The Idea that Wasn’t to Be

If driving through our little town you’d see lots of homes that some fixing up.  We have lots that are rentals and as you all know there are good landlords and not so good landlords.  There are good tenants and not so good tenants.  It’s hard.

Coming in on the main road in our town is this…  What an eye sore.  Run down house.  Run down garage.  Run down fishing shack.

It’s been like this for years…about as long as I can remember living in the area and that’s about 20 years.

An old bachelor lived in the house until about five years ago.  Then the place just sat.

It was actually even worse looking after that.  The weeds and shrubs around the places were as tall as the roof lines.  The weeds and shrubbery engulfed the places.

As a person who loves our little town, it always made me frustrated.  This place is what everyone saw as they entered town.  It’s right across from the park too.  What an eye sore!  I was frustrated that owners wouldn’t keep the places looking decent.

Then I had a little hope.  The people who own the campground in town bought the places….the house to the left and the “fish shack” to the right.  I was so excited.  I thought they might be extending the campground.  They worked really hard.  They cleaned out the weeds.  They cleaned up some of the dead trees.  I was so hopeful that the eye sore might be cleaned up.

Well then last week a sign was put up.  It was a for sale sign and there was one on the house and one on the fish shack.  That left me sad again.  I figured one the town landlords would snap it up and turn it into another rental.

That’s when I started thinking…what if we bought it?  What if we turned it into a guest house that we could rent out.  YES!  I loved the idea.  It was perfect.  There used to be a guest house in town that frequently was rented out then it was sold.  We have a big community event center in town that hosts lots and lots wedding and events but there is nowhere for attendees to stay overnight.  This little house was perfect.  With it only being blocks from our house we could easily keep an eye on it too.

Being that I’m sitting around with my foot up, my brain was in overdrive racing everywhere.  Hubby and I could fix it up.  I could manage it and take care of the rentals.  PERFECT.  We could fix it up cute and the town eye sore could be gone.  Oh hope of hopes, could we make it work?

I trolled the realty website.  UGH.  The listing wasn’t up yet.  I didn’t want to tell Hubby my idea until I had more details.  Kelli came and I told her my idea.  She was excited and loved the idea too.  Then I got brave and called the realtor.  $20,000.  YES.  That wasn’t horrible.  The place is a two bedroom-just over 1000 square feet.  We could have two bedrooms and put a sleeper sofa in the living room. YES.  Perfect again.  The place would likely sleep 6.

Then Hubby called me.  I told him my idea.  He didn’t say no.  He didn’t say yes.  He said, “Don’t buy it without me”.

That night he came home from work.  We talked for a minute and he was on board.  He liked the idea too.  We walked down to check out the property.  It’s only four houses down from ours.  I had my scooter so couldn’t get close to the house…but Hubby and Kelli could and sadly, he didn’t like what he saw.

The house is too far gone for us to salvage.  In one spot the inside lathe boards are exposed as the siding is completely gone.  That likely means rotten studs.  All the windows have to be replaced immediately.  The back kitchen floor is sagging terribly.  At  one point he guessed that it might slant a full 5″.  All of that indicated structure issues.  Those we can’t just jump in and fix…at least not on any budget we have.

So sadly we walked back to our house.  No.  We weren’t going to tackle the new project…but more important than all that…the eye sore might stay or it might end up being another rental….or worse, it might just sit and not sell and that’s not progress either.  UGH.

So there’s my idea that wasn’t meant to be….I’m just hoping that now someone will buy it and tear the places down…Then I won’t have to be reminded about the idea that wasn’t meant to be.  Wasn’t it a great idea??