Above and Beyond...Better Yet, Over the River and Through the Woods

Above and Beyond...Better Yet, Over the River and Through the Woods

Ok, I'm exaggerating a little. There was no river--it would be better described as a gully and the woods were just trees in the backyard--however, it was a long hike. But wait a minute, I'm getting way ahead of myself here!

A couple of years ago we were the listing agent for a high end, 4,000 square foot home. We got the house under contract very quickly and was scheduled to close the day before the July 4th weekend. Unfortunately it was one of those situations when things were not going smoothly. Murphy's Law was hard at work.

Our client had scheduled a cleaning of the house for the late afternoon the day before closing. He and his wife were out of town. Unfortunately he forgot that he had taken the key from the cleaning lady the previous week! We received a call from the seller at 4:30 in the afternoon, "Could you let the cleaning lady in?" Of course, we answered. When we got there 20 minutes later we found a very pregnant woman sitting in the shade of a tree in front of the house, sweating profusely. The temperature was 102 degrees and humid!, 

We let her in. She said her help was on the way so not to worry about the cleaning. The air conditioning was working in the house so we said fine, call us when you are finished.

We left, but 15 minutes later we received another call from the now panicked cleaning woman. There was no water to the house! Oops, the owner had turned off the water a day early and had forgotten that as well!

We drove back and assessed the situation (I always talk like that!).  We tried calling the water company but they could not be reached. What a surprise. The cleaning people did have buckets...so I started going house to house trying to find someone to let us have some water. I finally found a neighbor at home who said I could use his hose to fill my buckets. Great!

Well, these were very large lots so the hike between homes was about 300 feet through the trees, the aforementioned gully and finally back to the house. In 102 degrees. Carrying two full buckets of water. Too many times to remember. I was kind of a hot mess. Literally.

The house got cleaned, with our help, and we did end up closing on time. Quite the adventure, over the river and through the woods!