I’ve had two recent examples of this, so it’s on my mind. In the first case, a buyer made a ridiculously low offer on one of the homes I own. Rejected of course and with no hard feelings on my part. It’s his business to buy as low as he can, just as it is mine to sell as dear as possible. But many less-experienced sellers would have been deeply offended; low balling is often counter-productive for a buyer. Eventually he raised his price enough so that I felt comfortable in making a counter offer and we finally settled on a price fair to all.

Then comes “Exhibit A” (Suspicions Confirmed Department). I was up there to mow the lawn, left to go down the road a bit to get reception for a phone call, then returned - to see the car ahead of me turn in the driveway. So I turned in as well. The car was from Connecticut, which is where my buyer was from, so I figured it was them, come back for another look. I asked them what I could do for them and they replied that they’d seen the For Sale sign and stopped in to take a look. I identified myself as the owner and offered, several times, to let them in so they could really see the police. But each time they turned down my offer but seemed in no hurry to leave. Odd. Making conversation, I mentioned that I used to live in Connecticut; what part were they from? New Haven. That surprised me, as my buyers were from New Milford and I was virtually sure that’s who I was talking to - it was too unlikely to have another Connecticut person just happen to drive by. No, this had to be the buyers. But why would they lie? Why not just introduce themselves and be upfront?

They had an inspector out to do his job. This did not worry me as it had been inspected a few months prior for another buyer and I had spent $6000 rectifying the issues unearthed, ones that had caused the previous buyer to bow out. Then I was told I was not to be around for the inspection. I have never been told this before - I prefer to attend as there are always questions and explanations that come up that only I can answer. So, agreeing,  I did something else that day. And wondered just what they were instructing the inspector to say.

Let me interject a bit here. Inspections are basically a mechanism to notify a buyer if there are major issues he should be aware of but may not be able to recognize without help. If something too expensive is discovered, the buyer can withdraw from the contract without penalty. Or the seller can offer to make it good. Or something in-between. A good inspector will understand that building practices and materials change almost yearly and he will take this into account in his report. You don’t hold a century old home to the same standards as a new home. Cutting edge 1870 is not the same as it is in 2025. 

In my case, like usual, it was an old home I’d spent a year remodeling. We were proud of the way it came out. The only concerns I had was a perennially wet basement and sloping floors, things I made sure were mentioned everywhere I advertised. If this is a problem for someone, let them not waste everyone’s time to see it.  It had been un-lived in for a few years and I was concerned there would be contamination in the water system during this time. In the system, not the water. This is common and the way it is addressed is to put good old bleach in the well, run it into the pipes, let it sit for some time while it does its job, then run it out, so the water in the pipes is free of the bleach and can be properly tested. 

I ran into a problem. After running the water for a time, it trickled down to almost nothing. It was late Friday afternoon. I could find nothing wrong inside the home, feared the worse, and went to my calling point down the road to try to find someone who could come and fix the issue. I found someone and they were out Monday morning. We ended up replacing the submersible water pump, not a cheap solution - but it was needed. I made sure to inform the  other side of these developments.

My wife has long complained of me not detecting smells that she notices and I accept that I have an “inaccurate” sense of smell. Once the water was going full blast again, I was unable to smell the diluted bleach in the lines. Couldn’t taste it either. So I ran water for an hour, turned everything off and went home. I returned two days later to run it out, ran the water for another hour, and hoped for the best.

At the inspection, they did not do the water test as they could tell there was still bleach in the lines. They were not a bit happy about this. I wasn’t either. (They came back a second time, following another long session of running water to clear the lines, and still did not take the test, for the same reason.) But they did everything else.

In due time I was informed of the negative results the inspector had unearthed. Quite a few, and not just ones the first inspector found. The first guy had found Powder Post Beetle damage (this was historic, but could also be due to something on-going though not present when the first inspection had been done) and I’d hired an exterminator to take care of that, and put his guarantee on the counter so any prospective buyers would be notified that this had been done. The other agent said it wasn’t there. I drove over to check and, sure enough, someone (the buyer?) had removed my written guarantee. So I forwarded her a copy of the receipt to prove that I was aware of this and had taken the appropriate steps.

The inspector also suspected mold in the basement. This was never confirmed, nor was the species identified. I asked for this so I could take appropriate steps to remediate it if it were indeed there. The presence of mold in an old home never surprises me and in this case, the basement is famously wet for much of the year. Great conditions for supporting mold. I have learned not to fight water, you can’t win against it. I took steps to lessen the amount entering, added a fan  to circulate air in the less ventilated spaces, and a dehumidifier to remove moisture from the air. Wet air over the last century had rotted support beams, which I had removed and replaced with pressure treated joists. Now we had the wetness confined to the cement floor where it would be an annoyance but could not cause damage.  Not a big deal as the basement is a horror hole, small, low-ceilinged and with too many support posts to be useful for anything but a place for utilities. No one is ever going down there without a purpose.

 And he didn’t like the roof. The first inspector had no problem with it. Let me describe the roof. It is all steel and was put on in three different eras. About half was basically new, less than 4 years old. Steel, I should add, has no expected lifetime limit. The issues it faces are two-fold: keeping nails tight (new roofs now use screws, which solves this problem) and when it starts to get rust, you keep it painted. There is a special paint one should use, very thick, like a very gooey silver tar. A responsible owner cannot allow rust to get too far advanced as that will damage things. An older part of the roof was in front, a section leading to and over the front porch. The ribs on the steel are a bit further apart than those on the new section, so a close inspection easily reveals it was from another era. It had slight rust, so we painted it. Driving by, you’d never notice. We also installed new flashing along the part that touched a wall to the second story.  Behind it, in the back was the oldest section of roof, a corrugated part, not ribbed like the newer roofs have. You cannot even get this corrugated stuff any longer, so it looks old. But being that old, it also happened to be a much thicker metal than one gets these days. We touched it up along a trough area and put in a new trough (that was needed). In short, the roof is shiny everywhere, holds water out perfectly well, and is perfectly functional, good to go for 10-20 years before new paint might be needed again. But the three eras of roofing are obvious to anyone who examines it.

Well, the buyer came back to me with these things and gave me prices he’d gathered to bolster why I should drop my price to account for this. The amount I was asked to lower the price just happened to bring the total back close to the initial low-ball offer figure. Interesting.

My counter was threefold. 1) I’d already treated the powder post beetle issue. 2) Tell me for sure what mold is there and I’ll get that professionally treated (for a much cheaper price than what he’d quoted me). 3) The roof: I am not going to do anything about it. He gave me a $17000 figure for removing the roof, putting in new sheathing below it and re-topping with asphalt shingles instead of steel. Remember, half the roof was new within the last 4 years; he proposed ripping that out as well. Three years before, I’d replaced the roof on a similar-sized home and it cost me $6500. Am I going to spend an extra $10000? I don’t think so. Nor do I think the buyer would actually do it either; this was just a wedge designed to get the price lower.

