Last week, an agent called to show one of my listings to her buyers, who were coming back to see it for a third time. Normally, that would be wonderful news, but in this case, I really had to brace myself.
This agent's clients had three children in tow for the first two showings, and it is a huge understatement to say that two of the three were behaving like complete brats.
My clients had done a very good job of child-proofing the house while preparing to list it. Anything fragile was put away or put on a very high shelf, and it would have been safe from normal kids. But not these!
I wasn't there for the first showing. But on the second, one little boy was making like Spiderman and climbing up a wall of bookcases. As I was talking him down, his brother managed to light the gas log, then he threw a fist full of pine cones that began to smoke and smell bad. Their sister wasn't that badly behaved - she was outside slurping water from the bird bath, and at least that was not destructive to the house!
It was like a scene out of Desperate Housewives - showing the place to Lynette and her ADHD brood!
I wanted to throttle the little brats, but Mummy and Daddy are both lawyers, and I'd probably wind up serving 2 to 10 in our local slammer. So I took their agent aside and said the children had to leave the house and play outside during the showing - there's a huge park just behind the place where they could be maniacs without hurting themselves or someone else's property.
The little darlings probably told their parents that I was a mean real estate lady.
And during the third showing, they did play out back in the park.
Whew!
And while I tried to work up some empathy for these parents, I just couldn't - even after hitting my "Retry" button!
House hunting can be rough on any small children, and I'm lucky to have clients whose little ones are always well behaved when they come along. But if you are buyers out looking for your dream house, and if your children are a little, well, energetic, it might be best to leave them with a baby sitter, although these poor parents probably have a hard time finding one who will come back a second time!
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