The Hunt

We spent the last week in Columbus, OH searching for a house for next year. As I have mentioned, I am an obsessive planner, so I spent the last month scouring Craigslist in search of the perfect place. I had several promising prospects and we lined up times for visits.

The drive out on Saturday was about 8 hours, and compared to the 12 hour drive to Colorado- super easy. Evan slept for about 3 hours of the drive, and spent the rest of it looking for buses, reading his books, and saying "Momma, MommA, MOMMA" over and over. But we arrived in one piece and I had high hopes for our visit.

On Sunday, we woke up and went straight over to one of the houses I had found on Craigslist for a showing. It was a nice house in a nice neighborhood. It was well maintained. It had the same kitchen appliances we have. I was in love, until I started sneezing. The owner had 2 cats, and I am very allergic to cats. Sadly this was a deal breaker, because no matter how much you vacuum or steam clean, there are just some places (like the unfinished basement) that will never be free of cat fur.

This was sadly how many of the showings we set up went. The houses would seem great, but there was always a problem. There was a great house in New Albany, but the rent was too high and the neighborhood gave us a creepy Stepford Wives feel. There were some neat older places in Upper Arlington, including one with a fabulous gourmet kitchen, but they all had chipping paint that we suspected was lead-based, exposed wires, and were in general not baby-safe.

By the end of the day Monday we were feeling a little depressed. We were momentarily cheered up when we got to meet up with one of my photography friends, Kristen, and her son for dinner. Evan and Daniel got along swimmingly, and the Mexican food we had was tasty.

But after dinner we were once again faced with the fact that the prospects were looking slim. We called a number we had seen on a for rent sign, and as luck would have it, the person who called back was a realtor who specialized in leases and relocation. He told us he would pick us up at 10 the next morning and show us a bunch of properties.

The first house he took us to was fantastic. It was a model home, never been lived in, and I admit that I instantly started placing our furniture around the house in my mind and maybe, just maybe had address labels planned out too.

We spent the next 6 hours looking at places that fell short of this first one. They were either too old, too dirty or too small. One house was gorgeous, but the last person in it had 4 dogs, 3 cats and 2 rabbits that apparently had the run of the house. They also appeared to not know how to go outside to take care of their business if you know what I mean. We lovingly referred to the house as "Animal House' and crossed if off our list.

Which meant our list had one option. The model home we saw first. We went back and looked again, and I mentally arranged more furniture and envisioned holding my new baby in the house. We did some shopping in the grocery store down the block to feel more at home. Chris even woke up early the next morning to try out the commute. We were sold.

We called at 8:30 Wednesday morning to make an offer. ($50 a month less than what they were asking, an amount the realtor was sure they would go for.) We decided to celebrate and headed downtown to North Market to walk around and get some lunch.

At 12:30 the realtor called to tell us the owners weren't playing ball. He told us their offer, and we wondered if they thought we didn't own a calculator. We made a new counter offer, and headed to the hotel for naptime.

By 4:00 pm, we hadn't heard from them and panic started to set in. We had no other options, and we were leaving the next morning. Driving and searching for houses with an almost 2 year old is highly stressful, and the thought of possibly having to do it again was almost enough to send me over the edge. I decided to check Craiglist one more time.

Sure enough, there was a new listing. Posted literally 30 minutes before I got online. It looked perfect, the rent was $150 a month less than the model house, and we called and asked to see it at 5:00.

When we got there, we looked around, looked at each other, and said "We'll take it"! 30 minutes later, the realtor called to tell us that the model home owners had accepted our offer, but we told him it was too little too late.

This new house was meant to be. It has 3 bedrooms and a playroom, a small fenced yard for the dogs, but no maintenance other than that. There is a neighborhood pooland playground, and the commute is about 20 minutes.

It was down to the wire, but we found home sweet home. Now I can obsess about furniture placement for the next 3 months, instead of worrying about having a roof over our heads.