Who's Your Audience

I mean, what the heck is it going to take to sell this house? I was a good steward while I lived there, keeping maintenance and the lawn care current. When I moved out, I replaced all of the carpet and had the whole house painted in one neutral color. I cleaned it thoroughly and hired a lawn care professional to maintain the yard. It's been five months. I'm a little frustrated. Granted, they say the market is tough, especially in my neighborhood where over 100 homes are for sale. But they also say that the smallest house in the neighborhood sells right away..WRONG! We've already lowered the price twice so that now we won't even get the $4,000 back that we invested in painting and carpeting it. Could it be that my real estate agent, who sold me the little home going on five years now, has moved on to greener pastures? She did mention that she was closing on a $500,000 home. Perhaps her clientele just aren't interested in a starter home. Then again, she posted new pictures just Monday after we took down a tree that had fallen over our back porch.

The tree that fell down was grown from a sapling that my dad grew from seed. It was a honey locust and I was really torn at the notion of tearing it down. The recent storms had brought it down and it was leaning over onto the patio. If I was going to continue living in that house, I would have tied it up until it gained back its strength. With us not being there, though, it was just too burdensome to keep it up. And so, we had to cut it down. Robert did so while I weeded the back yard and carried the branches from our red bud that we had pruned to a location by the side of the house. We asked our lawn care guy to put the branches and our herbie out on the curb so the trash men would pick all of it up. Unfortunately, they didn't because we didn't have what is called a lenny. I contacted the waste management facility and told them if they would have their guys remove the branches, I would pay them for the service. She told me we would have to either put the branches in a lenny (which we don't have and which would take two weeks to get delivered) or to bundle all of the branches up and leave them on the curb...again.

The frustration of this whole incident lies in the fact that I now live an hour away from this house. Even though I still work in Lexington, it's an hour drive each way, so each added errand that I have to tack on to my day makes my 11 hour day even longer. We are going this weekend to take care of it. And one of my girlfriends—after hearing my frustration—is going to give us some paper bags that are guaranteed to incite trash pick-up. The small details always get you in the end.