House Hunting

We've been out house hunting, and oh the shit we have seen. Stuff that makes us want to take very hot, disinfecting showers afterward. We're talking creepy, crappy shacks. Here's what's insane about this part of California: These houses all cost more than $400,000. Really. Sometimes it's a half a million for a true fixer upper on sunny acreage, but mostly it's unlivable tear-downs in the middle of dark, dank woods. We go out each time with our agent and have hope, high hopes that the next house we see will be the one. It hasn't happened.

So on Saturday we revisited the only place we've seen in the last six months that had any possibility at all of being livable. We walked around. We breathed the air, watched hawks soaring, and heard a constant tweet and chirp of birds in the yard trees. We listened to the wind rattling the still-standing corn stalks. We stood still and felt what it might feel like to live there. We liked the feeling. We made a ridiculously low offer on Sunday. It still has all the problems it had several months ago: the orientation is completely wrong; the yard needs a major clean up; it's on a community well with fourteen other houses. And still, given all of that, it felt like it could be home.

We'll keep you posted.

1. Roof on the one of the "houses" we looked on March 6.
2. A close up of that roof.
3. The delight of life in the grasses at place we made an offer