The big con

We have a house that we purchased in October that we have stopped working on and moved on to another easier to fix house.

The I received an email and a phone call this week Monday morning. We are using this house for collateral on a Line Of credit. I was e-mailed that there would be an independent evaluation this week. The phone call was from our insurance company that they were going to downgrade the insurance on the house because there was a boarded up window.

That was a double call to action. I drove down to Ottumwa on Monday afternoon and purchased a new window. Tuesday morning I installed the new window. Sent a picture to the insurance company at noon to get the insurance issue corrected.

On Wednesday the house was evaluated and given a value of between $111,000 and $124,000. We purchased the house for $40,000 and put on a new roof and a few quick fixes before deciding to move to another house. Looks like time and money well spent at this point. 

Spent the rest of the week laying floors in that other house.

The bedrooms are all finished

The kitchen had a laminate floor that was starting to come apart. 

You can see we have been walking over the new floor to finish other flooring but it is in.

Yesterday I put in the bathroom floor and Micah installed the living room floor. Now all we have left to floor is the heated front porch.

While I was putting in the new window and laying floors this week I also had some fun.

Last house I advertised on Craigslist for rent I was contacted that the house was listed by someone else also. I went on-line and flagged the ad as fraud. The man was still able to get his ad up for short periods of time.

On Monday a lady called me and asked if she had been contacting me by phone to rent a house. She had not. They were ready to send "Steve" $1,000 when they thought something did not seem right. After checking with the Mahaska County recorder to see who owned the house, she called me to check if I was the person who she was sending money to. No, that house was rented.

She gave me the phone number she was in contact with, so I decided I should see if I could rent our own house from this guy named Stephen Louis Huspek (his phone is through Verizon out of Queens NY. here are our texts with my commentary in parenthesis).

Me: Is the house still available? (I figured I should find out if our tenants were still there, right?)

Steve: Hello thanks for you interest in my house, the house is available for move in now and I'm looking to rent to a reliable and trustworthy tenant. Lease 1yr,2yrs/6month also month to month. You should drive by to check it out because I'm presently not in town to show it then contact me if you want to proceed for the application. Thanks Stephen (Boy he wants a reliable tenant not sure that would be me)

Me: That looks like a nice house from the outside. When can I see the inside and get an application? (is always nice to ask to see the inside of your own hose before you take your key and go look. It is just being polite)

Steve: I won't be in town till December, and am looking to rent before then since the house is available now. Will want you to drive by first, then if you like it we go from there. requirement- stable income and clean record. Am owner of the house so I do not check credit. Just a good income and a person that will always pay his or hers rent and bills. (um excuse me I already texted that I drove by, getting redundant here Stevie boy and that good income thing might be a problem for me.)

Me: Ok how do I fill out an application. ( come on baby give me an address, I need an address to send the app to so you can be charged by the FBI for mail fraud)

Steve: I would like you to provide me with:

1. 3 references and their phone numbers

2. Your full name

3. Your full address

4. Phone number

5. are you married

6. How many people will be living in the house

7. Do you have a pet?

8. Occupation

9.When you would like to move in (date)

10. How many months /years are you willing to rent?

Get it and text me once I get these I will check it out for review and if approved we proceed to next step. I wait to read from you soonest with these details so that I can fill out my document. ( I actually thought about who I could use for references but couldn't think of anyone who would say I was reliable so though it was time to go a different direction)

Me: I found a key under the doormat. I have put electric and gas in my name and have contacted Oskaloosa Water department. I am going to move in and I will pay you when you get back to Oskaloosa. Can't wait to meet you. (Oh yea, Stevie come on down and evict me as a squatter)

Funny but I never heard back from Steve.

The house we had evaluated for collateral is not worth $111,000. It might look like it from the outside to someone who has not seen the inside but they are fooled by appearances. We put new flooring over old floors. It covered the ugly. If you take up the new floors the ugly is still there you just can't see it.

Satan is like that. He makes a life with out God look like the real thing. He tries to convince people that they are not bad people. You don't need forgiveness. You look pretty good on the out side. If there is a heaven you deserve to be there because you have lived well. He is a liar.

Satan is also like Stephen Louis Huspek (or whatever his real name may be) He is selling a false bill of goods. If you choose to believe his lies, you will have paid the price but you will have no home. He is running the big con and anyone who believes him and lives for self and the pleasures of today will pay the price and no eternal life with God. Don't be fooled by the big con.

Cleaned up

We had a tenant move out last Sunday. One bedroom needed to be repainted as they had the furniture up against the walls and had damaged the paint. There were a couple of cracks in the plaster that needed to be filled and sanded down. I painted the rest of the bedroom on Monday except for the uncured patches. When I closed the paint can I set it in a cardboard box so I wouldn't get any paint on the wooden floors. Then I started picking up the some of the stuff they had left behind. I was filling boxes to go to the landfill. 

