Hot Water Cold Feet
Saturday morning took a weird turn. Jim poked me awake early even if I was staggering around under the effects of my asthma and allergy meds before coffee. He wanted me to immediately print out a copy of the engineering report and the architectural report from the home inspection team to hand over to lying realtor. Printed the reports out, threw on a beach dress while downing a cup of coffee and tried to make sure my feet were in the right sided flip flops.
We went to see our lying realtor (my new name for him). I thought we were just dropping the copies off and then meeting with the sellers realtor who lies somewhat less at 4 pm. But no, no, no, we were having a full bore on meeting to discuss the reports. I'd only had a tiny bit of coffee, I'm fighting my stupid body's tendency to try and stop me from breathing, and I'm still dealing with a body hangover for having eaten the most delicious, but stomach affecting cheeseburger.
Three days before I'd had a grilled cheese cheeseburger at a local burger joint and it was orgasmic. The problem being I rarely eat meat, I almost never eat junk foods like burgers and my body decided the best response was to say 'What the hell is that pound of cheese and meat doing in here' and just shut everything down. I'd been billious for days, trying to tell myself that hell no I did not regret eating that enormous burger even if I currently could only crawl around eating invalid foods like toast and tea. Took me the better part of a week to start eating again normally, and to feel hungry. Craziest reaction to junk food of all time.
I should have figured that my morning was going to be totally gutted by Lying Realtor because the day before when I'd gotten my hot little hands on the report I'd freaked out at first reading when the English as a second language home inspector carried on and on and on in the report about the water tank on the roof and I made the unpleasant discovery that the house had no hot water heater anywhere on premises. Plus a couple of other things I would have expected the Lying Realtor to know about. In fact, I did ask him about the hot water heater and the tank on the roof. He lied.
So after reading through the report I was ready to call off the sale because there was no way in hell I was moving into a place whose only water source was a roof top tank. It's expensive to truck the water in and we'd already informed Lying Realtor we would not buy a place not on municipal water for expense of trucked water and the possibility of dirty water. I fired off a less than nice email to the realtor, who immediately called and told Jim he never told me there was a hot water heater in the house and that yes, the house is on municipal water unlike what the report stated. We immediately requested a walkthrough for Saturday afternoon with settlement on Wednesday.
So Saturday morning was Jim and I, me sitting there beef-stunned, asthma-med-addled and coffee-deprived while the Lying Realtor went banging on and on and on explaining in great detail how septic systems work, how municipal water functions, and why Costa Ricans rarely have hot water in their homes.
Okay, I'll admit the Copey de Dota experience had worn off a bit and I'd forgotten completely about how hot water is never a thing in Costa Rican homes. Clothes, dishes, bodies all get washed in cold water. But I also made it clear that we would immediately need to install hot water tank for this house because I am not risking the Costa Rican electrified death shower again, a shower head that heats the water to intermittent lukewarm water while sometimes giving you an unpleasant electric surprise while adjusting the metal shower knob. It happened to us.
Lying Realtor talks to Jim and I like we're both utter dumbasses, explaining these things in idiot minute detail until I have to stop him because my sleepy head is aching and tell him I already know a lot about septic tanks and sewage from a environment ecology class I took in college. I understand how sewage is dealt with on a large and small scale. Tell you something scary I learned in that class at LSU. In the Baton Rouge of the late 70s and early 80s sewage was dealt with by skimming off the solids, putting chemicals to disinfect the water and then the entire mess was released into the Mississippi River to go downriver to New Orleans, who pulls their drinking water at that time from the river. Flush twice because it's a long long way to New Orleans!
These were all things we'd discussed in detail over the phone and email the night before but Professor Lying Realtor is clearly nervous we might not complete the sale. If we weren't already so so close I might have cancelled it over this sudden surprise over the hot water and being lied to about a few things. But we're almost done and not soon enough. I never have to sit through another idiotic lecture by this guy again once we close.
We finally escaped around noon, got a few groceries and came home for lunch and a nap. Four o'clock we roll up at the new place just in time to see a troop of howler monkeys and scarlet macaws and other small parrots raiding the ripe star fruit off the tree in the back. The owners were there cleaning out the place, and we and their realtor went over all the small details and we got answers to the questions we'd been asking no one could answer, like the last time the roof had been served, when had the septic tank been pumped, where exactly is the leech field.
We both liked the owners and the other realtor quite a lot. Everything was explained in detail. The only unpleasant surprise was finding out that the majority of the lovely furniture we thought that they were leaving was hired furniture to stage the house!! Apparently Lying Realtor was supposed to have told us that. They are leaving all of the furniture on the list, it's just none of it is quite as nice as the extra pieces they staged with. So guess who has to buy all new furnishings for the lanai, the guesthouse and the master suite? Us. After all the crazy slings and arrows and hoops we'd been dealing with this surprise was actually quite minor. They are leaving things I did not expect, like a large chest freezer and two dining room sets along with six televisions and every single thing in the kitchen. They are leaving all of the potted plants of which there are quite a few ones in half whiskey barrel sized planters.
We just want to get this deal done and move in. I cannot believe I'm going to get to see such exotic birds right in our backyard because we sure do not see them here a few miles down the same road.
It wasn't long after we returned from our walk through that one of the lesser fun things that happens routinely happened. The electricity went out for a large swath of the area. It went out for five hours and at one point I found myself crouching in the running car trying to charge my sacred cell.