Of course, I have seen these kind of things before and my response is always to offer to do the work rather than issue a credit. First, I can do the same job cheaper using my own carpenter and contractors I have established relationships with. Secondly, in most of these cases, I suspect the new owner will never get around to making the repairs they claim are needed. I’d long decided that since these people had lied to me for no reason when I met them, so I had zero reason to trust them and, further, felt this new proposition of their’s left them with many opportunities to leave me with a very short end of the stick and with no assurance that these “repairs” would ever be done once they got the place.

A lawyer I worked with for many years used to say, “Sometimes the best deal is the one not done.” A perfect example. We’ve now gone our separate ways. As anxious as I was to get this sold, it was better for me to hold on to it and look for someone new.

The other case involves folks I have known for a while, a well-educated “do it by the book” couple who’d invested in an apartment house, then realized afterwards that this was not the right business for them to be into. They wanted it sold and wanted the sale done correctly, according to Hoyle.

We started with a bang, 4 showings on the day it was first available to show. And the first party offered full price, a cash sale, contingent only on an inspection and attorney approval. I groaned when I learned who their attorney was, someone I never recommend. I try to be friendly with him because he has a large business and I have to deal with him from time to time. But he is famous for being glacially slow, is sometimes ridiculously pedantic, and frequently causes unneeded difficulties. He started off with difficulties. He discovered the building was in a flood plain (the owners did not know this and their insurer never caused difficulty for that - the stream was bone dry at the moment and the flood zone engulfed almost the entire commercial district for the village). OK, that was good legal advice. The other half of his complaint was not. He cited a “major” electrical issue that could result in massive penalties. There were 3 apartments, each with their own electric entrance. Heat and outside lights were on one of the entrances. This is common to see and I was flabbergasted to learn that it was such a no-no. So I called the power company to find out directly. What I learned was far different. An arrangement such as they had with the tenant whose electric ran the furnace was perfectly fine as it was, provided the tenant was aware what was happening and agreed to it. They’d always been upfront about this - you adjust it in the rent. No issue, despite what the attorney claimed. And no fines and penalties either Power companies don’t fine you. The lawyer had cited these things then said his clients would accept them - for a $49000 cut in price. We did not agree and finally got past this stumbling block, only to run into a bigger one - the inspection.

The inspector was very careful to let me know how experienced and qualified he was, bragging about his many real estate holdings. In a personable way though. He completed the outside before the buyers showed up. Before he went inside, he asked me to step aside while he talked with them. So I sat in my car for 20 minutes. Then he went inside. I no sooner got inside when he asked me to go somewhere else and not accompany them. Huh? I was only able to join them when he’d finished the upper 3 stories and went into the basement. What good am I doing the owners if I cannot hear what he has to say?

Later on his report, he inserted an entire paragraph saying how uncooperative and unprofessional I was. I’d not had a word with him that was not friendly and had instantly agreed to all his requests. I later searched the internet to find out what the accepted protocol for this is and learned there is no agreed-upon protocol. Some expect the seller and his agent (me) to keep out of the way, and some prefer them to be there. The best practice is to attend but spend much more time listening than talking, assisting when I can, not interfering when I can’t. In the future, I have decided to let buyers and inspectors know right away that I will be accompanying them so I can tell the owners from my own perspective what was found. And will be a third party who can witness and assert that neither he nor the buyer stole or damaged anything.

The gist of what he said in the basement was reasonable. It was an old home and of course there were problems, but not ones that were critical or in need of immediate attention. It was built and repaired properly,  considering the standards of the time. These things were noted in the report. But the buyers blew them out of proportion to how serious they actually were.

Let me talk about them. They are old house lovers, a professional couple with city jobs and a (old) summer home nearby. Very personable and friendly folks. And were highly sophisticated buyers, willing to play hard ball to get what they want. Nothing wrong in that per se. They used their sophistication to their advantage, emphasizing parts of the report that were hardest to dispute and most expensive to change, while agreeing to accept a myriad of  minor flaws, so they kept an aura of friendly reasonableness. They also harped on the fact that the local Code Enforcement fellow had not issued permits for work the owners had done. I knew the CEO,  a uncooperative ball-buster when he wants to be (frequently the case), and am thankful he’s been fired from many of the towns he worked for in the past. The owners had applied for permits and he told them, rightly, why they were not needed. So they did not get any. The Village was good with the way it had been handled. But the buyers weren’t.

The owners were aghast at all the problems.  Their thought was, “How could we have missed all these things? How could we in good conscience allow anyone to live there in the future?” No tenants had complained and these were largely not issues their own inspector had unearthed when he saw it only a few years prior.

Me - I wondered what had been said in the hours where I was not in the presence of buyers and inspector. If the parties want to collude, it is easier to do that in person than on the phone. By attending I can inhibit but not stop collusion.

The owners had some discussions between them, but they were spooked with all the problems touted by the buyers. They just really wanted to be done with things and were willing to take a loss to achieve that. Philosophically, they said, “We’ve always made money on our real estate dealings; this is the time we didn’t”. They agreed to discount the price but had to decide how much. Husband and wife each had their own idea about how much that was, but eventually they agreed to accept the buyer’s figure. Which just happened to be the same number his lawyer had used in the first place. Coincidence? 

My own suspicion is that was what the buyer had really wanted to pay all along and by agreeing to pay full price on the contract, they stymied the competition. Without competition, they could then work on the price as their leisure, getting it down to the figure they had actually intended to pay. They used their lawyer and their inspector (and a later structural engineer) to bolster their case, all the while implying that if the sellers only agreed to that price, then all other problems would disappear and the sale would go through quickly. Which, once the sellers gave in, seems to be happening.

What is the takeaway from all this? First, inspectors do not all see things the same way. Secondly, they may be influenced by the wishes of their employers, the buyers. Third, there is not much a seller can do about this. Normally, you can’t deny a buyer the right to an inspection without someone feeling you are covering something up. The only protection a seller gets from an inspection is a clause inserted that any defect costing less than $XXXX is one the buyer agrees to accept. Expensive flaws are subject to further negotiation or a dissolution of the deal. Fortunately, the vast majority of buyers are reasonable people and are willing to accept flaws at the price agreed upon.

All these kind of manipulations are legal, but as I’ve said before, “legal” and “ethical” are not the same thing.

It is interesting that most folks think a person has to be either Liberal or Conservative (or, there are still a few times when Moderate is still acceptable) in everything. It’s like you are not allowed to pick and choose which side you take on various issues. No one has to believe in the full party line. I have a good friend who is a knee jerk liberal, a true believer, and when I mentioned that I found him conservative in some ways, he was aghast. Yet he dresses conservatively, no bright colors; he does not get excited and remains pretty mellow; he handles his money conservatively (and still gives to causes he believes in) and doesn’t risk losing it in hopes of getting a lot more. He drives conservative cars, does sports that are not the least risky. So, I pointed this out and he thought, then decided I had a point.

