When I became a real estate broker, I pretty much thought that my arsenal of toys would look like this:
- - Cool cell phone
- - Laptop
- - 4-door, 4-wheel drive SUV with GPS
Oh boy, was I wrong. The back of my SUV is filled with, among other things, a noisy wet-dry shop vac, old towels and a garden hose. Storms have been blowing through here for the past week and almost every deal I'm involved with is leaking! OK, so now for the "catching rain and sucking on hoses" part.
My clients wrote an offer on a PUD and there was, what we thought, a slight leak in the roof drain in the garage. There was a slow drip ... drip ... during a light sprinkle so I searched for a bucket to catch the rain. The only thing available to me was a blue 55 gallon recycle bin from the local disposal company. I thought at the time that this huge bin was overkill, but this was all I could find.
Fast forward 5 days. After our offer was FINALLY accepted, I scheduled a home inspection and met the inspector at the property. When I opened the garage door I couldn't believe my eyes. The recycle bin had not only filled up, it had overflowed. OK, now what? The listing agent is going to kill me! There is no way to move this bin in order to empty it. It was the inspector who suggested siphoning the water out using a hose.
I know how to siphon (I had a waterbed in the 80's and moved all the time, what were you thinking?), I just didn't realize this was a learned skill that I would use during my real estate career. Siphoning requires that you put one end of the hose in the water, extend the length of the hose to a lower elevation and ... suck. I don't remember seeing this question on my real estate exams.
The home inspector thought that this was a perfectly normal thing to do. Evidently the neighbors didn't. It seems that every dog in the complex needed walking (just at that very moment) so I had a lot of company while I was doing this. Needless to say I was a bit sheepish when I explained that I was a real estate broker!
I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who is utilizing a skill set that wasn't mentioned in our real estate text books. Anyone else care to share?
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