Ever have one of "those days" in real estate?  The ones that you want to do over. To use a Mulligan. To crawl back in bed and pretend it didn't happen? Today was one of those days for me.

My day started bright and early. I was on the road by 745am. I was going to meet a house cleaner at a vacant home in Tacoma. The owner / seller lives out of area and I am handling things like this for him.

I managed to get every red light between my house and the freeway. Then on the freeway I was cut off so dramatically that my purse and the four files I had on the passenger seat flew to the floorboards. Finally, I get to the house at about 820am. That gives me enough time to turn on all the lights and turn up the heat before the house cleaner arrives. Oh, and I need to make sure the water works since the homeowner just had it turned back on. (Bad tenants!!)

I turn on the tap and no water. Drat! So I find the door hanger from the water company and read their remarks. Oh, silly me, the water was on, but not turned on at the meter. Okay. Out to the meter I go with my wrench. No big deal I think. Wrong. It will take a stronger person than I to turn it on. So I go inside to call the water company. A field service tech should be here in about an hour. Not good.

As I am sitting there waiting for the house cleaner and now the water guy, a landscaper comes over to give me a bid on sprucing up the yard. It is a great price and Victor from Precious Landscaping gets to work.

By now I notice it is 905am. Still no housekeeper. So I call her. Oops. She forgot. Can she come at 1130am? She will bring 3 others and they promise the house will be done today. Which I need because the carpet cleaner is coming tomorrow.

At about 10am, the water guys show up and in about 2 seconds are ready to leave. I go into the house and hear the shower running. That is strange so I go up to turn it off. OMG. It's not the shower, it is the spigot behind the toilet that supplies the toilet. It is shooting water out. I try to stop it, to reattach the hose to no avail. So I run downstairs and out into the street to try to flag down the water guys.

Victor, the landscaper, sees me waving and yelling and asks what's wrong. The house is flooding I reply. The water guys keep going and disappear around the corner. I ask Victor if he can take a look at it as I jump in my Jeep to catch the water guys. Victor has a pair of pliers with him and is able to turn off the meter. I come back with the water guys. They take a look at it the spigot in the bathroom and say I will need to cut open the wall to fix it. They have never seen anything like this before. I thank them for their time and off they go.

I grab a couple of beach towels out of my Jeep to go sop up the water. Then I call the homeowner to let him know what is going on. After a plan of action, I call my plumber guy. No answer. I then call my friend to get more phone numbers out of the phone book and start calling. Take towels outside and wring them out.

Oh yeah, the house cleaner. I call her to cancel. She can't do her job in a house with no water and with the bathroom flooded. I rebook for Monday. And the carpet cleaner I rebook for Tuesday. And I cancel my personal trainer appointment at 11am. And I call my 6pm appointment to let them know I might be a little late, but I will let them know for sure in the afternoon.

As I am wringing out towels a second time Victor is done. Since he lives close I ask him if he knows a plumber. He says his friend is a plumber and he will take a look at it to see if it is something his friend can repair. Not even 20 minutes later, Victor has fixed the problem! He turns the water back on at the meter and it works like a charm.

So here it is a little after 11am and I am ready for a margarita! My pants are sopping wet, I'm cold, my hands hurt from wringing towels, and my toes and blue and black. Blue from the cold. Black from my newer leather loafers that I am sure are ruined.  I call the seller and give him an update.

I go home change clothes, grab my wet/dry vac, a box fan, a space heater, and then head back to the house.  Two hours later most of the water is taken care of. I have the heater and the fan on it. I will check on them later. Now I'm tired but I call the seller and give him an update.

So how do I earn my commission? Oh wait, I haven't yet. The house is not scheduled to close tomorrow. It is not under contract. It is not even on the market yet.

Next time someone asks me about my commissions I am going to give them my marketing plan and refer them to this blog post!