The Forwards page of Michelle's Work in Progress has been... updated!

But that's not the only reason I'm posting. I have a housing update. Not a very good one. David sent me a list of four places to look at on Monday morning. I picked three. One went under contract immediately, one went under contract an hour before I was to see it, which left one little condo for me to see.

This was a lesson in Real Estate BS.

The ad said that the apartment was in a building that had 5 units. The unit I was looking at was supposed to be "well lit - shows like a model". It had "New white carpeting throughout" and the eat-in kitchen was "modern". The living room/dining room combo was supposed to be 17x18, and the building was supposed to be "newly renovated"". The ad sounded so good that I didn't care that the place was 10 grand more than I wanted to spend. I figured I'd give it a chance. I wasn't so thrilled about the white carpet, but I figured if the floors were decent underneath, tearing out the carpet wouldn't be a bad thing.

The first thing I noticed about the place is that it stank of urine in the lobby. I should have turn and ran at that point, but I just blamed it on someone's dog. Looking at the mailboxes, I saw that the building had closer to 35 units. The elevator in the building was far from renovated - it was the ORIGINAL elevator, installed in 1920. It was in good working order for an 83 year old machine, but it took so long to go anywhere that Dave the Real Estate Agent and I got out and took the stairs.

I have to say that I knew I wasn't moving in before we hit the unit. The walls of the building were painted a very dingy yellow, and the floors were filthy. The doors were made of the cheapest white laminated plywood ever. The first thing Dave said when he unlocked the door of the unit is, "I should have looked at this before bringing you here..." And he's right! I this was a huge waste of time. The kitchen looked like it was furnished by K-Mart. The cabinets were blonde laminate, and there were four of them. No, not four sets, but for tiny little doors that would have maybe held a couple of dishes in each. The fridge was avocado green. Mind you, I don't mean "retro style", but rather "30 year old fridge". The eat-in kitchen was actually a very small galley kitchen. I'd put it at 8x3. The living room, dining room combo was also very, very dinky and the dimensions given on the fact sheet were an obvious lie. It was perhaps 14x8.

The new white carpet? Was probably never white, and it was that construction grade stuff people put in the basement. It was absolutely filthy! Food and grease stains everywhere.. it was just gross. I never made it into the bathroom. The bedroom was so full of the current owner's junk that I couldn't see it, but it was pretty nice sized. There were cracks in the supporting wall - big MAJOR cracks that had been patched through the years. Poor Dave grinned and said, "well, what do you think?"

I looked him square in the eyes and said, "I hate to be negative, but I really hate this place." He had to agree, the owner had lied a lot, the price was entirely too high, and it was just nasty.

I am getting discouraged.