HEATHER: House Search

I have spent the last week in PA looking for a house for our family. WOW. First off, I need to thank my awesome friend Teresa and her husband Glen and their two adorable kids for picking me up at the airport in Philly and then letting me crash on their couch on Monday night. Tuesday morning, me, Teresa and her two kids took off in their car to the Bloomsburg area to find us a new home.

I went with a few places to check out that I had found on Craigslist. I had 2 1/2 days to find a place, so we started out by driving around to get familiar with the place and check out neighborhoods that looked appealing. There was NOTHING. Everything we saw was scary or stinky or too small or just plain disqusting. I pulled up to a house that had a for rent sign on it at the same time another girl did. She was meeting the landlord there in the next few minutes and said I could look with her. The place was nasty, but he told me he had a friend that had something I might be more interested in. I called his friend and he gave me the address for the house he had. We drove out to the place which was in the middle of nowhere and I loved it! I made an appointment with the guy to see it the next day and when I talked to him I told him I definitely wanted it. I filled out the application, took some pictures and then left. He sounded really positive and told me he would have an answer for me by that evening. We had already spent one night in a hotel and if he said yes, then we would drive back to Philly that night. If he said no, then we would stay because I would only have one more day to find something. He called that night and said he and his wife were still deciding. Great. So we went ahead and got another hotel room, just in case. The next morning we went through the motions of looking, again not seeing ANYTHING worth living in. We had stayed the night in Frackville, which is about 45 minutes from the Bloomsburg area. We decided that we would pick up a local paper that day since we hadn't checked the paper yet. There was n0thing in the Frackville area, which was ok since that would have meant a 2 hour commute for me both ways every day. We drove back to Bloomsburg and decided to get a local newpaper from there as well. I circled a few of the places and then saw one that said "New today". I circled that one and then called to see if I could come see the place. The landlord told me he could meet me there in about 20 minutes, so off we went. It was actually nice compared to everything else we saw, and while I was talking to him the other guy called. He was going to rent the home (an actual home, the only one we saw the entire time) to some tenants that he had rented to for the last two years. They had found out he was leasing this place out and called him to get it. I tried really hard not to cry because I had really had my heart set on this place. Meanwhile, I told the new landlord that I wanted a 6 month lease instead of 1 year and to go ahead and process my application. I had one more place to go look at and then he could let me know if it was a yes or no. If it was yes, then I would let him know based on this last place I had to look at. Teresa and I went to this last apartment which sounded really nice. 3 spacious bedrooms, new carpet, new paint, a nice back yard, a park down the street, washer/dryer hookups (I love my washer and dryer and the other place already has some installed that are stacked to fit in a small closet), and so on. When we got there it was horrible. Unfortunately new carpet can't cover up nasty smells and uneven floors. The house was bad anyway, but the absolute deal killer was when the lady told me the washer/dryer hookups were in the basement. The stairs going down were rotting and it was a dirt and cobblestone floor. I would never do my laundry again if I had to go down there to do it.

The other guy called me back and said they would love to rent to me, even with a 6 month lease. So we finally have a house, and even though it is small (3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a small kitchen, but it also has a basement(scary), an attic and a detached two car garage) it is clean and smells good with new paint, new carpet and even new construction in one room, and the landlord is someone I could totally see us becoming friends with. He is the same age as me and Jaron and has 2 kids, both boys ages 8 and 4, and his 4 year old is named Ashton! After we signed some papers and did the deposit I told him how glad I was I picked up a newspaper that day, since the ad was new and if I had gotten one earlier I wouldn't have gotten a new one. He told me he never remembers to place the ad in the paper, but 5 minutes to 5 (the deadline) the night before, something told him to place the ad, so he did it, and I am so grateful he did! Here are some pictures of our new place.