Wednesday, May 05, 2010
I checked out Pend Oreille County Park online and found out that they do not open until Memorial Day, so that explains why they weren't open when we stopped the other day.
We returned to Spokane on Tuesday and went by the house in the afternoon to find that the previous owner had, indeed moved out. We also found a check he left for us to pay rent for the four days he was there after ownership transferred to us and a proration of the lot rent. This was totally unexpected (since we had told out realtor not to bother with getting any money), but we did appreciate the kind gesture. He also left a few items for us, among them the four patio chairs on the porch! This, too, was unexpected, but much appreciated. They are nice chairs and will save us a bit of money since we won't have to buy them.
We parked in the driveway and proceeded to unload the stuff we'd bought earlier for the house...silverware, dinnerware, and a combination convection/toaster oven. Since furniture wouldn't be delivered until the next day, we spent the night in the camper.
This morning after breakfast, we drove up to the Wal Mart in Airway Heights to get a bunch of stuff for the house...garbage cans for the kitchen & bathroom, kitchen utensils, cast iron frying pan and dutch oven, drinking glasses (actually, stemless red wine and white wine glasses)...in short, all the little things needed for a house. Of course, we still have more things to get, but we've got the basics for now.
We'd pretty much gotten all the stuff unloaded and put away when the furniture was delivered: 4 chairs for the living room (2 recliners and 2 "regular" chairs) plus an end table and lamp for each pair; a bed and dresser; a sofa table (which we're going to use as an entertainment center on which to place the TV (which we haven't bought yet), and a kitchen table and 4 chairs. What we weren't told when we bought the latter, was that the table and chairs had to be put together! It wasn't a very difficult job, but we only put two of the chairs together today...we'll get to the rest of them later.
Anyway, it's nice and cozy in here and we're looking forward to sleeping in our new house and bed tonight!
I'll take some pictures and post them at a later date.
Monday, May 03, 2010
I just couldn't stand it anymore, so I looked up the website of the listing realtor on our house, got her email address, and emailed a letter letting her know how upset and angry we were about the situation with the house and how poorly we think she handled it. The letter wasn't angry...just a statement of facts and an expression of our feelings.
She wrote back a nice response, except that she took no responsibility for the mess...tried, in fact, to put it off on our realtor. She just doesn't get it: When the seller signed the sales agreement, it was clearly stated that possession would take place on closing. If, at a later date, the seller realized that he would not be able to live up to the contract he signed, he should have contacted his realtor (which he did) and his realtor should then have prepared a WRITTEN addendum which she should have presented to our realtor for our approval and signature. This, of course, was not done and WE knew nothing about the seller not being able to move out of the house as agreed in the sales contract until we arrived at the door of the house on Friday.
She did indicate in her email, however, that the seller WILL be out of the house on Tuesday afternoon. We shall see...I'm not holding my breath until we actually see an empty house!
In the meantime, we decided to get out of Spokane and check out some sites noted in the Escapees' Day's End listings and, perhaps, find new places to report.
Our first stop on Saturday was the Deer Park City Park...10 back-in sites with 30-amp electric for $10 per night, although we could find no place to pay and no one came around to collect. Perhaps it's too early in the year for the powers that be to think about people camping in their city park, or as someone else opined, it was because it was the weekend.
On Sunday, we checked out a few places in both Chewelah and Colville on which to report, and then ended up at the city park in Northport, about seven miles from the Canadian border. This park has six sites with 20-amp electric and water for $5 per night...this time, there was an "iron ranger" in which to deposit the money.
This morning, we waited out a wind and rain storm in Northport and then headed out for Colville, stopping at Arby's to have lunch. We pulled into Leo Lake Campground, a USFS campground about 29 miles east of Colville on SR-20. This is campground is free and has eight sites. We were planning on spending the night until around 6:30 PM or so when we realized is was really, really cold out and would more than likely get down to freezing or below overnight. We therefore, decided to head down to a lower elevation for a bit warmer weather.
Originally, we were going to stop at Pend Oreilly County Park for the night, but it was closed (not yet open for the summer season, or a permanent closure, I don't know...I'll have to see what I can find out online). At any rate, we're back at the City Park in Deer Park for the night.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
SNAFU
That's what we have!
We were supposed to be moving into our house today, even had all the furniture set to be delivered. We got the key to the house from our realtor yesterday morning and went by the house to see what was going on (the seller had until 9:00 PM last night to get out).
It was apparent when we drove up that something was not right...there was still a lock on the shed, and the porch still had all the chairs and stuff on it. Since the seller was there, we knocked on the door. Apparently, he had told HIS realtor that he could not get movers in until this coming Tuesday...a fact that his realtor failed to convey to us, despite the fact that everyone knew that the house was closing yesterday.
I don't really understand the situation...the seller knew when closing was way back at the beginning of April when we all agreed on a price and the terms of the sale. I find it hard to believe that at that point in time, he could not have found a moving company that would be able to move him out of the house prior to closing. Or, failing that, that his realtor never thought it necessary to inform anyone that the seller would not be able to get out of the house by the scheduled closing. If we had known, we could have postponed the closing.
As it is, he's living in OUR house, using OUR electricity (because I scheduled the electric company service to start yesterday). And I had to scramble to call the three places that were to deliver furniture today to postpone the delivery until Wednesday. Hopefully, everyone of them got the message, although I've only heard back from one of the places.