I also discovered I am too stupid and clumsy to be trusted with candles. I went into the kitchen to try to figure out if I could bypass the electronic pilot light on the stovetop to cook dinner and I left a candle in glass burning on the coffee table. Came back five minutes later and the coffee table and tv remote were merrily burning. Ugh.
We went to see our lying realtor (my new name for him). I thought we were just dropping the copies off and then meeting with the sellers realtor who lies somewhat less at 4 pm. But no, no, no, we were having a full bore on meeting to discuss the reports. I'd only had a tiny bit of coffee, I'm fighting my stupid body's tendency to try and stop me from breathing, and I'm still dealing with a body hangover for having eaten the most delicious, but stomach affecting cheeseburger.
Three days before I'd had a grilled cheese cheeseburger at a local burger joint and it was orgasmic. The problem being I rarely eat meat, I almost never eat junk foods like burgers and my body decided the best response was to say 'What the hell is that pound of cheese and meat doing in here' and just shut everything down. I'd been billious for days, trying to tell myself that hell no I did not regret eating that enormous burger even if I currently could only crawl around eating invalid foods like toast and tea. Took me the better part of a week to start eating again normally, and to feel hungry. Craziest reaction to junk food of all time.
I should have figured that my morning was going to be totally gutted by Lying Realtor because the day before when I'd gotten my hot little hands on the report I'd freaked out at first reading when the English as a second language home inspector carried on and on and on in the report about the water tank on the roof and I made the unpleasant discovery that the house had no hot water heater anywhere on premises. Plus a couple of other things I would have expected the Lying Realtor to know about. In fact, I did ask him about the hot water heater and the tank on the roof. He lied.
So after reading through the report I was ready to call off the sale because there was no way in hell I was moving into a place whose only water source was a roof top tank. It's expensive to truck the water in and we'd already informed Lying Realtor we would not buy a place not on municipal water for expense of trucked water and the possibility of dirty water. I fired off a less than nice email to the realtor, who immediately called and told Jim he never told me there was a hot water heater in the house and that yes, the house is on municipal water unlike what the report stated. We immediately requested a walkthrough for Saturday afternoon with settlement on Wednesday.
So Saturday morning was Jim and I, me sitting there beef-stunned, asthma-med-addled and coffee-deprived while the Lying Realtor went banging on and on and on explaining in great detail how septic systems work, how municipal water functions, and why Costa Ricans rarely have hot water in their homes.
Okay, I'll admit the Copey de Dota experience had worn off a bit and I'd forgotten completely about how hot water is never a thing in Costa Rican homes. Clothes, dishes, bodies all get washed in cold water. But I also made it clear that we would immediately need to install hot water tank for this house because I am not risking the Costa Rican electrified death shower again, a shower head that heats the water to intermittent lukewarm water while sometimes giving you an unpleasant electric surprise while adjusting the metal shower knob. It happened to us.
Lying Realtor talks to Jim and I like we're both utter dumbasses, explaining these things in idiot minute detail until I have to stop him because my sleepy head is aching and tell him I already know a lot about septic tanks and sewage from a environment ecology class I took in college. I understand how sewage is dealt with on a large and small scale. Tell you something scary I learned in that class at LSU. In the Baton Rouge of the late 70s and early 80s sewage was dealt with by skimming off the solids, putting chemicals to disinfect the water and then the entire mess was released into the Mississippi River to go downriver to New Orleans, who pulls their drinking water at that time from the river. Flush twice because it's a long long way to New Orleans!
These were all things we'd discussed in detail over the phone and email the night before but Professor Lying Realtor is clearly nervous we might not complete the sale. If we weren't already so so close I might have cancelled it over this sudden surprise over the hot water and being lied to about a few things. But we're almost done and not soon enough. I never have to sit through another idiotic lecture by this guy again once we close.
We finally escaped around noon, got a few groceries and came home for lunch and a nap. Four o'clock we roll up at the new place just in time to see a troop of howler monkeys and scarlet macaws and other small parrots raiding the ripe star fruit off the tree in the back. The owners were there cleaning out the place, and we and their realtor went over all the small details and we got answers to the questions we'd been asking no one could answer, like the last time the roof had been served, when had the septic tank been pumped, where exactly is the leech field.
We both liked the owners and the other realtor quite a lot. Everything was explained in detail. The only unpleasant surprise was finding out that the majority of the lovely furniture we thought that they were leaving was hired furniture to stage the house!! Apparently Lying Realtor was supposed to have told us that. They are leaving all of the furniture on the list, it's just none of it is quite as nice as the extra pieces they staged with. So guess who has to buy all new furnishings for the lanai, the guesthouse and the master suite? Us. After all the crazy slings and arrows and hoops we'd been dealing with this surprise was actually quite minor. They are leaving things I did not expect, like a large chest freezer and two dining room sets along with six televisions and every single thing in the kitchen. They are leaving all of the potted plants of which there are quite a few ones in half whiskey barrel sized planters.
We just want to get this deal done and move in. I cannot believe I'm going to get to see such exotic birds right in our backyard because we sure do not see them here a few miles down the same road.
It wasn't long after we returned from our walk through that one of the lesser fun things that happens routinely happened. The electricity went out for a large swath of the area. It went out for five hours and at one point I found myself crouching in the running car trying to charge my sacred cell.
I also discovered I am too stupid and clumsy to be trusted with candles. I went into the kitchen to try to figure out if I could bypass the electronic pilot light on the stovetop to cook dinner and I left a candle in glass burning on the coffee table. Came back five minutes later and the coffee table and tv remote were merrily burning. Ugh.
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