 I consider myself a fiscal conservative and see no problem being more liberal socially than I am financially. So many cannot understand this. And I have no problem not taking sides on certain issues, like tattoos or trans stuff. The thought befuddles me (why would anybody want….?) but then I think, “Well they’re not hurting me or anyone else and if that's what they want, why should I judge?” Which is actually a conservative  (small “c”) way of thinking, one that Liberals have adopted. I decided that those things were not  a fight I had a dog in. Either way the scale eventually tips on those issues won’t change my life.  

Also, I  feel conservation should be considered essentially a Conservative thing.  Think of the root word there. Conservationists are trying to bring us back to the world that used to be. Radicals are those that deny climate change, "drill, baby, drill" and so on. The radicals are those who are buying into the changes in our physical world.  It’s another example of how Right and Left adopt positions that are actually counter to the way they think they roll.

Political parties are making a mistake in pushing people to be all right or all left. It sounds nice and neat for everyone to adhere to only one side in their thinking, but that's not how most people are. Our thoughts differ.  What the nation needs instead is more moderates,  people who are willing to look at the other side and see if they have a point. And not be afraid to cede it if they do. Cooperation and compromise gets us further ahead as a country than confrontation does. Not much of the first two of these going around any more as people continue to allow themselves to be pushed to one side or the other. We are leading ourselves, rushing, towards a social civil war. And that's gotta be stopped if we are to remain a nation with a common culture and values.

I recently sent something to a close, but not perfect address in a California city. It was supposed to be an "8" on the address, not a "3". Had that kind of mistake been made here, the delivery person would have just put it where it should be. There are advantages to small towns.


When we started our diary farm,  didn't get to the Post Office to announce myself until Tuesday, having moved on the weekend. But I had a letter on Monday. My sister-in-lawe had s=asked me what the farm name would be. I hadn’t considered that yet, but since I was in St. Lawrence County, joked “St Larry’s Dairy”. She addressed it with our names , then “St Larry’s Dairy, Heuvelton NY. I asked the postmaster how he knew to deliver it  correctly. He said he'd heard that someone new have moved in to the Bayne farm, so he figured that must new who she meant in the address. I said, “But suppose it wasn't us?” He replied, “If it  was wrong, we'd take the letter back until we found the right person.” No problem. 

Scams
Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion scam brought this kind of thing to my attention. And I thought, “Wow, this could really happen.” Here’s what happened there: Graceland was set to go up for auction under the pretext that Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie, who died in 2023, failed to pay back a $3.8 million loan she’d secured from  something called “Naussany Investments”. She’d used Graceland as collateral, according to court documents. But Elvis’ granddaughter and final heir sued to protect the estate from the auction block, alleging fraud and saying Naussany and the people supposedly behind it didn’t exist and had no rights to the property. Which turned out to be true as the court documents apparently were forged. If the heir didn’t find about it and take immediate steps against the fake Naussany firm, if the name Naussany hadn’t been used elsewhere, if it were some run-of-the-milll mansion and not Elvis’, if the real perpetrator hadn’t have a long line of scams to her credit, they might have succeeded.

That this is something the world now needs to look out for is witnessed by this: I recently sold a property I owned in Schoharie County, a perfectly legitimate sale. And a few days later, got a letter from the County saying that there had been a sale, and was I aware of it? If I wasn’t, I was to contact them immediately. Yes, a little ex post facto, but I applaud them for this action and hope all counties do something similar. But what if the owner was on vacationer the hospital  and didn’t get the letter right away?

A month ago,  I received an email from a fellow who wanted to sell his hunting camp. Nothing suspicious about that;  we see these things once in a while, not often enough, actually. We’d like more hunting camp business. The story was that he’d lost his out of state home in a fire, and needed to raise some money. Adding to his difficulties, he was in Canada for some medical procedure that would keep him there for some time, after which he was to go to Great Britain. I was supposed to use the official address as shown on the County records rather than a new one where he was in Canada. He gave me a phone number if we needed that too (a Canadian area code - I checked).  When I queried him on details, he had none, saying his deed and keys were lost in the fire. I viewed this lack of information as a red flag. Well, not really a red flag, a pink one.

For many years we have sold an occasional property where we never met the owner face to face or even speak directly to them, just via email. No cause for suspicion there. The lack of details was different. I asked things that any owner should know. What was the water source? Had any logging been done? Could he describe the buildings? You know, the stuff you need in order to represent and advertise a property. And got the same answer: go there with a locksmith to get in and advertise what you see.

Let me describe the place: This was a hunting camp, located in the Adirondacks and on a closed seasonal road. And there is 3’ of snow right now. Of course the owner was not there. Nor is locksmith going to open the doors. My associate, Pete, snowshoed in 300 yards off the maintained road, took photos, and got enough information for a write-up. We communicated with the purported owner; he was good about that. Another piece of information for you: he wrote perfectly fine English, not like a Nigerian scammer might do. And not like a owner with a very Eastern European first and last name might be expected to do.

Suspicions raised, I wrote to the owner at the address on record, down in Pennsylvania, saying that I was just writing him for a “routine confirmation” ( this was a line of complete BS - but if this was legitimate, I didn’t want to offend the owner) and asked him to contact me immediately if the property wasn’t for sale. I got no reply.  Weeks passed waiting for one.  I called the NY State Police hoping they could find a way for me to contact the owner at his home. If he was there - Canada was still considered a possibility, as could be Florida as well. Older folks in cold climates like to visit Florida during the winter.. The Staties clearly were not interested and just told me to contact police in Pennsylvania.

So, I did, several times, and had to content myself with messages left. I tried call fire companies to see if the home had actually burned - and left a lot of messages with them too. Finally, I reached a fireman. And he said there were no fires in that area in the last 18 months; he knew that for a fact. OK, giving the purported owner the benefit of the doubt, he might have had that fire years before, even though the camp looked like it had been used regularly - during the right season of course. I am not one to accuse people without better evidence than just my suspicions. And if the listing was legitimate, which was still not ruled out, I did not want to piss him off and lose it.

I’d been thinking: if a stranger emails you, how can you know he is who he says he is? It’s not as if we ever met face to face or had mutual acquaintances. How would this kind of scam work? This time, there were no neighbors to give evidence: the place is isolated and the bordering neighbors are not there either. Here’s what could happen. We find a buyer (after traipsing on snowshoes for many miles doing the showings), get his deposit and signed purchase contract, then email it to the purported owner who duly signs it and returns it. All as it should be. We find an attorney for him who does his job and we get to a closing which of course would be done by mail. So many of them are done by mail anymore, nothing suspicious about that.

OK. We have a closing and things have gone well… so far. The deed is filed and the old owner is no longer the owner of record. The purported owner gets his money wired to him, collects it and closes the account, then goes off to enjoy his vacation in the Caribbean. Months pass. Then the old owner goes up for some hunting only to find a stranger in there, who tells him to get off his new property.