We made it clear to our realtor and to the seller that he MUST vacate the house on Tuesday because we're moving in on Wednesday come hell or high water! If that means he has to live in a motel and put his stuff in storage, so be it. But if he's still there on Wednesday morning, we'll be seeking out an attorney.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Saturday evening, all of us (Mom, Lorri and Gina...who had arrived at Mom's place Friday afternoon...and Earl and I) went over to Andy's and Kim's place for pizza and a movie. The pizza was great as was the movie (Avatar), and the company was even better.
Sunday we drove over to Kuna to dump our tanks and fill with fresh water and then stopped at Denny's for breakfast. After eating, we went to Costco to buy the silverware, dishware, and convection/toaster oven we'd seen when we stopped there on Tuesday (items for the house we're buying in Spokane).
Lorri and Gina left early on Monday morning and we followed shortly thereafter, stopping at the Sinclair in Nampa to fill with diesel ($3.259/gallon). We spent Monday night at Hammer Creek Recreation Area almost due west of White Bird, Idaho. This was a very nice BLM campground...no hookups, but fresh water and a dump available.
We're now back at the Elks Lodge in Spokane. We're signing all the papers tomorrow afternoon to close on the house, but probably won't get the key until Friday, which was to have been the official closing date. We've never had to wait for a key before...have always received it on the same day as the paper signing, but I guess they do things differently here (while we have owned houses in Washington before, it's been a long, long time ago and I don't remember the details).
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Maxx got us up just after 5:30 AM on Tuesday morning, so we went packed everything up and drove back down the side of the mountain. We stopped at McDonalds for breakfast, and then drove out to the Eagle Cap factory to have the fan replaced, arriving there just after 7:00 AM.
While the guy who replaced our fan was on the roof, he went around and checked all the caulking and recaulked where necessary. Great service!
After the fan was replaced, we continued south, arriving at my Mom's place in Melba, ID around 4:00 PM.
Since then, we've been taking it pretty easy, enjoying visiting with Mom. We did go out yesterday intending to shop at Wal Mart, but when we got there, there were people standing around and three fire engines in front of the store with ladders going to the roof. The story we got from the checker at Albertsons, which is where we ended up shopping (it's located across the street from Wal Mart), was that the McDonalds inside Wal Mart had a fire. It was apparently a small one since we never saw smoke or flames, and by the time we were through shopping at Albertsons, people were going back inside Wal Mart. That was our excitement for the day! ;-)
Monday, April 19, 2010
After doing laundry yesterday, draining our tanks, and filling up with fresh water, we left Spokane around 9:00 AM and headed south, stopping in Colfax for lunch.
Since it was a little past 4:00 PM as we neared LaGrande, we stopped at Hilgard Junction State Park planning on spending the night, only to find it not yet open for the season! So we went on to Thunder RV to see if we could get the bathroom fan fixed, but they didn't have the parts necessary. We then drove out to the factory, but by then, it was nearly 5:00 PM, so we'll come back tomorrow morning and they'll replace our fan entirely (apparently, the fix isn't as simple as a cotter pin, which explains why we didn't find any parts sitting on the screen).
Mony, the General Manager of Eagle Cap, directed us to Morgan Lake located in the hills to the west of La Grande. It's really nice up here, although the gravel road getting here was pretty steep. The lake has several camping spots around it with picnic tables...and the best part is it's free!
Friday, April 16, 2010
This has been a busy week!
It started out on Monday by doing grocery shopping at Wal Mart and then going to the realtor's office to sign the papers agreeing to the counter offer made by the owner of the house we're buying.
Tuesday, we went by the mobile home park to meet with the owner and pick up the papers we needed to sign and have notarized so that he could check our credit rating. Afterward, we drove out to Furniture Row, just east of where we're staying at the Elks Lodge to look at furniture. We ended up buying a bed...spent much more than we needed to, but it's the one piece that I wanted to be comfortable. The mattress is similar to a Tempur-Pedic mattress, except less expensive.
On Wednesday, we drove around checking out some of the other furniture places in town, including some used furniture places and stopped for lunch at The Onion, a restaurant that's been in Spokane since 1978 (we lived in Spokane from 1977-1985).
We had the form we picked up from the mobile home park's owner notarized on Thursday and then went by Best Buy to talk to them about doing something so that we can listen to our Sirius radio when the camper is on the truck. The truck came with a Sirius radio with the "hockey puck" antenna built into the top of the roof. When the camper is on the truck, it covers the antenna, so we need to have it extended to the front of the truck, or whatever other idea they come up with. We go in Sunday to talk with the installer for his ideas.
Today, we met the inspector at the house. While he was busy checking out the house from top to bottom, we took measurements so that we'd know what to look for in the way of furniture. Fortunately, there were no surprises in the inspection, so the sale can proceed! :-)
After the inspection, we drove to Airway Heights (boy! has that place changed since we built our log home there back in the early 80's!) to open up a savings account at a local bank. We are going to need a cashier's check to take to closing, and it's been our experience that banks won't provide this service to people who are not customers. Since we "bank" at our brokerage firm, and they don't offer this service, we figured the best course of action would be to open up an account in the area.
This took us to noon, so we stopped by the Longhorn BBQ, another Spokane-area institution, for lunch.
Then it was back to Furniture Row to buy the rest of the furniture we'll need for the house...well, almost all. We still have to find two nightstands for either side of the bed...we're limited to about 12" in width, and Furniture Row didn't have anything that small...and two lamps, one for each side of the bed. We'll also need a couple of office chairs for the table we got for the office, but those will come from Staples (hopefully, the Staples here will have the same chairs we bought for the fifth wheel since we really like them).
OK, now it's time for a nap! ;-)
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