Sigh…. I miss my apartment.
So my name is Montyp2000 and I am an American Homeowner. You’ll notice that the word “proud” was not in that title. I, like many of you, thought that the American Dream was to move out of your parents place and to buy a house of your own and live happily ever after. How foolish I was. I now see that the American Dream is to move out and get an apartment, or condo, or townhouse you can afford and never have to worry about fixing anything for yourself ever again. EVER!!! This is the story of my house. How it came to be and all the problems I’ve had to face so far. If I can stop just one person from buying a moneypit like I did, then it will all have been worth it.
Prologue: The Apartment
I was once a proud renter of an apartment. It was nice. You show up once a month, hand them a check, and go back to a wonderful apartment. It was fairly modern, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, decent size kitchen, big living room and on the ground floor for easy access to your car, dumpster, and laundry room. It was right in the busy part of Schererville but it was still close to my friends which was important to me. Friends came by to visit and we even filmed a movie in it. A real movie, not the dirty kind. I never had to worry about my apartment. In life you always need to be prepared should something go wrong. Well I never had to worry about that at the apartment because if anything broke, the maintenance guy was just a phone call away. Life was good to me.
My roommates changed a bit over the 2+ years that I have been away from home. Some have been slobs, some stunk up the place with smoke and cat hair, and some bought big gigantic greyhounds without asking. (yes I’m still bitter about that one BoB. That dog pee’d on my Nintendo!) I needed the room mates because my crappy job at an office supply super store did not afford me the luxury of living alone. If you can walk away from this blog with one lesson to learn it’s this; never rely on anyone to support you except yourself….. and maybe your parents if they are nice enough.
Well my 2nd room mate BoB had a girlfriend when we first moved in together. From day one I wondered in the back of my mind what was going to happen when it comes time to renew the lease. Is this girl going to still be around then? Probably not knowing BoB but what if she is? Will it be serious enough between them that they will want their own place next year? Well time flew by and 10 months later I was sorry to see that they were still together. (No offense Becka, but at the time I was concerned about where I was going to live. I couldn’t have cared less about your happiness)
So BoB and Becka moved out and to my surprise and good fortune, my friend/hairstylist Anastasia said she was looking to move out of her parents place. I thought to myself, “This is perfect! I have a room mate! She’s cute, pays rent on time, not too loud, and has good looking friends. Just my type of woman. Well the problem was that she wanted a house, not a wonderful and glorious apartment. So we went looking. Working part time at a retail job does not afford the type of house we were looking for. You know the kind I’m talking about. Good ones. Instead we had to look at fixer uppers. I didn’t really have a problem putting in a little hard work to make a so so house into our dream house. Well the only place that had these types of houses was Cedar Lake. I’m getting shivers just thinking about it. We looked all over Cedar Lake at houses for sale and I must say, there are a LOT of crappy houses out there and you wouldn’t believe the condition that these places were in. We kept coming back to the same one. It was $76,000 for a 3 bedroom house with a big basement and hardwood flooring in the living room. Not too shabby I thought. Then my dad came to look at it. I gues I was looking at the house through rose tinted glasses because to me it looked pretty good. Not to my dad though. HE's been a homeowner a long time and has had shit break and need fixing. Oh the things he found... The roof needed to be replaced, the foundation was cracked and leaking, siding would need to be redone, there were snakes, the neighbors had a live turkey that could have been a pet or dinner, and to top it all off, my dads secretary who lives in cedar lake said the neighborhood the house was in was filled with bikers and rednecks. For a Cedar Lake resident to say the area was full of hicks is really saying something. I wouldn’t have lasted a month there.
So I was back to where I was before. The chance to renew the lease at the apartment had come and gone and we only had a month and a half left on the current lease. I needed to find a house fast or risk moving back home with mom and dad. AHHHHHHH! Well wouldn’t you know, mom and dad came through after all. Dad drove past a house on the way home from work and saw a for sale sign in the yard. They took a look at it and thought it would be worth getting. Anastasia and I went to take a look at it a week later and it was in pretty good shape. My dad pointed put a few things we would need to touch up here and there but it was in livable condition and there was a lot of potential here. So I emptied out my life savings and bought a house. YAY! Montyp2000: American Homeowner.
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