Disclosures

Sonny's wife Linda found a home. It was in a nice quiet neighborhood. The neighbors were friendly, and the schools are the kind you would want to send your kids to. The home is Victorian, and that's not Sonny's taste. Besides, it's way over budget. But Linda says, ‘Sonny, I’ve got to have that house. If I don’t get this one, it’s just going to kill me.’ Now Sonny tries to tell her the problems you can have with an old house like that. For some reason, she’s just not listening. It’s not registering with her. Sonny figures she’s cursed and has fallen into some Victorian fantasy world that he can’t snap her way out of. Whatever he says goes in one ear and out the other. She's far, far away in another world. She clearly wants what she wants without looking at the consequences.

Sonny loves her and wants her to have what she wants, but he’s not going to put his neck in a financial noose over this house. But he’s her husband for Christ’s sake. He’s the guy who is there to make her dreams come true. He says to himself, ‘If she wants a miracle, then so do I.’ So, Sonny makes a lowball offer on the house. It’s so ridiculously low and out of range, that it was even embarrassing to Sonny. He kept telling himself, ‘It really would be a miracle if the offer were ever even entertained.’ Sonny figured if, by some great act of fate, the offer is accepted. With his luck, that miracle will come and then he’ll just have to deal with it. His neurosis doesn't stop.

He can’t stop hearing voices. Mavins who know all about real estate. They've been forming narratives in his head from the time he was a child. They have all been telling him to stay away from old Victorian homes. They’re nothing but a money pit, a money pit! He sighs and says to himself, what does it matter? Money comes and money goes. A good home will last a lifetime. He tried his best to believe that.

Sonny kept asking himself, what if they do take the offer. After all, the house has been sitting on the market for over a year. A bad sign right there. If they somehow do accept, he is hoping to have enough money left over to fix the place up. The only thing is with this type of house, the repairs could be never-ending.

Although Sonny wants Linda to have the house, he’s secretly hoping and praying they reject the offer. He feels guilty about feeling that way, but it’s something he can’t help. After a couple of days of waiting their realtor comes back and tells them the offer has been accepted. Sonny feels the air go right out of him like a slam to the solar plexus. He takes the punch to the gut like a man. Then he uses his best acting skills to show Linda how happy and excited he is about their new home. The realtor leaves the keys hidden under the front floormat so the couple can go in and take a look around. Maybe come up with some decorating ideas.

Sonny turned the key in the front door. He opened it a crack and it creaked as haunted houses creak in the movies. He passed through the foyer into the house and a bad smell instantly hit him. It faded away fairly quickly but Sonny knew that was the smell of water in the house. He looked up at the ceiling for leaks, cracks, and holes. He knew they were there. He knew he was going to find some sagging piece of drywall to prove his water theory. He knows there’s something busted in that ceiling, and the place has been taking on water.

Sonny’s neck was started to hurt from looking up at the ceiling for so long. Linda yelled for him to come upstairs. She's in her glory, they're pointing out all the cute little rooms and going over where they're going to put this piece of furniture, and which room the master bedroom would be. Sonny kept thinking to himself what's the difference. All the rooms were small. They were small and covered over with old faded pastel wallpaper, that closed everything in. Sonny felt nausea and a claustrophobic feeling from that place.

All the painting and scraping he was going to have to do. And no matter what Linda said, in order for him to live in that house, he was going to have to knock some walls out to create a larger living space somewhere. It’s was way too closed in for him. It was like a submarine in there. He’d find those wet spots, on the ceiling, it was just a matter of time. The sun started going down, and the house was getting cold. Linda said she wanted to come back the next day with her cousin Eddie who was a big engineer. He was brilliant. A professor of engineering at Drexel University, that’s how brilliant he was. The next day Eddie came around and they went through the house together. Eddie had all these electrical testers, and a brown wooden box, like the ones they used in the old days for testing a crime scene. Sonny didn’t know what to think. The guy looked like a geek, but he seemed determined and prepared, so Sonny told himself not to be so judgmental. There were some other strange space-age gadgets Eddie had on him that Sonny had never seen, so maybe Eddie was the real deal.

Eddie’s pushed his chest out like a spring Robin, while he walked around the house talking about all the wonderful architecture, and how the home was historically certified, He was going out of his way to educate Sonny on the virtues of Victorian homes. Eddie told him there are only a handful of Victorian homes built in this style, and it would mean something to a collector. Yes, a collector might be very interested in it. All Sonny could hear was flip, and he started asking Eddie all these questions. Questions like how much could he sell it for? How much would it cost to restore it? How long would it sit on the market before a collector came along?

Eddie looked at Sonny and said he really couldn’t say, then walked away from him. Sonny caught right up with him, got in his face, and said, “You’re the big expert here. You tell me, how much are we talking about, Eddie? What good is it if you can't lay some numbers down?”

Eddie had his head down like a little kid who doesn’t want to pop an answer for fear of the consequences.

Sonny said, “A fifty-ball. Please, tell me it’s not more than a fifty-ball. Eddie put his thumb up to go higher.