Now we have a problem, Houston. Either the old owner has lost his property or the new owner lost his money. The attorneys and abstractor are out their work and we have to give back a commission we already spent. And the scammer is off scot-free, still on his Caribbean island. I spoke to my attorney about this. She was not so worried, as she asks for driver’s license or government ID up front. But maybe another attorney wouldn’t. Anyhow, by the time we get the purchase contract to an attorney, we’ve done our work, so our driving, our advertising, our many phone calls - would all for nothing. Since there there would be  a sore loser involved and since no one can find the perpetrator, someone might decide to go after Mr. Deep Pockets (me), as he’s the one who can be found. And we’d get sued and have to pay to defend ourselves, even if we win. Everyone loses. Except the scammer.

Resuming the story. Every so many days I’d been calling the Pennsylvania police and the fire companies, always leaving messages which disappear into black holes. I also called the local Post Office to see if there was a forwarding address for the old owner, but they were not allowed to give out any kind of useful information. I’d even thought of driving 5 hours, one way,  to his home just to see. My luck changed:  I finally got a fireman, then a few days later a policeman. So they do pick up the phone sometimes. I hadn’t been sure. The police called the old owner right away

He called me soon after and as luck would have it, rang when I was on the phone with someone else. Suspecting who it might be, I returned the call a few seconds later and had to leave a message. Then thought, “Maybe he left a message for me and that’s what he was doing when I called.” Sure enough he’d left a short message, in a thickly accented voice. Now, that sounded legitimate. So I called again, only to leave another message. This, I might add, was not the Canadian area code number the purported owner initially gave me; it was a Pennsylvania one. With cell phones your area code may or not represent where you live, so you cant go by that anymore.

Half an hour later, I got a call, from the old owner.’s son, who spoke perfect English and who readily understands these kind of things. His father had looked on line and there was his property listed for sale, so he called the son to intercede. The son said his father would have been devastated had the scam succeeded, devastated both financially and emotionally. He’d received my letter weeks ago, but thought it some sort of joke, so didn’t bother to reply.  We discussed how to catch this guy and both us us agreed to speak with our local police and for the time being to leave the listing active until we hear how to best bring the scammer  to justice.

What I am afraid will happen is that the police will say that it’s too hard and too expensive to try to trace the guy, then to hope to get a conviction across national borders. Maybe alI I can do is warn others that this could happen to you too (which, if you read this, is what I am doing). But we’re going to try to bring him to justice. There was nearly $100000 at stake here; it’s not any penny ante scam. Maybe that’s enough for the police to go after him seriously. We’ll see.

(Later) The sheriff called. They can’t do anything about it. Here’s what he said (nicely).

1)  “There’s too many of these things going around for them to take the time to attempt to bring anyone to justice. And it’s too hard when state boundaries are involved. Harder yet with national boundaries.” I have heard this before. Yet, we had the scammer’s phone  number - couldn’t they trace that and find out who he is? There's enough of this stuff going around and for long enough that you’d think authorities would have protocol in place by now to handle this sort of crime. I understand: they do what they can with the limited resources they have. Still….

2) “Until the owner loses his property or the buyer his money, there’s no crime committed.” Well, isn’t signing a false contract (the listing) a crime? Or forging a signature? Haven’t we lost money in our efforts so far? We could have been arrested for trespass. I don’t care so much about any the stuff about us except as an excuse to go after him. To agree to this kind of excuse is like saying an attempted murder doesn’t count. You can keep trying to injure someone and until you actually do, you are innocent? Come on.

3) “The FBI won’t be involved without a $250000 loss”. Oh, so they have a price? So, as long as you keep your frauds under $249000, you get off? Stealing from a poor person is not the same as stealing from the rich? (I’ll admit, historically, it hasn’t been the same. Haven’t we gained anything as a society? Yes, I am looking at this as an idealist, not a realist. But, while realists establish the status quo; idealists further it.)

We concluded the scam was real on Monday. On Tuesday, the real owner drove up to the County, just to make sure, and to meet me. We talked for way over an hour, a great guy and if he lived near, we’d be friends.
But the story doesn’t end here, as it should. Less than two weeks later, Mike asked me to sell his lakefront lot. It was a bit far for me but near one of my own homes, so I took it on. He asked me to prepare the listing so he could sign via DocuSign, an online way to sign documents. Though it’s used broadly, I have never liked it: you type in your name, which makes it legible alright, but not distinctive and I fail to understand why lawyers accept this as legal. I won’t use it on my own purchases or sales.  I explained to Mike that this was a service to which one had to subscribe and that the simplest was to do this was to print out the listing, sign, then scan and return. If he had no scanner, he could take a careful photo instead. For some reason Mike could not do this. Perhaps he only had a cell phone?  He gave me clear authority via email to go ahead and work on it. I told him, “OK, but I still need your signature before I can do all my ads as some sources requires  this (which was a white lie, I guess). So I sent him the listing form via good old Post Office. Taking him at his word,  I posted it, figuring I could take them down fast enough if I did not get back the signed listing.

Two or three days later, I got a call from the agent with the frozen sign. The subject of the call was not getting the sign out but the fact that this property was under contract and the buyer happened to notice it, called her, worried that the owner had for some reason changed his mind. One of the things I checked on-line right in the beginning was to see it it was for sale. It wasn’t. Well, that was why; it wasn’t listed as for sale because it was in the process of being sold. She was nice and not surprised at my story as she was aware of other recent similar scams. This is far more prevalent than I had assumed.

We instituted some changes in our policies. Now, when agents have not personally met the owner and are dealing via email, we now ask for a copy of their drivers license (which should be needed at the closing), And we mail the listing form to them to sign. I have also added a paragraph to purchase contracts to be used in such situations, one which gives additional protection to our firm and puts the ”seller” a little more on the hook. I wish there was a practical way to catch scammers. Preventing them is hard enough.

Abstracts and Title Insurance

New York is what is called “an abstract state”, meaning we still use abstracts of tile to pass property. More states now rely upon title insurance and increasingly, I am seeing more of that here. What is the difference?

An Abstract of Title is a long document which gives a complete historical summary of all recorded documents which could affect your title - deeds through the years, wills, liens and releases, mortgages, easements and rights of way, pending lawsuits, marriages and divorces, tax liens…. It also says which records were searched and which ones weren’t.  It’s a lot of stuff and abstracts tend to be BIG and can be interesting reading for someone who enjoys knowing the history of your property. What your attorney reads here gives him the information he needs to render his opinion of the marketability of the title, that it is good and that there will be no one i0n the future claiming to own it as well. There is some legal liability for both the attorney and the abstractors if they screw up and miss something, so it is in everyone’s interest that this part of a transaction be done carefully.