Tuesday morning I loaded the pickup 2 times and hauled furniture to the landfill along with the boxes i had filled with everything else including the food out of the fridge. I was going to finish painting the bedroom and looked for my can of paint. I looked for a while when I realized my can of paint was in one of those boxes the went to the landfill. I have to confess that I did not tell the truth when they asked me at landfill if there was any paint in my load. It was a special blend and I would have gladly had it back as I had to go get some more blended to match just to finish 4 square foot of wall.

I hauled away bicycles, yes that is plural

and a pickup load of furniture to the thrift store.

I don't like to throw away furniture someone else can use.

A neighbor came and bought this table cheap

Neal came over to buy this dresser

I talked him into taking this one along for no extra cost. Thanks Neal.

Friday morning I did something I never thought I would do. I swept the snow off the back porch on this house so I could shingle it.

if you look close you can see the snow melt running out from under the new shingles. There was a fine layer left on the roof when I started shingling.

Got the garage finished Friday as well.

It is a good feeling to be finished with roofs for the year. Now we can do interior work till spring.

     It was a clean up kind of week. Had a house that needed to be cleaned out and cleaned up. Got the last of the roofing cleaned up and done for the year.
     I met some people this week and thought "wow you need to clean up your life." Its easy to see where others are sinning but not so easy to see where we need to clean up our own lives. I sat in on a Sunday school class this morning. Sophomores in High School taking a deeper look at the Ten commandments. Doug asked the class if we obeyed the first commandment of having no other gods would we need the other 9? He was right if we serve God first we wouldn't have to worry about the rest of the commandments. Our lives would be all cleaned up. I think instead of looking at others I need to make sure I am putting God first and get my life cleaned up.

There is a time for everything

Tis the season to purchase houses. Picked this one up this week. Need to get our work for next year purchased now. 

This makes the 3rd one we have purchased this Fall to remodel in the next 6 months.

Our neighbors are remodeling their house. They did not want their cabinets to go to the landfill. They kindly gave them to us. 

I hauled them to the garage of the house we are working on. It took 8 trips with the pickup. Later they will have to go into our storage building, but I am going to want help to unload them there. Now we need to buy a house that needs cabinets. (we do have a couple that if the tenants move out we may need to replace some cupboards.)

We still had a house and garage that needs to be shingled this fall. I don't like to put on a roof this late in the year but last year we waited till spring on a couple that needed shingles and we had a leak that caused a a chunk of ceiling to fall. Don't want to do that again. 

I got about 2/3 of one side of the main part of the house done on Tuesday and on Saturday Micah and I finished the east side and got the west side on. Still need to do the porches on the north and south side of the house as well as the garage. Looking at the weather forecast we may be waiting a week before progress is made.

Had a tenant move out yesterday. I do wish she had taken all of her stuff.

I am left with a full bedroom set in one bedroom and a king size bed in another. 2 kitchen tables and 10 chairs. 

 Plus at least 2 pickup loads of junk for the landfill, including everything that was in the fridge and freezer.

My week reminds me of what the author of Ecclesiastes wrote

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 

a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,  

 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 

a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 

 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, 

 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 

a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 

 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

There is a time to buy and a time to fix houses a time to keep cabinets and a time to throw away someone else's stuff.

I received a phone call this week from a woman I did not know. She shared about a tragedy in her life. I could really offer no advice. It was a horror beyond imagining. All I could do was listen, commiserate and be appalled at the evil in a man's heart.

There is a time to talk and a time to listen. This was a time to listen. I often tell people that Job's 3 friends in the Biblical story of Job did right as long as they sat for 7 days with their suffering friend. Once they started speaking, God became angry with them for their words. This week I think I did good. I just listened and said "I understand your anger". I often speak too much when I should say little and say too little when I should speak and share the truth of God's love and forgiveness because of Jesus sacrifice.

I missed a chance this week. I had another woman ask if I was going to stop by on Sunday. Then she said "no, you won't, you will be in church." (We have had conversations about God before) I should have told her why I go to church. I believe she thinks God is like a big vending machine that hands out good things occasionally if you are good or pray just right. It was a time to speak and I didn't. I should have told her I don't go to church to get things from God. I go to church because I have gotten something from God. Forgiveness and eternal life. A time to speak and I missed it and the sad part is God was yelling in my heart "Tell her!" but I didn't.

A time to be silent and a time to speak. I got the silent part right this week but not the speaking part. 50% is not a very good score.

Don't sweat the small stuff

On Monday we were supposed to close the sale on a house.

