on ATVs, bicycles, and horses. I noticed this teensy tiny ATV beside one of the snowmobiles - cute, huh?


It was actually not quite as much fun as I had hoped - I mean, people racing snowmobiles without any snow? That has a lot of potential in my books. But nobody crashed or got drunk and rowdy, alas. If you find it exciting to watch snowmobiles rip up grass and dirt for approximately ten seconds per race, well, that was all that happened.


I got some pictures anyway.

A Fell Wind

So word around the neighbourhood is that the tropical storm/hurricane we are expecting this weekend might be worse than Hurricane Juan was a few years back. (Non-Nova Scotians: Juan decimated parts of the province, ripping up roads, smashing cars with trees, and destroying large sections of the waterfront.)

But... I find it extremely hard to take a hurricane seriously when it's named KYLE. It's like, it should be teaching the other hurricanes to play tennis or re-decorating their houses for them. Oh Kyle, with your peppy back-hand and your instinctive sense of style, please don't tip over my travel trailer!

Kyle.

Sheesh.

So anyway, Tropical Storm Kyle, or possibly Hurricane Kyle by the time it gets here, is coming to visit. I don't really care because I can't possibly take it seriously. Am I the only one that feels this way?

a year of living

Sitting here on a crisp fall day, staring at a corn field in rural Nova Scotia, I'm thinking about North America. We left BC seven months ago now and the only thing I miss are a few special people. (Okay, and maybe Sabri. And Fujiya. And the SPCA, and the easy access to Tofino. But that's it.)

Six months ago I was in Mexico.


A year ago I was in the Yukon.


In between, I've seen the Mojave Desert, the Rocky Mountains, two oceans, the Sea of Cortes, and the Gulf of Mexico. I've floated in the bayou in a rainstorm and hunkered in my travel trailer in a sandstorm.

North America's pretty big.

The Halloween House

We had another weekend full of real estate adventures. There were three, count 'em, THREE houses on our list that the owners were reluctant to actually have people look at.

The people that owned the first place said they were in the middle of renovations, so it would be a mess, and they seemed uncomfortable with the fact that someone wanted to look at it. It WAS a mess, but I think the reason they really didn't want us to look at it was the fact that they had not finished framing over top of the six foot wide pool of water in the basement.


Some poor sucker is going to buy this place after the water is hidden under plywood, and man will they get a shock two years from now when their basement flooring either collapses or grows mold.

The second place that nobody wanted us to look at is, like the first place, an active listing on the market, and yet when we called to book a viewing, they said they'd rather not show it to us as there are currently "title issues" and the place cannot be sold until the issues are resolved. Is it just me, or is it stupid to keep a house that cannot be sold on the market?

The third place had a complicated story. The listing agent was out of town and the agent covering for him neither picked up his phone nor answered messages for three days. Our real estate agent finally called the listing office instead and reached a real person. A "duty agent", who knew nothing about the property, agreed to take us out to see it. Then he called back saying he couldn't reach the tenants to ask permission to show it. Then he called us back again and said the tenants moved out, but they trashed it, and the owners (who live in Minnesota) don't want us to see it because it's messy and hasn't been cleaned yet. They wanted to know if I could wait until after the following weekend so that the property management company could come in and clean it first. I said I didn't care about the mess. He called us back again to say that he didn't have a key but the owners told him how to break in. This all seemed very complicated, and I sort of wondered why nobody was prepared to show us a house that was for sale.

So we went to see it. "Tenants trashed it" was not an accurate description. Yes, there were three old refrigerators and other assorted trash in the yard. Yes, there was garbage and rubble scattered on the floor in the house. But in addition, the roof was sagging and rotting off, all the windows were rotting out of their frames, and an entire kitchen had been emptied of appliances, cabinets, walls, everything. Some rooms did not even have drywall on the walls, and we had to view the place with the aid of a flashlight because there was no power. There was cat poo in the closets and every five feet of the (very uneven) floor had a different type of ratty old linoleum on it, except for the parts that had exposed sub-floor with nothing on top. Stains on the walls indicated where rain had poured into the house through the rotten roof. I wondered why the owners were so concerned with having it cleaned up. The house obviously has to be torn down, and sweeping rubble out of a room would take care of probably 5% of the problems. The duty agent was of the opinion that the place should be for sale for less than half the current asking price.

What a waste of time! Did these people think that nobody would notice the horrible condition the house was in? I was actually surprised that someone apparently lived in the place until recently.

Then there was the place that Mark called "the doll house". It had tiny little hallways, even tinier little bedrooms, low and claustrophobic ceilings, and no room in the kitchen for a full-sized fridge or stove. We were investigating the living room when our real estate agent tried to crank open the window. The handle came off in her hand. She looked at Mark and deadpanned: "you didn't see that", then smirked. I don't think she was impressed with the place.

In the basement we found pools of water. Again. I should mention here that it wasn't raining that day. We were all standing quietly in the basement when we heard a funny burbley sound. We located the source, and it seems that water is welling into the basement from underground. Maybe the house is sitting on a spring? I don't know. Maybe that could be a selling feature: "work from home! Bottle and sell your very own line of spring water!"