Title Insurance is something else: an insurance policy sold to you, one that lasts as long as you own the property. Just one payment, given at closing, does the trick and you are fully indemnified against any future person who might claim to own all or part of your property. In many states, there are no closings without title insurance, so it is becoming common when buying property owned by a multi-state bank or other lender to require this as a matter of course. It is not a New York State requirement and on property that I flip I prefer to avoid it when I can. In my view, it is a cost that protects, not for years as it would for most folks, but only until I resell it a year later. Not worth the expense, in this case as I would still have recourse against my attorney and abstractors, not that I’d use it. But when you intend to make this your home or even to own it for a long period, the equation changes and you may feel  the security is well worth the expense.

Here’s why title insurance is replacing abstracts: people (this includes lawyers and bankers too) assume that if the insurance company is satisfied that there is little to no risk that they will need to make good on their indemnification obligations, then that’s good enough to pass on the title. It also tends to take attorneys off the hook which no doubt makes it easier for them to embrace the process. The same employees and firms do the work for each because basically the research need for each is similar. If it is wasn’t, there’d be more attorneys demanding abstracts instead. There is little financial incentive either way for most people.

 Sometimes, often, title searches are simple and just take time. Any lawyer can do a title search and draw up the abstract. Some of the abstract/title companies are owned by lawyers as an adjunct to their normal services. However, they nearly always farm the actual work out to abstract/title firms, ones who do that for their living and become expert at it. I know of just one lawyer who routinely does his own abstracting. He also is in his upper 80’s, still sharp. I have seen rare special situations where other lawyers will do this work themselves, but go many years between examples.

In the beginning, it is decided among the lawyers which one orders the title work, which is  typically not ordered until the contract is fully in place as it would be wasted money and time (the abstractor's time, which has to be paid for) if for some reason there was not going to be a closing. Examples of that would be if the parties failed to agree on a small point or if the buyer needed to get a mortgage nor sell another property, then couldn’t. So, it saves money to wait. But there are times when it costs buyer and seller to wait and if your case is one such, then you should make this clear to your attorney that you’d rather risk wasting money on a title report than delay. But in nearly every case title is not ordered until both attorneys are sure that the deal will close, that the only possible’s stumbling block left is the possibility there is bad title or perhaps a cloud upon the title, which the report will reveal.

I can think of only one place where lawyers have not been able to resolve clouds upon the title. That place was under contract several times and failed to close each time, for the same reason.  Fortunately none were my deals. But in every other instance I have heard about, eventually the difficulty gets taken care of. But it comes with a cost of a delay in the closing and can take additional weeks to be resolved.

Abstracting typically takes about 3 weeks, but it really depends upon how busy they are. I have seen it done in a week and have seen it take over a month, even two. Each case is different. If you have an abstract, you will want to make sure you know where it is before you decide to sell as it may be expected that your attorney will want to send out the physical copy for updating, which is much cheaper and faster than creating a new one each time. It is surprising how often an attorney asks the seller for his abstract and it cannot be found. After all you have no need for it between the time you bought the place and when you decide to sell. It may be at your old attorney’s or the bank as well as in your own files, three places to search. Fortunately, there is a move toward digital copies, which makes these things easier as well as saving mail delays. If you intend to use title insurance, the company can still use the abstract to get them started, saving you time and money.

January 17,2015
Rent-To-Own
Real estate is not furniture. If you fail to pay, they don’t come with their truck when you’re not around and then take it away. I get these requests from time to time and, like most things, there are advantages and disadvantages to both parties. In most cases no one has thought deeply about this.

How does it work? There is more than one way. Most often what the buyer has in mind is a rental with the chance to buy it when the term is over. This is not terribly meaningful as neither party is obligated for much.

My favorite is that the buyer pays normal rent  plus an extra amount which is then calculated separately and subtracted from the total when (and if) there is a closing. If he fails to close as specified, then he loses it. If he performs as intended, then he gets a discount. I like this as each month it ties the buyer tighter to the deal and gives him a real incentive to buy it at the end. But if he doesn’t, keeping the extra  money may not be so easy as anticipated. Lawyers’ interpretations on this vary: some would say that by setting aside this amount gives the renter an equity interest in the property and you may have to get them to sign off to guarantee clear title to a new buyer, which probably will come at a cost. The wording of the document should take this eventuality into account.

I have also handled them as a two part transaction. First is a regular rental and second is an option to buy. Here the terms are spelled out - date, price, and so forth. But the buyer is not obligated to perform; he just gets the chance to buy before anyone else does.

As with a rental, I’d envision a sum of money changing hands, one that is substantial but not exorbitant. It can be called the “Security Deposit” and the seller can credit it at the closing rather than return it like normal in a rental. Note: a security deposit does not have to be the same figure as a month’s rent. In fact, it shouldn’t be. The selling price should be set in stone at our before possession. Or …you could agree to abide by whatever an appraiser says it is worth. Or each of you could have your own appraiser and average the two figures. Any way you handle it, you want the buyer to have skin in the game, to hold his attention and focus if things start to go hard for him. You have potentially more to lose than he does.

The Seller’s Side
Advantages:
1) It gets you a buyer and a potential sale that you might not otherwise have.
2) The buyer usually is willing to pay full price. It’s easier to say “yes” to this when you don’t have to fork out the money right away.
3) You may have some tax savings since all the money is not coming at once.
4)mYou are not automatically forced to pay off right away any loans you may have.

Disadvantages:
1) You’ve kicked the can down the road (which not always a bad idea), yet locked yourself into today’s price, thereby loosing any inflation you might get. If there should be deflation, the buyer will almost certainly just back out.
2) The buyer has a period of time to find out everything about the property and familiarize himself with all its warts. These may be things you’ve learned to live with and do not think so important. They may think differently. Remember, “The grass is greener…” Something new has an attraction that something old must compete with. In my experience the majority of rent-to-owns never close.
3) You lose the opportunity to sell it to someone else for $1,000,000 (or whatever).
4) Suppose the buyer gets into trouble, say he gets sued and loses, a car accident perhaps. Can they attach your place as part of the buyer’s assets? Would you have then to buy him out?
5) You could be forced to evict your tenant. This is a costly and unpleasant experience for both parties. Do you know how nice they will keep it?
6) You could lose your Star tax exemption if you move away.
7) If you have on-going expenses, loans perhaps, will you get enough monthly take care of that. If the money flow stops, will you still be able to service your continued expenses?

The Buyer’s Side
 Advantages:
1) You get time to get your affairs in order. This might be selling something, getting experience to get a special loan, or waiting for an inheritance or judgement to come in.
2) You get to know the place very well and hopefully can forge a bond with the owner.
3) Any appreciation probably adheres as your benefit.

Disadvantages:
1) You may waste a lot of time and never buy.
2) You can lose additional sums if you fail to buy. Walking away from it may not be as easy if you would think. Depending upon the wording, you might be sued for breach of contract.
3) What happens if the seller dies or becomes incapacitated? Or he gets sued big time?
4) From what I’ve seen, inheritances and expected lump sum payments mostly fail to materialize.
5) There are potential tax deductions that you will not be able to take advantage of.
6) Suppose you cannot get the money by the end of the rental. You may be forced to leave your new home and what you’ve worked for all those months.
You may decide you don’t like it as much as you thought you would.
Suppose the seller has judgements against him (either before or after you move in) or there is a flaw in the title. What then?

