The Farmhouse

It's that time of year again. The time of year where I look around the Cleve for a new place to live. In three years, I haven't found anything I like better than my little house, but I always feel better about staying if I've at least looked around.

While I'm quite content, if you asked me what I dislike about my house, I'd tell you it's cold (drafty), old (charming), and boxy (cozy). Sometimes I think I'd love nothing more than a new house. A literally new house with more efficient heating and cooling, with carpet, an open layout, and a garage that isn't detached. But to get said new house, I'd have to move out to the burbs. To Richie Richville, either the far east side or the far west side. Because all the houses directly in Cleveland are like mine, or, as I'm finding, worse. Much, much worse. Case in point. I took a different way to work recently and passed a house that was selling for $49K. Granted the neighborhood was crap and the house was small, but still. That's Cleveland for you.

Despite my desire for a newer house, I'm not willing to sacrifice on location. I want to stay in the Cleve. I like it. I like the proximity to shopping and restaurants and games and shows. And, in spite of myself, I like the idea of an old (charming) house. So as I've been thinking about this year's search, my ideal solution would be an equally charming (old) house in my general area that has a more open layout. Enter the farmhouse.

I spotted the ad a week ago and immediately emailed the owner. Wrap-around front porch with rocking chairs, beautiful remodeled master bathroom, the rooms looked bigger (as well as carpeted), closer to the freeway. I was salivating. I then went into panic mode when I noticed the ad had been sitting out there for over 3 weeks. Idiot, idiot, idiot. There was no way it was still available, and I sort of wished I hadn't already sent a when-can-I-come-look-at-it note to the owner. But lucky for me, it was still available, and I made an appointment to go see it last weekend. I can't really describe the debacle that ensued, but I'll try to walk you through it.

The owner had told me to make an appointment with a lady named Tammie, and I could only assume she was his wife. Their email addresses showed they worked for the same small company, some sort of family business, no doubt. Also keep in mind that the day before this appointment, we'd had another blizzard, and everyone was buried in snow. So when I drove past the house I saw a truck (with one of those snow-plowing things in front) backed in waiting for me. Nice of them to clear the end of the driveway for me, although that still left us walking through a foot of snow to get to the house...which is set relatively far back from the road. The driver of the truck got out, so did Tammie, and they had a kid in tow. It was 1:00 PM and they were all wearing pajamas. Given my usual Saturday attire, I can't really judge, but for potentially meeting my new landlord, I had at least managed to throw on some jeans.

From there things went downhill fast. The rooms, though bigger, were in just as boxy of a layout as my current house. The carpet was dingy and dirty, the house smelled musty, and the temperature was a chilling 49 degrees inside. Even for me, that's cold. I went upstairs anyway, just to drool over the glamour bathroom, and I even asked Tammie a few questions about the house just to be nice, but she couldn't answer any of them because...this just in...she is NOT the owner's wife. She's his EMPLOYEE! Why he's having her handle showing his house is beyond me. He didn't even answer her calls when she tried to get in touch with him that day about my appointment. The whole thing was sketch and not really something I wanted any part of. Then on my way out, Tammie's boyfriend handed me his business card and assuming I was going to rent the place started chatting me up about wanting to rent the garage/workshop from me for his landscaping business. I couldn't get out of there fast enough, which, honestly, I'm sort of disappointed about. But on the flip side, it made me very grateful to arrive back at my own house, which, all things considered, is pretty perfect for me.

The search is not over, but it's nice to know I've got a good thing going already. Maybe I should go look at the $49K house next.

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