house hunting adventures

So I've discovered that house hunting is full of highs and lows. So far, I haven't seen anything that has given me the right vibe. My parents are enjoying this almost more than I am, I think. I've been going online and finding places in my price range and then I print out the info and we plan a little driving trip on a Saturday to check out the places I printed. We did that last Saturday, with an interesting looking and affordable forclosure in Spanish Fort. I liked it a lot until I saw the backyard. Totally creepy and scary. I wish I had taken pictures. There's a tall wooden fence obstructing the view to the backyard from the front with a creaky gate. When you go in the gate, all you can see is the side of a metal storage shed. Not too bad, but a little strange. You have to sort of slide by the shed to get to the rest of the yard, but there is no sun at all because they built a roof over the entire backyard, connected to the house. Under this roof is a hot tub and an above the ground pool with a deck built around it. You have to get to the pool using stairs up to the deck, which isn't too bad, but there are so many dark places under the stairs and the deck where people can hide that I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable. A door leads to a screened-in back porch. It's not locked, so we walked in. The oddest thing was there - on the ceiling of that screened in porch were hundreds of those little screw-in cup hooks, only about an inch apart. The entire surface was covered in them. I couldn't imagine what they did with those cup hooks! I had a strange vibe before that, but that really creeped me out for some reason. Now I am sure they had twinkle lights or grew vines or did something totally innocent with those hooks, but it was still pretty odd.

After doing all that house hunting, you would think I’d be tired of looking at houses, but on Sunday I drove my sister around to look for a new rental house. She’s pretty unhappy with her landlord right now, because she found a snake in the house and he won’t come fix the hole in the floor where the snake came in. It’s behind a cabinet, so it’s hard to reach, and he said he wasn’t going to do it. She said she wouldn’t renew her lease if he wouldn’t fix it, and the lease is up next month. It’s lucky she doesn’t have to wait too long to fulfill her entire lease because this guy seems like the kind who would try to charge a huge penalty or something no matter why someone broke the lease. She called me today to tell me she might have found something in a neighborhood I was considering. I might consider moving in with her to help her out, if there’s enough room. It would help me out too, since it would be cheaper and closer to work.