Thursday, May 31, 2007

ohhh the irony....

I have, in hand, a set of keys, along with a signed addendum permitting me full access to the new house (insert sound of me tooting a party horn).

Escrow hasn't officially closed yet, but it will the second that last piece of paper comes in. What's been missing is a document from the seller's bank proving that she paid off her loan for the house way back when. I won't name the bank, but for story telling purposes, let's just refer to them as SmellsLargo.

The escrow company tried to get SmellsLargo to overnight the document, and they refused, even when the escrow company offered to pay for it. SmellsLargo also refused to have the document faxed to a local SmellsFargo for the seller or the escrow company to pick up. They only send these things via snail mail. Nice, eh? We're all hoping it comes in by Friday afternoon. Once that form comes in, this will be allllllll mine, baby....




Ummmm, yeah.

That would be the seller's crap that she left in the garage that apparently she has no intention of removing (she's already turned in all of her keys and security gate codes, etc etc).

More nice, eh?

I find it totally ironic that since November I've been slowly purging my own home in preparation of this moment, only to arrive at new empty homeowner bliss to find a pile of crap with a note on top that says "Salvation Army" with their telephone number scribbled on it.

Now before y'all get in a twist in the comments, I'm not fretting it, okay? So neither should you. She's elderly, and she's nice, she has a broken hip, and if it was you, you'd be happy I wasn't complaining about it, too. I'll deal with it. I will even deal with the computer desk and the dresser on the other side of the garage that didn't make it into the photo LOL.

My agent was totally willing to pursue the removal of the stuff with the seller and her agent, and she's such a sweetie that she even offered to handle removal herself. To be honest with you, because I have been making almost weekly trips to the local Goodwill Donation Station while emptying out my own house, I'm quite used to all this. One more car load aint gonna kill me.

But before I haul it off...anyone in need a TV tray or a toaster oven???

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

congrats on keys in hand! yay! sorry to hear about the new clutter. although other people's clutter can be pretty interesting stuff. good luck with all the contractors and such this week!

JohnK said...

Glad that you have the keys. Now the real fun will begin.

Carol said...

I think Smells Fargo only sends things via Pony Express.

Needless to say, it takes a while.

Yay new house! Yay tax deduction if you get a receipt for all the crap you take to the Salvation Army!

Romi said...

Woooooohooooooo! Congratulations. :)

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the keys!

When I moved into my house, I found two huge old framed prints and a collection of empty Bicentennial beer cans (packaged up for posterity, not just tossed in like trash) in my attic and an only slightly chipped Virgin Mary in the side attic. They're still there. I have top have some treasures to leave the new owner when I sell this house, don't I?

Anonymous said...

Another irony, I could use a computer desk and dresser since I just moved from a studio to a 2br apartment--but it's in NYC, too far away to carry crap.

Anyway, congratulations on getting the keys. You are a saint, I would be bitching about the stuff left behind. In fact I was just complaining about all the paint cans and other stuff the previous tenant left in my hall closet.

jodi said...

I could use a toaster oven down south in my school digs, but it's hardly worth the shipping cost. Better to the Sally Ann.

I totally feel your pain, our house was full of crap when we got it. In fact, some of the former owner's crap is still up in the attic four years on, because I don't yet have the heart to go up there and deal with it. We're talking real garbage, filth, and gross dirty teenage boy sport socks. Double, triple ew.

PICAdrienne said...

Good luck with bank in question. Lets just say they can be amazing. Yes, amazing is a good word.

Congratulations and good luck with everything.

Anonymous said...

Uh...I think I have that same clock in my living room.

Oh, and what Picadrienne said. A bank whose name rhymes with Smells Fargo used to be my bank when I lived on that coast. I barely escaped with my shirt.

Amazing. Uh-huh.

Denise said...

Congratulations on the new house!

SmellsLargo is the most incompetent bank I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

They took over our small local bank and proceeded to completely mess up our checking account. At one point they were dunning us for a 'bad' check deposited in our account. Except come to find out the check they were repeatedly attempting to deposit in our account (and billing us the 'bad check' fee each time) wasn't even written to us. It had been written to a large grocery store in another city by someone we didn't even know. sigh.

Now if only they had deposited all the *other* good checks the grocery store was getting I might have been a bit happier with the situation!

Carrie said...

Whooo, I was getting irritated for you, until you mentioned the broken hip. I get it now. And yeah, SmellsFargo has given us some bumps in the past. We've complained, and I'm sure they got right on it... hee. I'm so looking forward to seeing pictures of what you do with the house!

earthchick said...

Congrats on gaining possession of the new home and the old crap!

Anonymous said...

We had a ton of stuff that the previous owner left also. An elderly lady as well. Some of it has been useful, and some of it has just sat around. Oh well, hopefully we'll have the huge purge and garge sale this summer.
Congratulations on the house! Can't wait to see what colors you chose for the rooms.

Anonymous said...

Yay for keys and full access! Glad to hear a little extra *trash* wasn't enough to bum you out. You are indeed a remarkable person.

SmellsFargo (used to be WestNor, HQ in Minneapolis; WN acquired SF, then changed the name of the entire corporation to take advantage of said name) has ALWAYS sucked at retail banking. Back when I was in business school in the late 70s at the U of MN, we had a speaker in one class from that bank. He mentioned during the session that they "preferred large accounts" and that they would rather get rid of all the "garbage accounts," apparently referring to the accounts of people like you and me and pretty much everyone else you and I know. When I told my husband about that comment, we decided to close our WN account yesterday. Best thing we ever did with our accounts. (Yeah, they are still garbage accounts, but the credit union has no problem with that.)

Another little tidbit about that company. Their pension plan had at that time what is called "cliff vesting," in which the employee didn't become vested in the company's contributions to her/his account until s/he had been employed for ten (10!) years. Guess who that favored?

Sorry to overwhelm your comments. I really enjoy reading your blog and hearing about your troubles and triumphs and adventures.