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2002-07-24 - 2:08 p.m.
On the internal soundtrack: "Papa Don't Preach", Madonna
So, we had our home inspection today.
First, the good stuff:
The realtor noticed that the house had an unusual mezuzah by the front door. He didn't know what it was or what it was for, but had seen them on other houses. I explained what little I knew about it, from a discussion I had with Renee the day we were exploring open houses in DC. Later on I noticed that there were also small plastic mezuzahs on the outsides of two of the bedrooms. There may be others -- I'll have to look. I had a comforted feeling about them. Kind of weird, because I am, for all practical purposes, an atheist. I guess I like what they represent: tradition and a request for protection of one's home. If everything works out and we actually get this house, I'd like to leave them there. Although, to be honest, they're plastic and cheesy-looking, so maybe I'll get a nicer one.
Other good news: No sign of termites.
The bad news:
Needs a new roof, BAD. Needs an HVAC overhaul, BAD. One toilet's broken, there are three broken windows (one pane, two screw-thingies to open/close the window), and half the lights in the bathrooms and kitchen don't work. The little things, I don't mind so much, although I wonder how people live in houses without repairing the freakin'toilet. But right now we have no interest in forking over $10K or more for the roof and HVAC, considering that the owner's been living there for 15 years (it's the original roof and furnace), has done nearly NOTHING in the way of maintenance, and is getting three times what he paid for the house. Kyle is pretty gung-ho about getting the owner to pay for the stuff. We shall see. The seller's agent has agreed to let us put off making the 10% deposit (for some reason we do that ahead of closing) until this is all worked out.
The roof is just a disgrace. It's worn and was leaking, and somebody came along and slapped tar and a few more shingles on it. The inspector actually wrote in his report that "Areas that have been repaired were not done correctly or professionally." He was pretty disgusted. We are getting a roofer and an HVAC specialist to come in and do a real estimate.
Update: Well, the estimate for the roof and HVAC are $4000 apiece. The roofer was, according to Kyle, disgusted. Apparently there are three layers of shingles in some places (building code max is two). We've told Kyle we're not budging on the roof, but we'll negotiate on the HVAC. Unfortunately, the seller's agent is on vacation this week, so I have no idea when we'll hear more about it. I'll try to put it out of my mind for now.
