[gil]

Hi,
As you might have read on another bit here, we have now, al very long last, sold our house. I just want to share a funny (!?) story connected to its sale now that I can!

We had a call on a Thursday in early August asking if we could do a viewing on the Saturday at 1pm. "Of course " we said, having not had a sniff since April. As our gouse is a bit sprawling, laid out over three floors, I said to Steve that I would clean the bulk of it on the Friday after work, and just “finish it off” on the Saturday, you know, dressing it with flowers etc.

So, Friday evening I worked like a slave, washing skirting boards, scrubbing and polishing every corner. If I say so myself, it looked lovely! Will came in and asked if he could have a bath, so got him sorted out and then sat down on the sofa about 9, 9.15pm with a glass of wine. :cheers




With that, Will came in saying “Dad needs you urgently upstairs”. So I hauled myself out of the sofa and out into the hall where I was met by floods of water pouring down through the ceiling……I had let the bath overflow :eek:. This was right over the entrance hall and had soaked the ceiling, which looked to be coming down in places and also the carpet...:wah



Well, we spent the next 2 hours mopping, mopping and mopping until the water had stopped running, then switched the central heating on and went to bed. Up at 6, we finished drying everything off with a hairdryer, heating still on. Then Steve painted over the ceiling with that special paint that’s for water stains, we dried that off too and then he gave it a coat of emulsion. Phew, were we sweating.

I had managed to dress the place whilst he finished off the repairs, we packed the last brushes away at 12.45, he took the kids out and at 1 pm the viewers walked in to a perfect house :D


Honestly, I cannot believe a) that I let it happen in the first place and b) that we got it sorted in time.



Anyway, they were the most un-cool viewers ever: every room they went into, they were saying things like “Oh, wow, this is lovely! This is the best house we’ve ever seen! Oh, look at that view!” etc etc…..and yes, they are the people who we exchanged with this week! They had no chain and are happy for us to stay here until Friday 17th, when we travel to Heathrow to stay overnight before flying on the 18th!!


So, we got there in the end, and to all of you still waiting on a sale, hang in there, it WILL happen.


Love
Gil
xx

[Rose]

Great story, Gill. It's good that that it had a happy ending too. Imagine if the buyers had called at the last minute to say they couldn't make it, keeeheehee.

Congratulations!

[olivia]

What a great story Gil, I bet you were tearing your hair out at the time. Glad you've sold your house now.

Olivia

[jubjub]

See, I told you it would sell eventually, you just had to have the right person walk through your front door and keep the faith that you had a good house on the market at a fair price.

We had a smaller but similar flooding incident with a blocked shower drain above the lounge! It sure makes things interesting, hoping the shine has gone off the wet paint before the viewers appear!

[marcia]

OMG - don't tell me stories like that - I'm not happy leaving an empty house despite the fact that the neighbours will be popping in and out and my dad is going to come up once a week to check around - you just don't know what can happen and it will be a nightmare trying to sort it from t'other side of the world!!

Gil - as I said before we are are really pleased for you not a bit jealous :D !!! :p

Hope to catch you on the other side!

Marcia X

[Lupin]

That is a funny story! :laugh I would have been cursing and having a fit so hats off to you both for getting it sorted; you clearly deserved that sale* :)


*Not that there is really any relation between deserving and getting in the crazy world of house selling, I hasten to add!

[jo-and-jeff]

OMG, Gil, you almost had me on the floor laughing with your description! That makes our "house-showing nightmare" pale by comparison!

One evening I discovered that our master bedroom soft-sider waterbed (upstairs) had completely soaked the carpet on one side of the bed from a slow leak that had, unbeknownst to us, eventually filled the "leak-proof" liner inside to overflowing. Of course, we had a showing scheduled for 11:00am the next day.

A soft-sider is essentially a padded mattress casing that zips up around the twin water mattresses inside. The mattress casing, the liner, the fabric covering the box springs, and all the bedding were soaking wet. We had to check both water mattresses closely for leaks (since there might have been more than one), drain them, patch them, then haul them to the tub so we could set all the fans and space heaters we owned into the bedroom frantically trying to dry it all out. With a hysterical phone call to our Realtor, I was able to get the showing moved back a day. (At least since we had no apparent ceiling or floor damage, we were able to tell the prospective buyers the real reason we needed to reschedule.)

When the prospective buyers came through, the carpet and the outer padded mattress and box springs were still damp, inside and out. I had "made" the bed by stuffing the still-empty rolled-up water mattresses, along with a bunch of strategically bunched and folded blankets, sleeping bags, pillows, and anything else that would fill up space inside the casing, to try to give the top of the bed as smooth, flat, and normal-appearing surface as possible -- then thrown the duvet on top.

After they toured the house, they told me that they couldn't even tell we had had a water emergency. I almost cracked up laughing at that, because if they'd sat down on the mattress, they would have fallen into it!


I'm so glad that you finally sold your house. It took us 6 months, and we were nearly insane by the end, I can only imagine what it's been like for you, going on for a whole year, and not getting very many viewings.

Congratulations on sticking it through! You're almost home free now, whoo-hoo!!!

[gil]

OMG! We've got a soft sided water bed too, if that had gone as well, I don't know what we'd have done!
I suppose with hindsight, it's easy to look back and laugh at these things, it's just the tricky bit of living through them that's so demanding!

Gil

[Babette & Andy]

You never told me this !!! Didn't know there was a story attached to your sale - boy you had us going 'oh no' :no so glad to hear all came right and you sold to these viewers :yes One cool lady!!

Babette