Pay Attention to the Signs

Every single time we drove to the Valley to look for houses, or later to inspect our selected "dream home", it snowed. Heavily. It stormed with a certain ferocity during each trip across the South Mountain that it should have made us reconsider moving there. We should have been paying attention to the signs Mother Nature was posting in our way, all but spelling out "stay away from the Annapolis Valley, it's bad news". Did we? Of course not. We, okay, okay, me, I was surrounded by that rosy glow you normally get from wearing those rose-coloured glasses, happy in the knowledge that I had finally come upon the perfect house for our family to grow up in, and maybe for me to even open a business in. Never mind all the deals having gone south, the deposits lost, the bitter feelings. All signs.

Well. I drove to inspect the "dream house" for the last time yesterday, in yet another snow storm. We're talking complete white-out conditions at times. I should have turned around and said to heck with it. Nope. I must be a sucker for punishment. Well. I walked into the house; the writing on the walls was clear. Literally. Okay, maybe not actual writing but the cracks in the plaster spoke volumes. They screamed! Oh my! It turned out the vendor hadn't filled the oil tank enough to keep the house relatively warm, which was part of the deal. Instead, he plugged in three small space heaters set on low, to heat a 2300 sq ft home.

A couple weeks ago NS was practically swimming after the rain storms it received. Of course the house would be damp. And naturally as it dried, the plaster split and cracked in every single room. But wait! That's not the worst. The real estate agent and I walked up the stairs to inspect further and found that the roof had leaked, cracking and staining the ceilings in four out of six bedrooms, and around one of the chimneys, plus cracked the wall plaster in all the rooms. We crept further to the attic and saw daylight in spots in the roof. At this point I still had hope. Seriously. I figured we'd get the vendor to give us cash back to put new shingles on the roof and repair the worst damage. HA HA HA I mean, he had only painted the walls and ceilings to hide the fact that the roof had serious problems, and ta da, after all that rain, the stains were revealed, above all the new damage.

About getting cash back for the new roof? Forget. It. He offered $500. He might as well have said "stick it in your pipe and smoke it". My brain kept racing, trying to figure out ways to make him reconsider. My husband said forget it. Let's walk away. There is probably more hiding under that "perfect" exterior. Eventually, near tears, I finally accepted it.

We will be homeless come Thursday. We're trying to find a new home.

We need luck.