Yes, this is more complicated than you expected. The agreement between buyer and seller should take these things, and others into account. I recommend that a lawyer draw it up and another lawyer vet it for the other party. That could be money well spent in case something goes awry.

I tried today to get electric put in our name on the place we just bought. You’d think all you’d have to do is look in the internet for a map of where each company serves, but to my knowledge such maps, if they exist, are not put in public places.  I thought it was in NYSEG territory, but they said not. So I called National Grid and got the same answer. Finally I tried my third choice, a local co-op. Not theirs either. Of course each phone call meant negotiating a phone maze. They each wanted me to run out and look at the meter, which just happens to be an hour away. I have seen this before with electric companies. The people who answer the phones know so little about the area, they cannot correctly pronounce all the postal addresses they serve.

The place we bought has 2 deeds. One is a 34.5’ wide strip of land, wide enough for only a 4.5’ wide home. The town official that I verified this with and I both had a laugh over that one (they have a 15’ setback rule). The other deed is for the home and a normal-sized lot.

So, I ended up calling the agent we bought this through, then driving over there to look at the meter. The agent told me to tell NYSEG that the home was #1477 on the road and had a Richfield Springs address. Only, there is Post Office 4 houses away and that’s sure not Richfield Springs. I took photos of the meter and the tag which clearly said “NYSEG”. I called them when I got back home, but first accessed the County records, learning 1477 is the tiny lot and, as expected, 1479 was the home.

Now why NYSEG uses an address for which a home can never be built instead of the address where the home actually is, will be a matter of continued debate if we wish to beat a dead horse. They insisted that 1477 and Richfield Springs was the address and it was no use to try to convince them otherwise. “Heck, what would the owner know about it?” is the attitude. I said that if they insisted on mailing bills to that address, they would be unpaid because they’d never be received. Makes no difference to them. Why should they care? Collecting is someone else’s job. A different department. Those folks need jobs to.

I had a long talk with a neighbor who, it turns out, I knew slightly. She said that when she started ordering from Amazon and such places their GPS had her listed as Richfield Springs and she had many go-rounds over that. To no avail. Now, it’s good: the delivery people all know where she lives and just make their deliveries as they should, ignoring the postal address on the packages.

I have seen this before. On the Rural Grove home we had, National Grid insisted it had a Randall address. When I pointed out there is no post office in Randall, nor is there a zip code, they still they disagreed. They’d listen politely to me, and not change a thing.  They know better where these places are than a mere owner. As a person who expects things to be done correctly, we went through this many times.  They, like NYSEG, refused to change the address.

What would these companies do if the mail was returned as "undeliverable, no such address”?  In each example here, the mailing address was different than the delivery address, so the bills got through. But normally the two are the same.  Curious minds want to know.

I have had several instances of bills not being sent to me with recently acquired properties. Once I decided to sell the home after the tenants left. Careful about such things, the tenants had informed National Grid when they were leaving and I’d informed them to put the electric in our name at the same date, but mail the bills to our address (which they’d used here before without difficulty). However, this fell on apparently deaf ears and they continued sending  statements to the address of the property, only there was no mailbox or anyone living there. Previous owners  and tenants had always used a PO Box as the post office was just 100 yards away. That went on for three months when I decided I should have received at least one bill by now, but hadn’t. On earlier calls, I was told to wait and things would catch up. And initially I  had been very careful to let them know delivery and mailing addresses were not the same. I’ve learned to make that very clear.

Then I sold it, and some months after closing got a $900 bill. The new owner never got a bill and was using lots of electric heat for an elderly relative living in an enclosed porch. She had told them the date it was to be in her name and had the new account number they gave her. She’d saved it all and had everything needed to substantiate that what she had done was exactly the way they wanted. Then National Grid asked me to pay the $900 even though I’d pointed out that 1)  I did not own the property during that time; nor 2) did I use that electricity and 3) that the new owner had informed them in plenty of time how the bills needed to be addressed. It’s like they just thought that since I'd been paying in the past that I'd like to continue do so in the future as well. Wouldn’t that would be nice of me? Only I'm not that nice.

Crazy Quotes
10/16/24
An Amish neighbor does contracting. Seems like a nice guy. I got him a job putting up a small barn for a friend. When I asked the friend how well he was satisfied, I got a qualified answer. He was happy with the building and the price. But expected to develop a relationship with them that never materialized. I didn’t put much credence in that as he’d said the same thing about his lawyer, who I knew well and respected a great deal. You want someone to do a good job at a fair price, not necessarily to be a new friend.

A year later, I asked my neighbor for a quote on siding for a home I was rehabbing. He was $100 more than another contractor, one with whom I’d worked with several times in the past. So that guy got the job. When I decided to side the rest of the home, I asked both of them again. My neighbor asked why he didn’t get the first job and I explained that he was the higher of the two quotes. The second time he was higher again, somewhere between $1-2000 more, so I gave the job to the other contractor once more. At the time, I wondered if the extra high figure was some sort of revenge for not giving him the first job.

Several years later, I had a home which needed a new roof and I called him again. He sent out his man, an “English” (ie - not Amish) fellow to take measurements. “If he can afford to hire English”, I thought, “his business must be doing well”. The quote came quickly landlocked professional. It surprised me: $24000. A few months prior, I’d sold the farm of another Amish fellow, one who had hung up his shingle and was now doing construction, so I asked him for a figure. He got back with me, apologizing that he was so busy erecting greenhouses that it might be a couple months before he could get here. That was OK by me. And even more OK when he told me $6500. He did a good job and I gave him another while he was there.

Lest you think I am picking on my particular Amish neighbor (I have other Amish neighbors who work put and have not had the same difficulties with them), here’s another story. I acquired what I called the ‘ugliest home in Montgomery County”. Mostly it was ugly from a complete lack of grounds maintenance, rather than  structurally difficult, but there was a lean-to addition whose foundation, such as it was, had both cracked and fallen over in places. On structural things such as this, I knew from experience that most contractors don’t want to get into it and would charge me extra to take it on, so I looked for Amish, who are more apt to charge reflecting the actual work and materials needed. I found a guy. He came out and it was obvious he really knew his stuff:  $22000, which was more than I’d paid for the place. For that figure I reckoned I’d end up doing it myself. But first I asked around at the local Amish. Not all Amish are the same - along with differences in how they practice their religion, one group uses cell phones and hires drivers; other groups don’t have phones and get around by horse and buggy, which of course severely limits the extent of their business.

