End of chapter, parents house is sold.
dedtired
15 days ago
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The 'I sold house, new owner ruined garden' blues
Comments (34)I'm so sorry for all who have lost gardens; it's something I think about from time to time as I consider maybe moving ... and yet keep on gardening! Here's another "flip side" story. When we purchased this home 31 years ago in August, there wasn't much growing except a few clumps of "ditch lilies", a pair of poosly azaleas, one sorry boxwood, some leggy mountain laurel, and enormous plain green hostas ringing everything including the many tall old oak trees. No grass to speak of in this sandy soil, not even weeds! As eager as I was to start planting, I insisted to my dear young husband that we wait at least until spring, preferably a full year, so as not to disturb anything dormant that the previous owner might have planted. Well, we waited and were rewarded with ... nothing ... except the aforementioned undernourished specimens. Not even one daffodil. So ... I set about enriching the soil (I'd had a year to get some compost started, after all, and lots of oak leaves to shred), much to the amusement of one of my neighbors who insisted nothing would grow here. Have been amending and planting, failing and succeeding ever since, and the recent front yard re-do is finally the garden I'd always dreamed of, with roses and perennials shoulder-to-shoulder, jostling, embracing and supporting each other and peeking over-under-through the white picket fence. Today, for the first time in my life, I walked under - UNDER! - roses blooming on my own arbor (ok, there were only three up there, but there are more where those came from). That neighbor would never recognize the ol' place [big smile]. Did I say something about moving? There are some beautiful thoughts expressed in this thread to help any of us cope with that eventuality, particularly catsrose comment, "Put your love into your new garden and let it grow" and hoovb's paragraph that begins "The garden really is the gardener." Thank you all. Diane...See MoreYEAH!! Next to last chapter (?) on neighbor's oil tank on my prop
Comments (54)Yes, I would think so. Attorney is on the phone now with the Department of Health to let them know of his lack of cooperation, and urging them to slap him with violations and fines. The neighbor's attorney has not answered his calls. What this man does not realize is that in order to go straight up on my property, there would be about $3000 worth of damages, which he is responsible for taking care of. Of course, this is meaningless, in light of the fact that he was also responsible in terms of letting them access through his property. He should also be responsible for paying the salary of the three men who were sent here to excavate, and who still had to be paid by the company they work for. This may turn into a long drawn out process, and the guy is 94! Still working, by the way, and sharp as a tack, but still, 94....See MoreConverting parents home into our own (style standoff)
Comments (105)I'm going to overlook all the relationship issues here, plenty of great advice has been given. I'll just give my 2 cents on the design aspect. Maybe his mother loves your style and that is part of why she wants the condo. Her lifestyle has changed over the years and maybe she doesn't know how to let go of some things but maybe she loves your style too. If that's the case, it might not be too insensitive to say you want to change the style of the new house. I would take the changes slowly, you don't want to trample on feet but as you remodel, you can always fall back on the idea that you want to change things before you start a family because you know once a baby is here not much else will get done for a while. This may be a more gentle way for his mother to accept the changes, and make her excited about being a grandmother one day. It might make it easier for her to let go knowing that broken furniture or lots of storage isn't safe for curious little ones. Good luck!...See MoreMy Old House May Have Sold!
Comments (8)I'm glad that the buyers of our SoCal house didn't ask for anything ridiculous and were pleased that it was in great condition with no repairs needed (it was built and first occupied in 1978, for a place that age I guess a lot of people expect they'll need to do a lot of work? They have already sold it as of March 2019 and from the pictures it doesn't seem like they did any upgrades and the paint/carpet/flooring as well as the appliances we sold with the place were all still the same.) - Looking back, I almost miss the tile kitchen counters we had, I didn't need a cutting board with those things as long as I followed up with those Clorox wipes. I think the next project I want to do here in our present home will be new shower doors - the ones we have are those old-style textured things instead of the frame-less glass we had in SoCal. In time I'd like a whole house water softener system, after having hard water at all the places I've lived since moving out of my parent's house I really miss softened water! :P @Artemis_ma Definitely have the realtors as the go between - they're well practiced in the art of telling people NO THEY WILL NOT DO THAT, ARE YOU SERIOUS!?! but in a nice polite way. ;)...See MoreKitchenwitch111
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