The Money Pit

Remember that movie?!  We've always preferred to buy new houses over our many years of moving.  While older houses have lots of charm, they also come with lots of issues that you just can't see when you're in the process of buying.

This time, however, we decided not to buy brand new.  We looked at some new houses, but they just didn't fit us for various reasons and none of them had the backyards we were looking for.  So, we settled on a house that isn't brand new, but it's also not very old (about 5 years).  Seeing as how it's about as old as the house we sold in Kansas, we assumed we would be fine.....especially knowing the condition we left our house in when we moved out!

Let me just say....some people don't take very good care of their property.

This house looked pretty good upon initial inspection, but it has quickly become more than what we bargained for, and it has continued to be one thing after another leading us to start calling it our Money Pit!

Take, for instance, our mailbox.....

We hadn't even been in our house 1 week when the door to our already leaky mailbox fell off!

Yep, just rusted away and fell right off when we opened it to get the mail one day!  It clearly had not been cared for!  And really, all of the other mailboxes in the neighborhood are in great shape and have been kept up and painted....just not ours.  And it's not like we have nothing better to do!  But please, let us drop everything so that we can fix our mailbox!

We contacted the homeowners' association and discovered it would cost over $400 to replace the mailbox....ugh!  So we decided to rig something up to re-attatch the door as there was no hinge we could buy at Lowe's or Home Depot to replace the original custom-made hinge.

It's a good thing hubby is handy!

So after a few new parts, a few new holes drilled and a fresh coat of paint, we now have a respectable mailbox....

Sadly, the rest of the fixes haven't been quite so simple.  Since we've been here, we've had the plumber come 3x, only to end up having to replace our entire kitchen faucet in the end!  We've also had to replace our dishwasher- the little cup that holds the detergent wasn't releasing and the machine itself just wasn't getting the dishes clean.

In addition, we've had to replace the garage door openers.  When we first got here, we only had one operating door!  We had to have someone come and fix both doors, put a keypad on the outside and give us new remotes.....about $600.


And although the sellers tried to make the house look new when they moved out by repainting (inside and out) and putting up all new blinds, the paint is all flat paint and it's being destroyed by the kids!  So, after repainting our entire house in Kansas, we get to do it all over again here.  As far as the blinds go, I am mortified by what was left here!  For whatever reason, the previous owners took out all their blinds and replaced them with new blinds.  Unfortunately, the blinds they put in are the kind you buy at a home improvement warehouse that are NOT custom-fitted, don't have the decorative tops and don't even match the trim color!!!  And they're AWFUL!  We have been ripping them down and trying to cover them up as much as possible until we can eventually afford to replace them.

And that might be easier to afford if we hadn't had to buy all new fixtures for every bathroom in the house!  We're still baffled by the fact that they took all the towel racks, toilet paper rollers, etc. from the house when they left.  So we've spent hundreds of dollars replacing those as well.

Of course, all of this is on top of us trying to finish the basement!

One thing I've learned for sure, if we ever DO move again, I'm not buying used!!!!!!!  This money pit has been more than enough for me!