Love's Real Stories

Answering all the real estate questions you never knew you had.

Category: Kids & Family

December 19, 2014

Blue Christmas

Every time I hear “Blue Christmas” by Elvis I think of my wily old mentor KDV, when he tricked me one Christmas season.

“Hey bro, come with me to Shanty Town and help me take a census,” said KDV.

Shanty Town was a group of little run-down houses, more like shacks, on an acre of ground just east of downtown occupied by migrant agricultural workers. KDV had the property listed for sale, and the out-of-town owner never set foot on it. The rent always came every month, though.

“I’ve had this junk-heap listed for over a year, and miracle of all miracles, we have a buyer. The problem is I have to come up with tenant information. You with me, babe?”

We pulled into the property. December rains had pounded the dirt into gooey mud that covered every bit of land the houses didn’t.

“I hate this place,” he said. “Count heads, babe.”

We knocked on the first door. “Buenos días,” said KDV. “Cuantos personas occupado aqui? His Spanish was worse than John Wayne’s. A man in cowboy boots and a t-shirt looked back with fear in his eyes.

Three kids sat quietly on the floor. The place had one chair. “No se,” said the man.

KDV and I appeared so out of place, we could have been from Mars, or worse, the Immigration Department or I.R.S.

Each little house was the same: lots of kids, few possessions, and lots of fear. Nevertheless, we were given tamales and hand-made tortillas as peace offerings. Skinny Christmas trees stood in a couple shacks, and some had a few decorations.

“What a dump,” KDV said at the end of our excursion. I was struck by his lack of empathy.

The next Saturday, KDV asked me again to go with him to Shanty Town, because the buyer wasn’t satisfied with the tenant information. The sale was supposed to close before the year-end.

“It’s the weekend,” he said. “Better chance to catch them all at home.”

We pulled into the mud again. This time KDV opened all his car doors and cranked up the car stereo, blasting out “Blue Christmas” by Elvis.

He jumped out and whipped open the trunk, shouting “Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad!”

The trunk was stuffed with wrapped Christmas presents. On each was written niña, niño, señor, or señorita. There must have been a hundred wrapped gifts: games, crayons, candy, toy guns, balls, you name it. We all laughed and celebrated.

KDV turned to me and shouted over Elvis. “Thought I was the Grinch, didn’t you, babe!”

Yes, I had. “Never forget, babe,” he said, “we gotta make people happy whenever we can; especially kids, and especially at Christmastime!”

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September 18, 2014

No Buddy

”How old is Flora?” I asked Martha Hart. Martha puffed her cigarette and kept an eye on the T.V. in the corner of the kitchen.

“Nine,” said Martha, sighing through a wet cough. “She’s nine, and in her own little world.”

I had met Flora briefly with her dad outside. Flora looked me over with a steady gaze as she shook my hand. She possessed a quiet and serious nature despite her wild curly red hair and the smiling beagle dog dancing at her side. Mr. Hart asked about the difference between personal property and fixtures, to be included in the sale of their property.

“Personal property,” I said, “are free-standing things like refrigerators and furniture, and aren’t included in a sale without a seller’s consent. Fixtures, on the other hand, are attached to the property, things like ceiling fans and curtain rods. Fixtures are included in a sale. ”

Flora asked hopefully, “Is my swing-set personal property?”

Mr. Hart leaned down toward Flora, red-faced and neck muscles bulging. “Stop interrupting!” he yelled. “Mr. Love is here for business, not your silly questions, Flora!”

Flora’s question was actually a good one, and stumped me. The swing-set’s legs were set in the ground, which made it a fixture, yet its intended use was as personal property. Mr. Hart solved my quandary. He looked at Flora and said, “The swing-set stays with the property.” I made note on the listing contract: “Swing-set included.”

Flora narrowed her eyes and gave her dad the stink-eye. I shrugged apologetically when she looked at me, but she gave me the stink-eye, too. Flora stomped away and Mr. Hart left. I measured the outside of the house, then toured the inside, and ran into Martha in the kitchen.

“Yeah, she’s a funny one,” Martha said toward the T.V. She exhaled smoke and rattled the ice cubes in her drink glass. I caught sight of Flora out back. I don’t think Martha noticed or cared. I left the kitchen out the back door.

“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked Flora. She huddled under a tree with her arm around the beagle’s neck.

“Buddy,” she said softly, and wiped her cheek.

She looked up at me and asked, “Is Buddy personal property?”

I nodded yes, and told her Buddy goes with her.

“Will you write that down?” She pointed at my listing contract.

I did: “Buddy not included.”

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September 13, 2014

Not For Sale

I caught sight of this kid crawling through the weeds at the back of this property I was listing. Her red hair gave her away, contrasted among the yellow weeds. She disappeared.

“Is that Flora way back there?” I asked Mrs. Hart.

Mrs. Hart pulled on her cigarette. “Oh probably,” she said. “That kid’s in a world of her own. Tell her to come in, will ya?”

I walked toward the back of the one-acre lot through knee-high dry weeds on a narrow path that ended at a scrub of manzanita brush in front of a stand of sycamore trees. The path pointed to an opening in the brush big enough for a small dog or maybe a skinny kid.

I forced my way on hands and knees through the scratchy manzanita into a hidden and lush little oasis walled by the brush and the back fence, and domed by the sycamores. The centerpiece of this secret garden was a rusted hose-bib atop a stand-pipe about three feet tall. Beads of water dripped slowly from the hose-bib into a shallow pool surrounding the base of the stand-pipe. The place was a tiny green paradise surrounded by dry fields.

