A Writer's Notebook, Day One-Thousand-Four-Hundred-And-Seventeen

As I mentioned last night, I've been dealing with a lot of things recently that are very upsetting.  As I think I have mentioned, just before the pandemic, Melissa and I bought a house.  We got a decent deal on it and were able to put together the money to do a bunch of work to get it renovated for us, but that entire process has been a disaster.  First of all, we had huge delays on everything because of Covid and stuff.  For a long while we waited patiently, but at a certain point we just didn't see anything progressing and we decided we had to get to the bottom of it.  Well, we hired a lawyer and he has discovered that our contractor never got any permits for any of the work that was being done, including electrical, plumbing, and construction.  Some of it is definitely not up to code, but even if it was, it is illegal for the work to be done without a permit, and it also would probably be a problem if we ever wanted to sell the house, not to mention that it would also potentially nullify our home owners insurance if we ever went to file a claim.  From what I gather, the condition of the house right now is such that, technically, it is probably not legal for us to even be living here right now.  We are waiting to find out what it will take to get things fixed, but it is not good.  In the best case scenario, we are looking at months more work and a lot more money.  We don't really have a choice, I don't think.  We can't really sell the house as it is right now unless we are willing to take an immense loss, and we would still need to find someplace else to live which would probably cost us a lot as well, even if we were to go back to renting (which I am not wanting to do after some of my experiences around here).  I am just feeling so trapped by all this right now and I just want to find a way to make this better, a way where I won't feel like this whole effort was a huge mistake.  I already had a lot of negative feelings that had built up with things around this house, and now I am just overwhelmed by it.

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