We listed our rental house one month ago in preparation for our move to Australia. Funny thing was that we didn't even have a firm placement yet but we did it as a step of faith. After thousands of dollars spent on contractors and painful hours of our own labour, we slapped our house on MLS. By that evening, we had 4 showings ... a very good sign! By the following afternoon, there were 3 more showings. John was skeptical that we were going to have an offer so soon but within hours, our first offer was tabled. It was only $2000 below our asking price and a possession date of 1 month. Nancy, being chinese, wanted to push it to the max and ask for full price. Apparently, she was near being slapped in the head for making such a ridiculous suggestion. Both our realtor and John thought she was out of her mind. She accepted the offer! The only hitch was that we had to fix the leaking faucets and replace the missing bathroom door. No problem, we thought, except that we forgot that we weren't the Mr.Fix-It type.

Horror Story #1 - THE DOOR

When we put in tile in the bathroom, the transition molding was too high and the bottom of the door rubbed against it. We took the door off, took it to a lumber company, and requested that they slice off a half inch off. He quickly slapped it on the table and generously charged us nothing for the cut. When John brought it back to the house, we realized that it was cut at the TOP! OH NO! We phoned the lumber guy back about our problem. He groaned at his mistake and offered to replace the door. (Now begins the count .... DOOR #1.) The following day, we brought the door back and picked up the new one in the evening. We hung it up to our shock ... Door #2 was the exact replicate of the miscut one. Yes, there was still an inch gap at the top. It was our turn to groan! We hesitantly phoned him back. He grumbled, "I've learned my lesson. I'm not going to be the nice guy anymore and do things for clients anymore." They told us to give them hinge measurements so they can build Door #3 for us. A few days later, we line up the hinges in our house. Top one went in perfectly! YEAH! Bottom hinge was off by 1/4 inch! !@#!$!% We decided to no go back to Dumb, Moody Lumber Man and headed to a local wood place. To be extra sure, we grabbed a bedroom door and told him to replicate this one exactly and then lop off a quarter inch from the bottom. Door #4. Within a few hours, we anxiously began hanging this new door. NOOOOO! Bottom hinge was off by 1/16. IMPOSSIBLE!!! After swearing intensely, John used a knife to chisel out the sliver of wood. It was tight but the door was hanging! The jubliation of it all. AHHHH ... until we tried to close the door. Unbelievably, the side of the door banged into frame. It was a warped door! The horror! We returned a few days later to plane it, paint it, and be done with it. It was the Door From Hell!

HORROR STORY #2 - THE FAUCETS

This story is not as emotionally driven as the one above. If anything, I only write this to share my appreciation of plumbers and what they can do with their bodies. It was a painful experience trying to contort my 'ample' body under a sink to try to change out a hose. The edge of the counter is driving into my back. I can't see the connections. I don't have the strength to twist the nuts. blah blah blah. ARUGHG! The only reason we tortured ourselves for this buyer's requests was that there was a clause that it wasn't up to her standards, we would have to pay $1000. Trust us, there were moments we were ready to just give it to her to get it over with.

By June 16th, we passed house inspection and the transaction was done. House was sold! There's a little side story of our bank, ATB, not following through with paperwork and our lawyer stupidly photocopying my cheque without its banking transaction numbers, but no need to go into details. It all worked out.

Next up, getting our own house ready!