USDA had foreclosed on the house and we had the high offer a month back. On the offer you need to disclose how you are going to pay for the house. I had filled in that we were paying with funds from a Line of credit. A bank officer had given me a letter and printout of the account to send to the USDA that the funds were available. On Monday my agent informed the USDA that I would be bringing a cashiers check to the closing. Well that stopped the sale right there. This is a no financing sale but the form says he is getting the money from a LOC but if he is bringing a check it is a cash sale. I don't think the USDA understands how a Line of Credit works. You can either transfer the funds to your checking account or if you have checking privileges on the LOC write a direct check. You write a check and the bank gives you a cashiers check. But the USDA was not taken in by that incomprehensible line of reasoning. I had changed where the money was originating from and they would have to back the closing off till Wednesday as they considered the astounding idea that the house would be paid for with, horrors of horrors, cash. (well, not really as the funds were coming from the line of credit as I had filled in on their form originally) I did begin to wonder why they cared as they were going to get the money. 

So on Monday afternoon I went down and put the sheet rock up where it had fallen in the house we

purchased 10 days earlier.

 

I hate screwing up sheet rock and mudding over my head, but it is done. On Tuesday I went back to that house and put the insulation back up in the attic where it had fallen through with the fallen sheet rock, and put the 2nd coat of mud on the new joints.

As I was driving through town on Tuesday I went past 1 of the 3 houses we have that have not had an inspection yet. I saw this flight of 4 steps down by the street. I thought , oh no, 4 flights means it needs a railing. I did not want to have an inspection get scheduled in January and find out I needed to get a railing on those steps when everything is frozen solid. I sent a picture to Harrison and he replied "No you're good." That was a real blessing. I didn't have to decide if I was going to try to drill holes in the concrete and attach a railing or dig post holes. Nope, job done with no work.

On Wednesday, they were ready to sign off on taking a check for the house. Except, wait a minute all the paperwork will need to be redone. The months and days on the forms are not all 2 numerals. How will anyone know it is September 7 if it just reads 9/7/2019 when the offer was made. No that all must be changed and all the paper work resubmitted with all dates 09/07/2019. Good grief, give me a break. Wednesday afternoon they signed off on the closing and I handed over the check. Went over to the house and first thing out was this lovely carpet. 

Then all the tools needed to be moved in.

The former owners had used drywall nails to hang pictures. This is the handful I pulled out of the walls of just 1 room. That is a lot of holes to fill with caulk before painting.

Needed to get the gas turned on and I wanted the "dead" gas lines removed before it was live. Removed 4 pipes going across the basement to previous gas appliances that were either gone or had been moved.

Gas on and furnace running we could get the water turned on. The house had been winterized but that does not mean that it was done before the pipes froze. It had not. First I found the leaks one at a time by cracking open the water line, fixing the leak and then crack it open again. When the leaks stopped, I checked the faucets. Yea a couple had no pressure. Galvanized pipes fill up over time, so new pex lines replaced most of the galvanized pipe. Fortunately just a couple of long runs were galvanized and most of the complicated turns and short runs were copper.

 

I was surprised when the water heater lit and fired up. I figured it would have problems as it was still full of water when I turned the water on. Yea, well as soon as the heat kicked in it blew a hole in the top of the water heater tank. The pressure from it freezing had weaken a seam. A new one was in the budget so no real loss.

I took all the partial cans of paint I had in our basement and started mixing them together. I was able to empty 9 buckets.

Painted the largest bedroom Friday afternoon.

See the part I missed while trimming around doors?

We did not get a key to the 2 padlocks on the doors on the back of the house. I took my universal key Saturday morning and removed the padlocks. My universal key is about 2 and a half foot long and has a curved end with claws. Yea, a crowbar removed both locks efficiently.

Painted over the lovely brown in the middle bedroom.

Micah started laying floor Saturday afternoon.

I started painting the kitchen. I know those are some lovely colors, but not really generic enough for a rental house.

Yea that might work better.

I got it covered with 2 coats.

I do hope the red and blue don't show through on Monday because I used all of the paint I mixed, except for enough to do touch up.

I was reminded this week that some people spend their time making sure all forms are filled out exactly so. I don't think they realize that they contribute nothing to society. The earth will not crumble if funds from a Line of Credit go through another bank account and show up as payment in the form of a check. It will make no difference if September is noted as 9 or 09. It just made a small minded person feel important to slow down a sale till all their petty demands were met. She could not see the forest for the trees. USDA did not get their money for 3 days so they lost interest possibilities on the cash and USDA had to pay 3 more days of Real estate taxes. She was looking at minutia and missed the things that matter. 

Once her demands were met we could begin to make some quick progress on the house and USDA stopped losing money on the property.  Sometimes we can all be like that. We cease being goal orientated and become process orientated. We can become bogged down in making things just so and forget that God calls us to love others first. We get caught up in the details of our daily life and don't think about the souls headed for eternity without God, yea going to Hell. As a church sometimes while we argue over the best Bible translation or if we are singing the right hymn, we do not share of the gospel.

I don't want to be like that. I want to be goal orientated. I want to not fret the small useless stuff and concentrate on building the kingdom of God. Starting with me and everyone I meet. Souls for eternity with God first everything else second.