Cousin Itt, Where Are You?

Yesterday, I was checking out stuff in my neighborhood on our MLS.  And Oh!  My!  God!  There was a house that I’d missed!  A stone Tudor, circa 1925, listed by Eddie Dugas, one of my absolutely favorite colleagues.  And the price was in the five hundreds – the price of a hovel in this neighborhood.  And this was not a hovel.  Was it?

OK, there was a catch.  The MLS information said it was funky in the extreme.  But that’s fine.  I know someone who thinks that funky is good!  That would be master renovator, Henry Canby.  He waves his magic toolkit over the house and it becomes totally amazing.

So the showing instructions said the lister had to be there for showings.   I called Eddie to see if we could get in this evening at seven.  He said sure.   And he trusted me to show the place without him.  But there were some things we had to watch out for.

There was a bedroom and bath on the first floor, but we couldn’t walk in because the floors were “spongy”.

We shouldn’t walk into the back two bedrooms on the second floor because the floors were, yes, “spongy”.

Be careful of the raccoons that had moved in.

Bring a good flashlight because the electricity is off.

Oh, and be really really careful about going down to the basement.  It’s um, intense down there.

And a branch from a big tree fell on the roof, about four years ago, and there was a wee, well a huge, bit of water penetration.

“And Pat,” Eddie warned, “don’t wear your Ferregamo’s to this one!”   Fine, so it’ll be army boots!

Henry came by in his contractormobile to pick me up and we headed for Argyle Terrace a few blocks away.

It was raining pretty hard, but I’m not that sweet.  I won’t melt.   And we pulled up and I opened the lock box then the front door.

Duh duh duh DUH!  Duh duh duh DUH!

It’s the Adamms Family house!

There were not any small animals – the mice and raccoons had probably succumbed to lead poisoning from the layers of old paint that were dripping like stalagmites from the ceiling.  But the floors were spongy, as promised.  And I told Henry that if he wanted to see the basement, he would have to do it without me.  He did.  As promised, it was intense.

This house had been amazing – stone construction on a gigantic lot in a fabulous  neighborhood.  And as we stood out back looking at the huge wooded lot, we saw a red fox with a big bushy tail skulk across the property.

This house is what we call a grand dame in need of a face lift – sort of like me!  And Henry is the world’s best house plastic surgeon.   He could make this place totally amazing.

But Cousin Itt would have to move out first!

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