Category: Life with Pratts

Based on the timetable I had from the town, the sewer line was supposed be ready in time for the connection to be completed before passing papers. I became concerned when the date began to slip. Then I was told the engineers had decided the lines needed more time to settle underground before they’d be ready to use. Argh.

I had to tell our real estate agent the house couldn’t connect to the sewer service until after the sale had been completed. She informed the buyers, who I’ll call the Smiths. They knew there was a chance that would happen, but I really wanted to go to the closing with everything already done.

The meeting was held at the office of the attorney who was hired by the bank writing the mortgage for the Smiths. My wife and I were there with our real estate agent.

We immediately liked the Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The same cannot be said of the attorney their lender was using. She had the same last name as the creator of a new Apple TV series. The same name as the first mate on a boat that gave three-hour tours.

Getting down to business, I explained the situation. The town expected a delay of two months. A licensed contractor had already been hired to remove the septic tank and connect the house to the new sewer system. I would put plenty of money in escrow to cover not only the balance of the contractor’s fee, but the cost of pumping the septic tank as often as the Smiths wished.

The attorney turned to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and said, in a very snide tone, “You’re screwed.”

My wife and I were dumbfounded. Not only was the lawyer being unprofessional and insulting, the fact was that nobody was being screwed.

Our agent immediately spoke up in our defense. She told the lawyer that I had done everything possible to have the sewer work completed ahead of time, but it was entirely out of my control. Then she revealed there had been another offer on the property, for more money. My unprecedented gesture, of accepting less money, without asking for a counter-offer, was news to the Smiths.

After that bizarre upset, we passed papers. We agreed on an amount to be held in escrow by the attorney, and I wrote a check for even more money. We left the meeting feeling good about the Smith family, but with the lawyer’s rudeness leaving a bitter aftertaste.

It was hot mid-August weather. Driving home on the highway, the radiator on my ’89 Honda Civic blew out. We had to drive to our new home with the heat in the car turned up full blast.

I paid the $800 betterment fee to the town and signed up for the coming sewer service. Huge concrete forms were dropped off along the street, including some placed in our front yard.

Hoping the sewer connection could be done before closing on the sale of the house, I contacted one of the contractors authorized to do the work. He came to the house, saw what he would need to do, and quoted a more than reasonable price of $2400. As I recall, the deposit was only $600.

While I was doing that, my wife looked for a real estate agent. The first one she talked to wanted to list the house for what seemed to me a giveaway asking price. Another realtor, who we hired, told us the other agent’s sister lived in the house behind ours. Ah. The lady was trying to arrange a shady deal for herself. I should have reported her, but I didn’t. There was too much going on, in addition to my job, to bother with that.

The concrete forms were still there when the agent held a Sunday open house. She saw them as a selling point. Overnight, a powerful storm had dumped a significant amount of rain on the town. When the agent arrived, I told her I had to mop up some water that had appeared under the oil tank in the basement. She was relieved, because the other houses being shown that day in our price range all had flooded basements.

During the open house we were killing time at a museum, when the agent called my wife’s (analog) cellphone. There were two offers; one was for the asking price, the other was for $500 above asking price.

When we met with the agent later, I asked her what she was able to learn about the people who had made the two competing offers. She handed us a nicely written letter from the couple who were offering the extra $500. They were young professionals who were hoping to start a family. The offer for asking price was from a couple with two small children. He was a truck driver with a tile contracting business on the side. I accepted their offer.

The agent said she’d never had a client turn down an offer for more money, even a small amount like $500. The thing to do was ask if they would match it. I explained to her that I simply felt the couple with children would be a better fit for the neighborhood. Also, I liked the idea of the kids playing in the backyard. I’d put a lot of work and money into making the backyard nice for us. That was another reason why I didn’t want a new leaching field that would require removal of the above-ground pool and leave a huge mound with a vent stack.

So, everything was in motion. My mother made it through her medical crisis, I was going to buy a house (while not yet knowing about the bank’s underwriting screw-up), and there was a contract to purchase for my house. It was a great week when the street was dug up and all of the concrete forms were buried underground. It then became a question of how much of a delay there would be before the town gave the okay for the sewer hookup.

Thanks to the intervention of my employer, the closing went through for the purchase of my present house, with only one more snag in the process. The lawyer had to fix a problem he found with the original filing of the deed in land court. It was in my favor, adding a nice chunk of woods to the back of the property. I own it up to that distant stonewall. That stream is dry during most of the year.

Now, about the sale of my first house. As I explained before, my septic system had failed, but I’d been told the street was on the town’s schedule for a sewer line extension. We spent the next year keeping our water usage low and the septic tank pumped out.

I was relieved to receive a bill from the town for an $800 betterment fee (equivalent to $1600 today), because that made it official. Hooray! Every property owner who was eligible for a sewer hookup had to pay the fee, whether or not they chose to connect.

I attended a town meeting about the sewer project, where people complained about having to pay the one-time fee, regardless of their need or interest in not needing Rid-X. Having a flashback to the many city council and school committee meetings I’d attended as a radio reporter, I stood up and did what I couldn’t do as a reporter. I stated an opinion.

“The sewer is good for our property values. My septic system has failed, and connecting to the sewer will cost a tenth of what it would be to replace it. Many houses in town with septic systems date back to the Fifties. Eventually, they’ll all fail. $800 may be a lot of money to pay all at once, but they said you can pay $200 quarterly, with your property tax bills. We need to do this.”

It was my George Bailey moment.

What I didn’t say was that we were selling and leaving! Longtime friends who lived in town called to say they saw my little speech on cable TV. My friends were comfortable living there, but we weren’t a good fit.

I got good at guessing when it was time for the septic tank to be pumped out. The situation being what it was, for the next year I usually kept the cover of the tank exposed. Fortunately, the washing machine had a dedicated dry well. Don’t know what that is? Look it up! Without the dry well, the tank would have needed pumping far more frequently.

About a year after failing the percolation test, just as the town inspector had promised, lines were being spray painted on the street for the sewer line extension. By that time, we were actively looking for a house in another town.

We weren’t having any luck finding something in our price range. Then, during lunch one day at work, a friend and colleague came up to the cafeteria table, and instead of joining us, he said, “Come on, there’s a house I want you to see.” His neighbors across the street were putting their house on the market. It was perfect for what my wife and I wanted and needed. I made sure that weekend’s open house was canceled.

Now I need to backtrack to a post from a few years ago.

Creative Financing

Here’s something very scary to see. A rat catching and biting into a bat! Mr. Rat carries it off, presumably to have Mr. Bat for dinner.

YIKES! What are the implications of that nightmare?

https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/11/08/g-s1-96931/rat-bat-virus-video

Last night, sitting at my drawing table, I heard something I’ve come to expect this time of year, when the weather gets cold. What I heard was the sound of a mouse crawling around in the wall between my office and what I’ll call the media room.

I set a non-lethal mouse trap that has worked for me in the past. This morning it hadn’t been disturbed. I decided to finally take more decisive action and go under the porch to see if I could find a likely point of entry, where the inside wall is located along the foundation. This gap looked like it. There’s even a crack there.

I’d heard that steel wool works as a mouse block. I have a supply on hand that’s used to polish the rim of my Thorens turntable platter. I stretched out half a dozen wads of it then packed it good and tight into the run of that gap.

Either the mouse is still in the wall and has been napping all day, or he left to take advantage of today’s 62 degree weather. If the former, is he stuck inside and will he find his way to the trap? If the latter, will he be prevented from getting back inside?