Okay then. That was the bad stuff. Are you ready to hear the good stuff?

We actually did find a place to buy! It's not rotten, there are no title issues, and the basement is dry dry dry! It's a modest little place in the valley that backs onto hiking trails and a river. It's been well kept and lots of upgrades have taken place recently. There are a few obvious renovations we could undertake to increase the value of the house for when it's time for us to sell it, but there's nothing that needs attention immediately, so we're not under any pressure.

The funny thing is, this place is not even on the market. So let's recap: we have trouble viewing places that ARE on the market, but no trouble viewing a place that ISN'T on the market. The agent knows the owner, and the owner told her that if she could find her a buyer, she'd sell it. She's had a stroke recently and can no longer maintain the house and yard. If everything works out, our closing date will be October 31st - a house for Halloween!


Will it work? Stay tuned...

Think Happy Thoughts

I'm actually kind of getting excited about looking at a bunch of properties on the weekend. I guess I'm a sucker for punishment. We're gonna look at cheap places in the valley (hopefully) and then some cheap places near Bridgewater (hopefully). We will hopefully see most of the ones we have requested to see, and then we will hopefully like one and put in an offer that will hopefully be accepted. Then, hopefully, the deal will not be cruelly crushed like our previous deals, and if all goes well we will move into our house and I will be able to put my clothes in drawers instead of boxes and suitcases. I am hopeful that it will all work out exactly as I've spelled it out above.

Stop laughing.

Anyway, Mark went to see the Lagwagon concert in "the city" (remember that phrase?) tonight and I did not. Instead, I spent part of my day snarkily filling out a "did we help ya good?" questionnaire from Nova Scotia Health, who sent us the questionnaire in a package with our applications for health cards, which we never would have needed if they had not LOST THE FIRST ONES WE SENT IN. The questionnaire that I returned to them was not positive. It didn't take very long to re-fill out all the paperwork but I've been kind of annoyed about it all day, which is annoying in and of itself.

Anyway, wish us luck with our search for a home. I mean, how many times could it possibly go wrong before it goes right??

I am thinking happy thoughts!

Julie's new wheels

By popular demand, here is a picture of Julie and her new (well, not that new anymore) car. The car has been dubbed "Aunt Pinky" for obvious reasons.


You may also recognize the Boler behind her, our trusty truck in the background, and for a few special readers, you may even remember the Mercedes we used to have in the top centre. It now belongs to Julie's dad.

Fat Chance

The results of Tropical Storm Hanna:


Some people have started joking that I should become a real estate agent and find us a place to live. With the luck we've had so far I can only imagine the sheer frustration that would occur on a daily basis. Real estate deals would wither in my hands. Houses would crumble. Clients would get lost on lonely country roads trying to view places, never to be seen again. Hah!

We didn't manage to see any places this weekend. We had a list of five. One turned out not to be structurally sound. The second had a deal pending. The agent couldn't get ahold of the contact for the third place. The fourth? Well, we could view the fourth, but it was the only one, and was one that we didn't especially love. The fifth, which was our favourite on the list, had an interesting story. The owners had been renovating in preparation to sell, and the husband decided that, now that the renovations were getting completed, that he liked the place and no longer wanted to sell it. He and his wife are now fighting over whether to sell or stay.

In light of the fact that we could view exactly one place, that was low on our list of priorities and three hours away, possibly during a hurricane, we opted to stay home, regroup, and try again next weekend with a new list.

indecision

We've officially re-started our house hunt and went to see a cheap little house on 12 acres near the village of Oxford - blueberry capital of Nova Scotia!


The place was cluttered with junk, knick-knacks, garbage, and other refuse. This is the second place we've seen that has exposed sub-floor on the second floor. Wood paneling adorned many a wall, and the master bedroom boasted pink paint with a flowered wallpaper border. That's all easily fixed though - the real problems are the leaking roof and the 60-amp power.


I am torn. We knew that since the place was cheap it wouldn't be perfect. We are deliberately looking at cheap places, as a matter of fact. But is it good enough? We love the fact that it's 12 acres and borders on a beautiful river in a serene farming community. But the point is to buy a place we can re-sell again, and this place is nowhere near any sizable towns.


There's lots and lots to fix up, but once we sink money into fixing it, will we ever be able to sell it in the future once we build our perfect place?

...

or should we stick to our self-imposed rules?

Eeek!

We had a quiet drive home and then discussed the matter. And by discussing it, I really mean that we sat there silently, and every now and again one of us would say "Idunno, what do you think?" and then we'd stare at each other blankly.

We've decided that we need to look at a few more places in one of our "target" areas - the Annapolis Valley. If all goes well we'll see a few places there this weekend, in the midst of Hurricane Hannah. If we decide we do like the more isolated place on 12 acres more, we can only hope it doesn't get bought by someone else in the meantime. The agent mentioned numerous times that somebody was scheduled to look at it on Saturday but I refuse to be pressured into making a quick decision.