I just went to a nearby Amish home, told them what I was looking for, and asked if they knew anyone who could do it. I’ve done this before, knowing they each know everyone in their community, know what they do, and know how busy they are. But the second home, I’d found my man. It turns out he was the younger brother of a fellow who’d worked for me in the past but had since moved away. Under $1000 for labor and I supply the store-bought materials. To be fair to the first guy, this fellow was going to do a lesser job. Adequate, that’s all.  But this was not a top rate home and a top rate job would not add anywhere near the difference in price. I also knew there’d be some follow-up work to do once we got further along on the inside work. At these figures I could do it, and later did.

The lesson here is not about Amish, but about work. Some jobs are not straightforward (roofing  and siding usually is) and it is not easy to know what you will run into, so you inflate your price to take care of unpleasant surprises. Which is why I often ask for a time and materials quote, like for the foundation. The contractor then knows he won’t lose money and I know his figure will not be artificially inflated.

But there is another side, one that I take great umbrage about: getting quotes before the home has changed hands. If you are buying a place with an issue and are unsure what it will cost to address, it is perfectly reasonable to predicate your offer upon knowing what the repair will cost beforehand. But I have learned to hate to see this. Here’s why: in every single case, every case,  the quote was significantly higher than both the buyer and I had guessed and each time, the buyer ended up not buying. So not one of us gets what we wanted - no money for the seller or the contractor, no commission for me, and no property for the buyer.

What I think is going on is that the contractor meets an out of the area buyer, one who does not know our lower costs here, and he sees this an an opportunity to make a bundle. People often come to the area attracted by our low prices. This has happened so often now that when I call a contractor to give a before-the-sale quote, I am frank and upfront and tell him if he comes in too high, neither one of us will get a cent. So far this approach hasn’t worked.

Here’s something else, related. Among certain contractors, the quote is influenced by how much money he feels the buyer has. If the guy’s rich, the price goes up. A lot of rich guys are aware of this and let it roll off their backs. But it bothers me. I suppose you could say that the extra money they make off the rich can be used to subsidize the poor, the locals. But it still rankles.

I am not for a second implying that all contractors are like this. In every area I work, I search for the type of guy who will do good work at a fair price, the same for all, rich, local, out of state… whatever. And I keep a database on those I can recommend. It can never be exhaustive as there are always people starting into business or retiring. And I cannot possibly have experience with everyone out there. Also, I am also well aware that personalities which can mesh or clash. From my own experiences living in different areas, one of the hardest things to learn is who will do what he says, and when he says. Those guys are out there, but are not always the first  person you meet in the trade.

Like the room in the photo above, a messy topic. And it has zero to so with real estate, but a lot to do with the country where our real estate is located.

Did you hear about the second assassination attempt on Trump? Maybe someone will actually get him yet and save the country a lot of trouble. He doesn’t need to worry about me: this is musing on my part, not wishing. I’ll give the guy credit, he remains unfazed. Me? I might decide the job wasn't worth the risk.

For more than a year I have been thinking of assassinations, fully expecting it would be Democrats killed because the Trumpets have (nearly) all the crazy gun-owners in their camp. Statistically, being president is one of the most dangerous jobs out there. Makes mining look like child’s play. 4 dead out of less than 50; that’s nearly 10%. What job carries a 10% chance of violent death within a 4 year period? (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy, in case you did not remember.) Then think of how many unsuccessful attempts were made: Washington, Jackson, TR, FDR, Ford, Reagan, Bush and Obama. I don't know if the ones on Trump count as they were attempted when he was not president. Were all the would-be assassins in the last group all successful, there'd be 1 in every 4 presidents murdered while in office.

And all the assassinations and attempts were by gun. No knives, no strangulation, no poison like they used against the Roman emperors. Those guys didn’t have guns back then, which probably saved a lot of Emperors. Now, check the time periods between Presidential attempts and you see a definite acceleration, one which parallels the proliferation of privately-owned weapons of individual mass destruction. I'd expect you’d find parallel statistics when studying mass killings throughout history.

Going right along with this was the rise of social media. People no longer know their neighbors in the same way. The people you associate with in a friendly way are less about to be geographically close but are more likely to be associated with you due to common interests. And now you may never have met many of them, so you only know them through their on-line presence, which may not be the same as it appears to people who actually see them. The gist of this is that we are being fragmented, losing real personal relationships for on-line ones and we are less apt to know each other as people. We associate more and more with only those who think the way we do, so we tune out other's opinions when they don't agree with our own. People with differing opinions you’d still respect as friends and neighbors in previous times; these are now less relevant.

It's human nature to be influenced by the opinions of those you associate with, the people you see and interact with the most. But with social media, work-from-home jobs, computers taking over other jobs and so on, and less what used to be normal human interaction -  all of use lose from this.

So I am seeing several trends pointing toward an unpleasant end to our society as we now know and envision it. I have enough of a background in history to understand that pendulums swing in two directions and this allows me to sleep at night - some, anyhow. So I worry during the day.

In 2018 I sold a home to an unmarried couple, and held terms (I am too old to do that now, so have stopped the practice). The folks made the first 5 payments and no more. Payments were a hair above $900, which even then was not bad for a house like they got. After a year, maybe 2, I started a foreclosure. Not many lawyers will do this any more. There was just one local one who’d do it. In due time, we did a virtual appearance before the judge. The buyers said they were going to get a regular mortgage to pay me off. The judge agreed to hold things off for a couple of months while they did that. Think. Now, what bank is going to fund people who make no attempt to pay? Of course they are going to ask me about their payment history. And of course I would tell them the truth. And when the next date came around, of course they said they were still looking for a mortgage. So they got a few more months. This went on and on. Finally they did not even bother to appear, which finally pissed off the judge. So we could now go to the next step. Finally.  Things moved again, though very slowly, and last August the foreclosure was finally decided in my favor. But so far, the judge has not signed off on his ruling, which is the final step before it's official. I think my lawyer is afraid to piss off the judge by leaning him do his job.

Then I learn there is a lien on the place of 10 grand (unpaid rent from before my time). They had that when we started and my lawyer (a different one) failed to pick it up. So, now I have to pay that off to give clear title to anyone who buys it.

Finally they (father and son) left, She’d been gone a couple of years before, after an argument they had. Went to Montana…somewhere. No one would tell me where, so I was unable to serve papers on her. That made an another huge delay, in the beginning. In a new place, he was now wiling to be, in his words, “cooperative.”

So I asked my lawyer to draft a deed in lieu of foreclosure from them to me, along with other needed paperwork. They both agreed to sign (by now she’d returned to New York and I was again able to communicate with her). Since she did not want her ex to have any notion where she was living, we had to figure out a way to eliminate addresses on the paperwork. She met me, but did not sign then and there as I (foolishly) hoped. Some weeks later, she did sign and returned things to me. Then I called him to get his signature, but had to leave a message. He did not bother to return the call. Two weeks later, sShe called, checking on things. I explained that I was waiting on him. Grrr, she’d get his butt moving, she said.  She did too and 2 months after I started the deed in lieu of foreclosure mess, he signed. Very friendly now.