Sonny starts to unravel. “How much? Tell me. I don’t want to play games. You got all that stuff on you, those gadgets, that box that looks it came off the set of Colombo. You know, Eddie, you know," Sonny backed up and rubbed the back of his neck.

Then, “So, tell me, Eddie, what’s the cost to fix this place up?”

Eddie was born with a sad round red looking face. As Sonny gazed at him his face looked sadder and more red than normal.

Eddie said, “Fifty thousand to fix this house is bucket bait. To get this right you’re looking at about a hundred-twenty-five, maybe more.”

Sonny glances over at him. “How much can I flip this to a collector for?”

“That’s hard to say. I’d have to get back to you on that one. Good chance you would make some kind of profit.”

“So, that’s the answer. You don’t know. Jesus Eddie, what are experts for? All this bravado about the architectural integrity of the property. How the house is in on a historical registry somewhere, and how important this would be to collectors, And you can't give me a number?"

“Well, I wish I could but I can't. Not without doing some research."

"And how long will that take."

"With my schedule about a month.

"A month!!!" Sonny went into a state of shock.

Eddie looks at him and says, "You’d have to go so deep in debt to fix this place upright. You have to think, is the risk worth it to you?"

Sonny backed off and said, “Listen, Eddie, I didn’t mean to get mouthy. I’m sorry, it’s that this whole thing is making me upset. And this is my fault, not yours. I shouldn't be taking this out on you.”

Eddie said it was okay, and that he understood

“So how does it look, I mean does it seem sound?”

“As far as I am concerned it’s a real gem. Why it’s a steal.”

The sale was going through. The mortgage company and the builder did their inspection. Then before the final walkthrough, Sonny hired his own inspector to look everything over. The guy was like spiderman. If you greased him up, he could probably crawl down a toilet and through a pipe. He was all over the house looking for problems, but he never found anything. Sonny climbed a ladder to the roof. Linda saw him up there and got upset. She didn’t like heights. Sonny looked at the roofing and thought, this is supposed to be slate. Maybe there was slate underneath, but now the roof was covered over and patched with cheap-looking graphite shingles.

Sonny climbed down the ladder trying to imagine what it would cost to replace a slate roof. Fifteen thousand at least, probably more. The closing day comes, and they get with their realtor. They pile into his car and head down to the title company for the closing. They fill out a million papers, and when they think they're all done, another million papers. The closing ends, and they now own the house. Sonny is thinking about finding the nearest cliff to throw himself off.

Moving day comes and they get a couple of guys to do the heavy lifting. Sonny and Linda spend endless hours loading and packing. There are constant arguments about what to keep and what to throw away. By the time they’re finished moving in they're both completely exhausted. Sonny thought ahead and brought an air mattress. It was too much to lug the regular mattress in and set up the bed.

As soon they laid their heads on their pillow’s they fell fast asleep. It was many hours later when Sonny opened one eye to see the sun about to come up. He rolled over and saw Linda was still sleeping. Sonny started moving around a little bit, and then he feels this wetness between the blankets. He sniffs it and it’s that same smell that hit his sinuses when he first walked into the house. Sonny rolls part of the blanket back, trying not to wake Linda. And then he hears it. That dreaded sound of water dripping from the ceiling and it's falling right in the spot where he was sleeping. He looks up at the ceiling waiting until another drip comes. The next one hits him right across the bridge of the nose. Sonny runs to the front door to see if it’s raining. It’s pouring out there. His nerves are on edge as he walks around the house with his phone flashlight, still checking the ceiling for leaks.

This roofing problem had been dogging him through the whole process. It was a big roof and it was his biggest nightmare. He was living that nightmare now. There were leaks everywhere. Water floated across the wood-planked floors in the hallways and the den and seeped into the bedroom carpets. The house became freezing cold from all that rain seeping in, and the temperature had been dropping down into the low twenties through the night. He rushed to the thermostat to turn on the heater but got nothing. Nothing but cold air came out. Sonny now felt the full force of what he feared all along.

Again, he remembered what those in the know all said, Hah, an old Victorian home. What was the adjunct word? Was it money-pit? Yes, it was.

Sonny was now caught ass deep in the thick nasty mire of the money pit. This was something his wife had dreamed about her whole life. She dreamed about it all the way back to the time she was hiding in her bedroom reading fairy tales. Now her childhood dreams were becoming his nightmares.

Sonny a practical guy who doesn't really believe in fairy tales. He wanted a new house, in a new development, with a builder’s warranty. If things go wrong, call the builder. The builder will fix it. But that won’t be the case with the house he just purchased. This is what she wanted, if he said no, she would have slowly tortured him to death over time.

To try and hedge against the impending doom of what is looking like a very bad choice, Sonny did the best he could to mitigate the risk and bought a premium home warranty. It's supposed to cover everything but wait until they look at the house. The problem is the warranty doesn’t kick in for thirty days. The house is almost a hundred years old. Who knows what they’ll cover and what the exclusions are. Sonny read most of the warranty, at least the main things. But writing on a piece of paper becomes much different in real life. Things change when some smiley-faced technician comes snooping around asking questions. And what about the roof?