Flora Hart sat cross-legged beside the pool with her beagle dog, Buddy, lying at her side. She looked sad, and didn’t acknowledge my arrival in her secret world.

I had met nine-year-old Flora the day before. I felt bad when her dad yelled at her for objecting to the sale of their house. Her dad signed the listing agreement. Flora gave us the stink-eye.

This day I smiled at her and said, “Quite a place you have here.”

“Shhh,” she said. I realized we weren’t alone. A train of thumb-sized bright green frogs lined the stand-pipe from the pool to the hose-bib. Yellow-jackets zoomed aggressively about, and drank from the mouth of the dripping hose-bib. A skinny green snake slithered on the ground inches from Flora’s feet.

Flora was apparently unfazed by the threat of yellow-jackets and the snake, and sat calmly like a monk.

Orange and black butterflies were parked around the edge of the pool, sporadically flying about. A pair of quail ran under the back fence; songbirds flitted in the field beyond, occasionally landing on the fence-top.

“Wow. Quite a place,” I said quietly.

Flora, with butterflies in her hair and a frog in the palm of each hand, narrowed her eyes.

“Too bad for you,” she said, “it’s not for sale.”

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June 5, 2014

Air Force

Two laws that govern the movements of objects inside houses are important to learn.

Law Number One: “If you slam the front door of a house with sufficient force, it will cause the interior walls of that house to vibrate to the extent that a shelf as far away as 24 feet from the point of impact will eject a vase from its surface and send it crashing to the floor below.”

Law Number Two:: “If all the windows and doors in an air-tight house are closed, and you turn on the whole-house fan, and if that whole-house fan is of sufficient size and capacity, it will cause an air suction of such force so as to cause ashes from within a fireplace to be instantly sucked out through the fireplace opening with the appearance of confetti shot from a cannon. A 12-foot radius of flooring in front of the fireplace opening will acquire an ashy-gray hue similar to the surface of the moon.”

I learned of the two aforementioned laws one afternoon while showing a house to my clients Bob and Denise Carlson, and more importantly, their eight-year-old son Mason.

Bob and I stood in the hallway of the house admiring the whole-house fan built into the ceiling. I had never seen one so big and Bob had never seen one at all.

“A whole-house fan,” I said, “is designed to pull stale warm air out of your house. When the outside temperature cools in the evening, you open a few windows, turn on the fan, and it pulls fresh outside air into the house quickly.”

Mason raced around the house opening and closing doors and flipping wall switches on and off. Neither Bob nor Denise showed any concern or any interest in controlling the curious and energetic child.

Mason went outside and rang the doorbell at least 47 times, then slammed the front door, a big heavy oaken mass, with enough force to enact Law Number Two.

A vase wobbled and tumbled off a shelf on the wall beside the fireplace. But the carpet below was thick, plush, and the whitest of white, and cushioned the fall. The vase remained intact.

It was then that Mason found the wall switch for the whole-house fan. I noticed that Mason had opened the glass doors to the fireplace and I was just about to close them, when Law Number Two was enacted.

I forgot to mention in my description of Law Number Two that any objects within the 12-foot radius of the fireplace will also acquire an ashy-gray hue similar to the surface of the moon.

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April 1, 2014

Threes

“That’s two,” I thought, and I was reminded of my Grandma, who liked to say, “Things come in threes.” My left foot had just sunk into an over-watered landscaped strip, and minutes later, my right foot dropped into an unfilled posthole. Both accidents had occurred in the yard of a house I was showing to my buyer and her two kids. Unfortunately, I cursed loudly both times, which apparently did not endear me to them.

The first time I heard my Grandma say “things come in threes” was when I was in my grandparents’ basement with my Grand-dad. He was bent over, straining over a bench he was building. Grand-dad dropped his hammer on his toe, instantly straightened up, and hit his head on the bottom edge of the cabinet door he had left open. He yowled and hopped, rubbing his head with one hand and grabbing his foot with the other. Grand-dad never cursed. Instead he yelled “Curses! Yeow! Curses!”

Grandma leaned through the door at the top of the basement stairs and said, “What’s the racket?”

“I smashed my toe and banged my head!” yelled Grand-dad.

“That’s two,” said Grandma, wiping her hands on a dishtowel, “and things come in threes, you know.“

“Threes! Threes!” said Grand-dad. “Dang it all, woman, must you always say that?”

“The Lord works in strange ways, dear,” she said and shut the door.

“She’s jinxed me for sure,” Grand-dad grumbled. He went back to work on the bench, but in his haste and frustration he again dropped his hammer and it clattered on the concrete floor.

“Dang it!” he said.

I was about to ask him if that was number three. On the next swing of the hammer (harder than necessary), the head glanced off the nail and landed squarely on Grand-dad’s thumb.

“Yeow!” he screamed.

“There’s your number three!” he yelled toward the empty staircase.

My client and her two kids abruptly left the property I was showing, after my two accidents and language indiscretions.

I limped out the back gate alone. In my haste and frustration I didn’t account for the tight fit between the gate-edge and the gate-post, and when I pulled the gate shut (harder than necessary), my thumb got smashed between the two.

“Yeow!” I screamed.

I didn’t curse, but I did say out loud to an empty yard, “There’s your number three!”

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