Buyer Beware

After house-shopping for a couple of years, we lucked into finding this house for sale in our price range and with the extras that we had hoped to find, namely an acre of land in a smaller community but close enough to my sweetie's employment to be workable. However, we have paid a price for this affordable home, one that we knew to expect with buying a foreclosure.

The news is full of horror stories about trashed-out foreclosures and, indeed, we'd seen some houses like that on the local MLS. When we looked at this place, we were relieved to see that it appeared to have avoided the total destruction that many houses suffered. Over time, though, we've come to suspect that the situation was a little worse than we initially thought.

Dealing with the bank that owned the house was rather interesting. I'd rather have dealt with an individual seller, but by that point, we were pretty much out of options if we wanted to get a home and start the process of getting prepared for the future. When our offer was finally accepted, after a nerve-wracking bidding process against the other two potential buyers, the bank's contract stated that we were welcome to inspect the property and inform them of any deficiencies or needed repairs, but they would not do a damn thing about them. If we didn't like that, we were free to walk away from the purchase, taking our earnest money with us. In other words, "take it or leave it."

We did the inspection on our own and noted missing light fixtures, screens, screen doors, closet doors, and even the mailbox. There was a single towel bar in the entire two-bedroom house. We did not bring these deficiencies up with the bank because, heck, they weren't going to fix them anyway so why make the process take any longer?

We were surprised in the final walk-through to find the missing light fixtures had been replaced. There was a comment on the hook-up and inspection sheet from the electric company that they must be in place for the sale, so I guess the bank actually sprung for those. Of course, the front porch light fixture was a different style than the original, leaving a big patch that needs to be repainted, but that's simply cosmetic and we'll get to it eventually.

Once we moved in, though, we started taking note of some other odd things. Arizona has hard water and it leaves spots on bathroom fixtures, yet every single faucet fixture for the sinks and tub looked sparkly clean. They were all new; cheapest ones available but new. Hm, had the old owner perhaps removed all the faucets when he was kicked out for the foreclosure? The oven is not original to the house. It is obviously a scratch 'n dent model, and we now suspect that it, too, was installed after the bank took possession.

I worried initially about sabotage but my sweetie assured me that we would be able to see anything significant. In the last few days, though, we've stumbled across two things, minor but obviously intentional, that make me think we need to continue to be vigilant. This weekend, my sweetie had time to finally look into why the front phone jack was dead. After some time investigating, he found the wire coming into the house had been pulled out a bit, cut, and then pushed back into the hole. This could not have been accidental.

This morning, I decided it was high time I vacuumed the spider webs and dust out of the floor vents. I can't do a thorough job like the professionals who clean duct work, but at least there wouldn't be so much crud blowing up out of them every time the air conditioning came on. After I was done, I dumped the contents of the mini Shop Vac into the trash. I wasn't terribly surprised by the dirt, lint, fur, and pebbles; after all, this stuff is going to fall into floor vents occasionally. What did surprise me, though, were the half-dozen cigarette butts. Huh? How freakin' rude! I'm kind of grossed out now and wondering if the jerk shoved anything worse way back into the duct work.

I'm thrilled we did finally find an affordable place but I'd much rather be outside playing in the compost than cleaning up after the last tenant!