Linda woke up after catching the constant glare from Sonny's phone flashlight. She felt the wetness on the mattress and jumped out of bed. She asked him in a nervous voice, what was going on. Sonny told her to stay calm. In a firm dramatic voice, he told her the house was leaking everywhere. He tells her that they have to stay calm down. Hysteria never solved anything. Meanwhile, the house was leaking like a sieve. It might not be such a bad time to become hysterical.

The sun came up and they could see the water all over the area outside the kitchen where they both slept. There were some other wet spots on the ceiling, but the kitchen. The whole room was nothing but a stinking mess from rainwater. He saw other parts of the ceiling that were cracked and wet. There was on spot on the back wall where it looked like the ceiling might cave in. Knowing that roofers are notorious thieves, Sonny doesn’t know who to call or who to trust. If only he had a close friend or a family member who was a roofer. Neither Sonny nor Linda knew a roofer.

Sonny turned on a light in the kitchen so he could look in the computer bag that he had wrapped up in plastic bags. After he flicked the switch the light came on. Then there was a bright flash, as the bulb exploded and the glass shards come raining down in a million pieces. Linda and Sonny looked at one another, frightened and stunned.

Linda knew from the look in Sonny's eyes not to say anything. They had that killer look she was always so afraid of. But he would never kill her, even if she did talk him into buying the house. He loves her too much to kill her. To be fair he and Linda are in this thing together, like it or not. You had to stay patient with her and remain focused. A tall order.

Inside his laptop bag are all the closing papers. They sat on the hallway floor and told themselves this was a time to stay calm and approach this problem like adults. They want to see if there is anything they can find in the closing papers that may help them. They decided to get out of that house and go to a Starbucks around the corner.

Linda wants to take a quick shower before they go and Sonny wants to do the same. He thinks he hears her singing in the shower when suddenly the singing turns into a blood-curdling scream. You turn the water off and pull her out of the shower, and hand her a towel. She tells you in a crying voice that the shower went from lukewarm to boiling hot, and the cold water wasn’t working at all. You try the cold water on the sink, and nothing comes out but some air and a bit of dirty brown water that stinks like the plague. You turn the cold faucet all the way up and the pipes start to rattle. There are so many bad thoughts running around in your head, that you can't stop them. You are faced with problems that are too expensive to solve. The roof alone, forget fifteen, it has to be at least 25 thousand. There are times when you just want to run away and hide, and this is one of them. Maybe you should just find a hotel and sit there alone for a while until you can come up with a plan. But no. You remain calm for your wife’s benefit. You stand in the kitchen mirror together washing your face and hands and brushing your teeth with bottled water and head over to Starbucks.

You sit next to each other sipping a cup of Starbucks coffee. They both think about how they could have missed all of those obvious problems. Her cousin, the well-renowned engineer, may be brilliant but in this case, he turned out to be completely worthless. He was so caught up in Victorian nostalgia that he didn’t catch a thing. And what about Spider-Man the inspector. What did he do but some contortions and gymnastic moves to lighten up the afternoon? You are both ranting on and on. As you continue you both get louder and the whole place can hear you now.

To add to your great fortune, there's a realtor sitting on the other side of the wall next to your table. He couldn't help to overhear the conversation, and he offers to help. He asks Sonny for the disclosure form. The husband pulls out the SRPD (Sellers Real Estate Property Disclosure) from his computer bag and hands it to him. The realtor ran his fingers all over the document and made a series of notes on a memo pad he carried with him. He told them that all the things they said were wrong with the house were not disclosed by the owner. He asked them if they closed already, and they told him yesterday. Then he asked if they financed or paid cash. They said they put 20% down and financed the rest. The realtor tsked and said they might get lucky if the money hadn’t transferred yet. He got on the phone with the title company. He explained what happened. The money had not transferred yet, and the title company would put a temporary hold on it until they could get things settled out.

They went back to the title company twice to make things right with the seller, but he never showed up. They tried contacting him, but all the current phone numbers and emails they had on him were cut off. Things went back and forth for a while. The couple had to appear in Justice Court a few times, and again the seller never showed. The judge said he would run classified ads in some preferred newspapers, and ft there was no response from the seller in ninety days he would reverse the sale. The judge threw that house right into probate. If the owner ever wanted it back, he would have to go through the court system. The ninety days passed and there was no response. They had to jump through all these hoops, but in the end, it paid off.

It is better they went through the system and now have a legal record that they are no longer liable for the house. In the midst of this tale of frustration and woe, our couple rented an apartment, temporarily. Sonny says no more old Victorian homes. Linda caves in and agrees. Why ruin a marriage over a stupid house? One day Sonny is driving home from work and sees new construction that looks Victorian to him. He rushes home and brings his wife back to the development. She finds a model that she’s just in love with. She’s got to have it. It’s a little over their budget, but they’ll a few cutbacks and things will be okay. Somebody was watching out for them. Things could have gone the other way and they could have wound up in that Victorian horror of a home that could have ruined them mentally and financially.

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