House Hunters Ain't Got Nothing on Me

As I mentioned, we've got a small house. We've really outgrown it. Actually, we outgrew it a few years ago but we're delusional and thought that we could make it work for us. Reality popped that happy little bubble so we've begun the arduous task of readying our house to put it on the market.

Since we'll be looking for a new house soon, we've done what any prospective home buyer does. Watch dozens of House Hunters episodes on HGTV. If you've never seen the show, the premise is this: They go to a city, find the pickiest couple with the most unrealistic expectations and show them 3 houses which they must choose from at the end of the half hour. This show not only feeds my virtual house hunting need, but greatly amuses me by some of the people's expectations about home buying. "Oh, carpet? We were really hoping for hardwood floors." Well, people in the desert are hoping for water. Get over yourself. "We really didn't like that the park is 5 minutes away. We really wanted to be able to roll out of bed and be IN the park." This is really a problem for you? Your kid is 18 months old, I'm sure he's awfully upset that the park isn't outside his bedroom window. Moron. "The house isn't as big as we would have liked, it's only 3,000 square feet." Okay, unless you're Kanye West trying to find a house big enough to fit your baby mama's ass, these words should NEVER come out of your mouth. ONLY 3,000 square feet? If we had a house that big, we'd lose family members. We could literally never see the youngest for months at a time. That is like 3 times the size of our current house. Only 3,000 square feet. Amazing.

I can only think that the people on this show MUST be first time home buyers. When you think that your dream house is going to fall into your lap at the price you can pay and you live happily ever after. We thought that too but in the end had to compromise a little. Almost 9 years later and we're seeing we compromised in the wrong areas. If I was on house hunters, my criteria for a house would be: 4 bedrooms or 3 with a livable basement area. AT LEAST 1 1/2 bathrooms. I don't even need two showers, just two crappers. There's always someone in the single bathroom we have, and they usually just took a crap that stinks to high hell. Yeah, THAT's fun, trying to pee and hold your breath at the same time so the noxious poop fumes don't make you pass out. Storage space, preferably in the form of a basement. We seriously lack closet space and have no basement. There's crap everywhere in this house. A kitchen with more than 4 square feet of counter space. Okay, we probably have 8 square feet but with the toaster, microwave, coffee maker etc, it really means that I have to move things to roll out cookie dough. Which is irritating and time consuming.

The other thing we've done is go to lots of open houses. I always feel a little guilty about this because basically, you're going through a house someone's living in and pointing out all the things YOU don't like about it. And you'd be amazed at what people think they can get away with. We saw one yesterday that the person must be a chain smoker and the stench in there was just horrible. And if that wasn't bad enough, every single room needed new flooring, new paint, and a few walls looked like there was some water/termite damage, the front cement steps were crumbling, and the kitchen needed about a gallon of Clorox  Listen, if you have this much wrong with a house, don't think you can price it above market value and actually sell it. That house needs almost a complete gutting. It was terrible. But we also saw a lovely house with a fantastic finished basement and a beautiful room that was an addition to the original structure. THESE people knew how to show a house. There was a scented candle burning, it was warm and inviting, and the lights just made those hardwood floors gleam. Best of all, the real estate agent was not a "hoverer". (We saw one with a real estate agent so close on our heels that if we stopped suddenly, she probably would have bumped into us. Annoying. Don't hover while I'm trying to pick out bad things about a house.)

I have to go check HGTV. It's a holiday. If I'm lucky,  maybe they're having a House Hunters marathon. At least, this girl can hope!