The following day I was at the lawyer's to have him look things over and to settle up with him. All was good, the papers properly executed, so I headed to the County Clerk to have the new deed filed. But they did not like the fact that she’d xeroxed the papers and the little “sign here” stick-ons were xeroxed with it. But they were nice and said they’d let this slide. Then the girl got her superior to look things over. Apparently the xeroxing  was not to her satisfaction as one page showed up twice, with the lower half x-ed out on one and the upper half on the other. Can’t have x-es, she said. Could I get that redone? If I had a mustache, both ends would have touched, I drooped so much as that request. She noticed. I explained how much trouble it had been to get this done the first time, so she got creative with Scotch tape. I just had to fill out the top part again; we’d retain the half with the signatures.

I asked if I could title this as we usually do, in our trust’s name. The front deck gal said “Sure”. But when the back desk gal saw that, she said we now had to completely redo the deed as it originally was in our names, not the trust's. Reluctantly, she agreed to let me white it out and rewrite it the way she wanted. So I paid them their $200 and was done. It was now mine again.

I marched across the hall to the County Treasurer to make sure taxes had been paid. Of course they weren’t. So another check was written, for well over $10000. Then they told me that did not include the most recent bill as they don't get sent over until June 1st. When I got home, I called the Town for their figures. Fortunately, someone was in who could answer for me. That is not always the case; these little Towns do not have full-time employees in their offices. For nearly $5000 more, the rest of the taxes could be up to date. Whoopee. This should be a lesson to anyone who fails to pay taxes on time. Their “little" charges add up very fast, they compound. Since no one from the town bugs you to pay taxes, many find it easy to put them out of their minds. Who wants to think about taxes anyhow? Let it go long enough that they simply take title to your home and sell it to someone who will pay taxes.

Anyway, it’s now ours again to fix up and sell again. Did I mention they had a fire? Not a bad one, but still it’s damage that must be repaired. I'd spent a day earlier picking up trash from the yard. What I could see. When I cut the grass, I found a lot more. The burnables, mostly limbs, are piled up in the garden to immolate once the State ban on fires is off. I figure that I have at least 9 cubic yards of stuff that I need to take to the dump. Along with 12 tires ($4.50 each to dispose of). I spent 2 hours today getting left-behind toys out of a closet. There were 2 full totes of toy trucks, car and tractors, all in good shape. And another full of Legos. And a smaller one with kid's DVDs and books and school stuff. And a brand-new, never-worn set of boots, buried under the piles of stuff. More totes and lots of shopping bags were filed with things I had neither time or patience to sort out. Among the detritus were thousands, many thousands, of tiny little balls, crayons, pencils, all things that could fit inside shot glasses. I really regretted not bringing a snow shovel to pick these things up with. It would have been so much faster.

Now, I know a major reason why he failed to pay both his mortgage and the taxes. He spent his money buying crap for his kid. So you know what I will be doing for the next few weeks. Cleaning up, making dump runs, remodeling, painting, getting things working again. The lot and location are top notch. The house will be beautiful again once we are done with it. We did it once, we can do it again.

Modern metal-clad doors normally have a wooden frame along the inside. This is what screws fasten into that in turn hold hinges, sweeps, and various things around the door knob. My kitchen door apparently does not have this and relies upon screws fastening directly into the metal skin alone, working like sheet metal screws do. So when the metal “skin” got too worn to hold them, one cannot just go with longer screws like you would if there was wood to penetrate, because what is behind the metal inside skin is styrofoam. Warm but totally lacking in structural ability.  So while my door opens and closes just fine (for now) and looks good enough, the screws that hold the plate around the latch do not hold and they work out. When they get far enough out, they bang into the striker and the door won’t close until they are pushed in again. It’s days are clearly numbered.

Additionally, I was also annoyed that there is some rust on the door. Not easily seen, it should not be there at all. Doors are sold with a primer on them (white or gray). Most often, folks mistake the primer for exterior paint and do not paint them, thereby allowing them to rust, over time. How soon that happens depends upon their exposure to weather. However, we painted our door immediately (red) and it has been repainted (green) since. With the porch around it, rain has never hits the door, nor has snow reached it. Yet, there is some rust. I have long realized that a good old wooden door (very expensive now), if cared for, will outlast metal. But fiberglass should outlast both of them. So, that’s what I bought. Even though my heart said “wood”, my wallet vetoed it for the modern solution.

I was surprised to discover my new fiberglass door is far heavier than the others I have handled in the past, probably double that of a wood door. An Amish guy helped me put the new door on my roof rack. I worried a bit about getting it off, but figured I could handle it since gravity was on my side. I backed up close to the house so I wouldn’t have to move it far. Concerned about scratching my car’s roof when it left the roof rack, I put a towel on the roof there, which protected the car well and allowed the door to slide easily. Too easily, it turned out. As it slid downhill off the back, it began to also slide to the passenger side. Where I wasn’t. I could not hold it back. My alternative would be to let it slide uncontrolled off the back and before it fell to the side. That’s a further fall and I couldn't risk it. Going in both directions at once, I could only control the back direction, not the side. It fell 3-4’ without any hindrance from me.

And snapped the frame into. Aghast, I saw that the frame was plastic, not the wood I’d expected. Note: not fiberglas, but plastic. Fiberglas has fibers that keep it from breaking easily into. Like wood does. Now, with the frame broken completely into, it no longer held the door securely in one place, so it kept flopping as I tried to drag it all into the home. Flopping too much would only break it further, so every foot I gained, I had to put it back together again, then drag things another foot to repeat the process. To move 18’ from the cars back into the home took that many minutes. Pissed at my misfortune and the difficulties it engendered, I took to opportunity to exercise the edges of may vocabulary.

Two people could have done this fairly easily. But if I had two people, there should have been no need for the towel; you'd just lift it off, turn it sideways, and walk inside. 2 minutes of grunting. The silver lining is that the new door itself is perfectly fine, completely unscathed. It was fiberglas (and glass).

Inside, I assessed the damage… And went looking for clamps. I must have 50 of them of various sizes and descriptions. But none of the rigid ones were long enough to clamp a 7’+ door frame, and my strap clamps fell way too short.  So off I went to find something that would work. For years, if I need a tool, I just buy one, figuring that if I needed it once, I'd need it again... eventually. So now I have a very nice strap clamp that will handle a 12’ door if I ever manage to break one that big.

I used smaller clamps as needed for other directions, exhausted my supply of epoxy (there was just enough, no more, no less - so at least one thing went right in this episode), and put screws in strategic spots. Then, as a finale, I installed two sections of steel strapping around the corner near the break. It will be as good as new and to a casual observer, it will look new too. We’ll install it tomorrow morning. Once in place, there will be no stress upon any of the (plastic) frame and all we will have left to do is, come spring, give it a coat of paint so it matches the rest of our doors. Be sure to examine it when you come in.