Home Ventilation

I don't think we will ever find a house that we can both agree on AND afford.

In the mean time, at least, we have seen some interesting things.

Such as neighborhood kids playing tether ball with a volleyball tied to a No Parking sign. Yes, this game involved them standing mostly in the street. What have I decided that we learned about the neighborhood from this observation?

A. It's safe enough for the kids to be playing outside at dusk.
B. The average IQ in the neighborhood leaves much to be desired.
C. The street isn't very busy.
D. All of the above.

If you picked D, you're correct. You win...another anecdote.

Some people who are just now getting around to selling their homes have rooms they haven't set foot in since approximately 1987. How do I know this? Because of the Scott Baio House.

The former play room (which I'm guessing later became something akin to Foreman's basement on That 70's Show) of the Scott Baio House had at least a dozen posters of Scott Baio plastered to the wall. It reminded me of my own bedroom as a teenager, except the objectified male in my case was Jonathan Brandis (oh, Jonathan, why? WHY?). This is not to say that one such poster didn't eventually make its way to the suite I lived in senior year of college (in a tackily sentimental way, I swear). But the posters did come down from my bedroom by the time I reached the age of 18. Not so in the Scott Baio House. That is assuming, of course, that the owner of the posters did eventually grow up and move out. Perhaps I'm assuming too much here.

And then there was the house of the wannabe witches. I'm not making fun of Wiccans here; the religion in its true form actually has some admirable traits. No, these were stereotypical Halloween wannabe witches. Why do I say this? Because of the green-hued, wart-faced witch flag flying from the front porch, next to a skeleton wind sock (which, when we saw the house on a drive by the previous day, was flying from the back porch). These were the tenants who clearly did not want to move. So they left a cow skull on the living room mantle and various dried vegetation lying around the floor in a circular pattern. And, sadly, the tenants hell-bent on scaring away potential buyers of their residence looked very much like the people who come into the library asking for books of spells: badly dyed, stringy hair, approaching middle age but reluctant to act like it, and somewhat on the thick side. It makes me sad when stereotypes turn out to be somewhat accurate. But here's the best part: the house number was 666. Which, although I'm not superstitious, did give me pause when I originally looked at the listing for the house. But after seeing the, um, interior decorating of the house's current residents, I think it's safe to say they were super excited to live in a house at number 666. Because what better place is there to celebrate Halloween every day?