Dear Readers,
I need a friend today and hope you all can help. Many of you know that my husband and I sold our house of 16 years. And many of you also know that for 6 months, I’ve been putting many hours of sweat equity into making it perfect. Even in today’s economy, we were lucky enough to get an almost full asking price within 48 hours. I felt so fortunate and grateful.
I even met the buyer yesterday when he and a contractor came over to measure our deck. We had a nice and friendly conversation, and I was genuinely happy for his family to move in. I love this house and want to pass it on to someone who’ll love it as we did.
It has a large deck (40 feet) that has held up many party-goers. It is in sturdy shape but is in need of a fresh coat of paint. But after working my butt off inside the house with my fix-it-up projects, I was just too worn out to refinish the deck. Besides, I just did it last summer. It was added to my to-do list.
Today I didn’t feel so lucky; today I got the buyer’s requests after the house inspection. Basically, included in a 4 page list of “wants” like a new hot water heater (ours is only 8 years old), regrading the land (what???), a new furnace, refinishing the hardwood floors (we just did that last month) and fixing everything from a toilet handle that wobbles to wanting fire doors installed, they want us to pay $26K, yes, that’s $26,000, for them to rip out our deck and replace it with a new Trex deck. They wish! Are they mental?
My trust in humanity has been crushed. How can people could look you in the eye, smile, knowing they are about to stab you in the back? I feel used and abused. For today, it has deflated my usually positive feeling that people are innately good. This is just greedy and selfish. And stupid me, here I was worried about whether I should leave them a decorative hook that is in my bathroom because I thought they might like it. I have been trying hard all day to rise above it all.
We won’t pay it, and maybe they know that; we couldn’t even if we wanted to. We’ll compromise on a few things. But this experience lessened my opinion of them as fine people. I have lost respect for them. And when you lose respect, it’s hard to feel anything else positive about them.
We’ll make our counteroffer tomorrow…I’ll let you know what happens. My wise “adopted mom” said it best, “If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.” Thanks for letting me rant. I needed it.
