Houses & Kitties

The house has a plumbing problem; how bad, we don't know yet. The seller is having the plumbing looked at today and will let us know if they want to pay to have it fixed. The is another case of "can't sell the house without fixing the problem", but the seller may not have the money, who knows?
Sophie the kitty still hates our guts after 3 weeks now. I placed an ad on Craigslist and a nice man who rescues cats answered it. He doesn't have room for her at the moment, but he's working with me to find a home for her. Dinsy has lost her fear of Sophie now. Dinsy has no problem waltzing into the bedroom and giving Sophie the kitty version of "neener neener", which prompts a huge explosion of hissing and growling from Sophie, while Dinsy strolls back up to me as if to say "this is MY house, don't you forget it!" I wish it could have been Sophie's house too, but she just won't get with the program......

house inspection

The inspection went fairly well; only the hot water heater leaks, the shower pan needs changing and the breaker box needs to be replaced, along with a lot of piddly stuff. Now for the plumbing test today......*teeth chatter, knees tremble*

YAYY!!!!!

They accepted our offer this time! The house will be ours......hopefully this one won't have the problems that the other one had........

Two kitties are NOT better than one......

This kitty may not be for us. She fooled us a bit on Sunday, but since then, she hasn't really let us come near her without a huge show of hissing, spitting and growling. We've tried everything we can think of and she's just not liking us at all. I called her vet this morning and asked for advice and they said that she may be too old to accept a new family, let alone another cat. So, they said they would call me if anybody called wanting a cat.
I really hate this. The woman who gave her to us told me that she was friendly toward other cats and that she was just past the kitten stage herself, like our Dinsy. Turns out that Sophie is over 6 years old, the vet tells me. I wanted to email the woman but Adrian said that would be a bad idea. Sophie is our problem kitty now, we'll deal with her.
I so wanted another kitty for Dinsy to play with. Dinsy wants a playmate too; she was so curious about Sophie, but now she's scared to death.

A nice, quiet Sunday

Sophie is doing a bit better today. She doesn't run and hide when we come into the bedroom, and even meows quietly when we say her name. She let me scratch her under the chin without freaking out, but I got a small half-hearted hiss afterward. I put a few drops of Rescue Remedy in her water dish and that seemed to help. I had forgotten I had some in my purse. That stuff helped me tremendously when my mom was ill. Plus, we slept in the same room with her all night, so I think she's getting used to us.
Oh no! Rush is on TV, an old film of them playing "Tom Sawyer". I remember seeing them on the Midnight Special back in the Seventies. I remember looking at Geddy Lee and thinking "that's the ugliest woman I've ever seen in my life!" He hasn't gotten any better looking either.....Get thee behind me, Geddy!!!

World War Three

Oh, the hissing, spitting and growling that going on in this house! And it's pretty much just from Sophie, poor little kitty. She's just had her whole world changed and now these strange new people want her to make friends with another kitty too? On the same day?
After I got bitten once, I figured that maybe she would prefer to be alone in the bedroom for a while until she gets used to all the strangeness. She promptly wedged herself underneath my 1920s vanity table, in a tiny little space under one of the drawers. Any mention of her name is greeted with a growl and a hiss and if I put my hand on the floor next to her, she swats at me.
This is not a happy kitty. I hope she can eventually calm down.....

Two kitties are better than one

We're going to take a break from house hunting and get a playmate for our kitty, Dinsdale. Sophie will join our household this weekend! Dinsy's been so bored, maybe she and Sophie will get along well and play together. I hope, anyway..........

I'm so tired...I haven't slept a wink

The house has been on the market for over 21 days and the seller has recently lowered the price. He refused our initial offer AND our counter offer which was just $5000 shy of his full asking price.
FUCK THIS SHIT.

Back to the grind......

We've been looking at other houses lately and have made an offer on a very nice one in east Austin. It's in a very nice neighborhood, and comes with newish appliances. The house itself has two large bedrooms, two bathrooms and a fireplace. The seller has made a counter offer and we're still waiting to hear whether our counter offer has been accepted or not. We may have to leave this one too.....
I'm really sick of house hunting.

Syd Barrett RIP 1946-2006

Goodbye, Syd........

Full Stop

The house is over and done with. It won't be ours. There is a $10,000 plumbing leak that the seller refuses to fix. He is instead going to lower the price and put it back on the market. Since the house would not pass an FHA appraisal or house inspection, we are out of the picture.
The slimy realtor actually called me at work to suggest an "alternate plan", which consisted of "not telling FHA since they wouldn't find out anyway, and the seller could just give you the money to fix it yourselves". It was brave of him in several ways, firstly considering the manner in which our last telephone conversation ended, where I yelled at him and hung up on him; and secondly, because I work for a MORTGAGE COMPANY AND CAN REPORT HIS SLIMY UNETHICAL ASS TO THE TEXAS BOARD OF REALTORS. What a fucking piece of work this guy is.....
So....back to the drawing board. At least we have a nice ethical and hardworking realtor that we will be working with in the future and we won't ever have to deal with this slime ball again.