The Red-Porched StepFlip

Hick just HAD to have Lap House, the flip that some guy called him about, which wasn't even listed. So we bought it in March. Hick puttered around a bit with it, cleaning out the basement, and making plans. THEN he heard about the auction of Cheap House on the courthouse steps, and over-ruled me (with his minion The Pony) to buy it. The Cheap House deal was officially done on June 1st. Since then, Hick has devoted most of his time (not taken by his business or his Harem or his just over $300 a month apartment managing job and side jobs) to Cheap House. It seems like forever, but has only been not-quite three months.

Anyhoo... poor Lap House finally got its red porch painted black. And a new porch and partial roof. And an HVAC system. All things that were needed, but not really done by Hick. He hasn't forgotten Lap House. Just doted on Cheap House. Until a couple days ago, when he sent me a picture:

That's a nice addition. Hick called them "blocks," but he's been talking about yard pavers getting moved from Cheap House over to Lap House. I think this must be them. They give a walkway from the front sidewalk, and the side sidewalk. Such a path would be a nightmare for me, but surefooted people will surely like having something to step on besides bare lawn. Especially after a rain.

I asked if this would make mowing harder. Hick says it will not. That a mower can go right over them, and then you just have to weed-eat around the edges.

Hick isn't supposed to be lifting anything over 20 pounds since his surgery on the 13th. I asked how these pavers got from Cheap House to Lap House. A distance of about 2 miles. He said, "On the back of my truck. HOS hauled them over and put them down." Which I was glad to hear, because according to Hick, each paver weighs around 50-60 pounds.

Anyhoo... now Hick needs to put that siding back on the corner of Lap House where he had it off to install the new electrical service. He might need to delegate that to Old Buddy or HOS. I don't know if Hick is cleared for ladder-climbing.

Hickspeed

Hick enjoys being the center of attention. As if his Harem isn't enough, he is now seeking adoration input from MY PEOPLE. That's what he calls you. My vast readership. MY PEOPLE. Hick is not shy about me telling stories of his exploits. Like Charlene on Designing Women yearned for knowledge, Hick yearns for attention.

When I came home Monday afternoon, I saw SilverRedO parked in the BARn field by Hick's red trailer. The one that replaced the trailer wrecked by a buddy in an early snowstorm last year. By the time I got to the driveway, Hick had sent me a text:

"Your groups will like this tire blew out on trailer setting in field."

Allow me to translate that for you. Hick thinks MY PEOPLE will like seeing how a tire on his new trailer had a blowout while just sitting in the BARn field.

Of course I had to interrogate Hick later that evening for details. Because I know MY PEOPLE want the full story.

"So it was just sitting there? You haven't used it lately?"

"Nope. I just noticed it today."

"Didn't you just get new tires? It looks like there's still a lot of tread left."

"No, the new tires was on my trailer that my buddy wrecked. I'd just put four new ones on there, and they was ruined."

"So did this tire just get too hot, sitting there in the sun through the 100-degree temperatures?"

"Maybe. Tires can dry rot when they get older. I don't know how old these are."

Well. Hick is in no shape to be changing a tire these days. I suppose he should probably replace all four. You wouldn't want a blowout while hauling something on that trailer.

Anyhoo...this was on Monday afternoon/evening. On Tuesday morning at 6:00, Hick said:

"What did YOUR PEOPLE think of my tire?"

"It is 6:00 in the morning! And you just told me about your tire last night. I don't know how fast you think I work. I'm not some overnight breaking news service! I don't send out notices to MY PEOPLE immediately after you do something. I haven't even loaded the picture, or written a story."

"Oh. Well. You stay up late..."

So even though the tale of Hick's blowout wasn't planned for today, here it is. I wouldn't want to keep Hick waiting. He needs immediate feedback. Even though there's not really any advice you can give, or way to help him change that tire. Maybe he simply wants sympathy.

A Journey of $15,000 Ends With a Single Step

Hick said there were a couple things he wanted to do at Cheap House before calling Realtor Guy. Surely this is the last step! I hope Hick wasn't lifting, or climbing. He said yesterday that he understands why his doctor told him not to be mowing the lawns/yard/field, even on his zero turn mower.

"I sat on a board for Old Buddy to saw off the end, and the vibration from the saw almost killed me! I won't be mowing the yard for a while, that's for sure. I can imagine how that would be painful."

Anyhoo... here is the latest picture of the sprucing up of Cheap House to make it good enough to sell as a flip house.

That's the room Hick was changing from a bedroom to a living room. The wood along the top is where the new roof was put on, after changing the roofline from tearing off that back porch room. This is where all the wood with mold from the constant leaking was cut out. Hick put up this section to cover the gap where the new angle of the roof left a space. So an interior wall, and the ceiling, can be drywalled.

Anyhoo... we're butting heads over the impending listing. Hick has the wacky idea that he wants to sell for $50,000. In this location, that's pretty cheap for a flip house. You can't even find one anywhere in the county these days for such a price. Even the really bad hoarder houses. The cheapest listing I've found for a flip this week is $85,000. And it was under contract within four days. 

You may recall that we got cheap house on a tip from a loan officer at our Savings & Loan. No loans for us, but Hick has kept in contact with him over the years since he built our hillbilly mansion. Cheap House was a foreclosure, and we got it on June 1st for $15,000. We have around $33,000 in Cheap House right now. That includes $12,000 on the new roof. Plus there's the subfloor that's been re-done, and all the trash cleared out, and the rotting porch torn off. I think a flipper would jump at it for anything under $70,000. It's a block from the main street in town, and within a quarter mile of the elementary school, and two blocks from the middle school.

Hick seems to want an immediate deal from Realtor Guy. Who has said he has a flip buyer who is always looking for flips at around $50 per square foot. Which would be $50,000 on this house. HOWEVER, I doubt other flips he's bought came with a brand new roof, and already stripped inside.

In fact, Hick even said, "I didn't really think about listing it. I thought Realtor Guy would call his buyer." Which is poppycock! I imagine Realtor Guy would enjoy a bigger commission himself. AND, Hick had said a couple months ago that one of his storage unit buddies said he was interested, if Hick would give him a price before he listed it.

This will definitely need to be discussed with our flippin' partner, The Pony. I'm not trying to be greedy, but I see no harm in listing high. If there's no interest after 10 days, it's a simple thing to lower the price. I'd hate for it to sell in a day, and think that we let it go too cheap. 

Another Step Closer to Listing Cheap House

Hick was off to Cheap House on Monday morning, to get some work done on that kitchen floor before his dentist appointment at 10:00. He had said there wasn't much left to do, that one day should finish it. Since he's still not supposed to do anything physical while recovering from his surgery 12 days ago, I imagine Old Buddy was there to be closely supervised. 

I don't think this job was done by HOS (Hick's Oldest Son), who actually does better work. HOS was working at Lap House, stripping lumber and cleaning up rocks in the back yard. HOS is better at completing jobs without Hick breathing down his neck, but he's sometimes not as dependable to show up as Old Buddy.

Anyhoo... Hick sent me a picture at 9:18.

The subfloor is down. Now the rotted kitchen floor has been replaced with new floor joists, and leveled, and this surface. It's ready for a flipper to do something with, now that it's structurally sound.

I asked Hick if he was going to do anything about the section of wall with the insulation hanging out. There by where the plumbing for the sink comes up. He said he might, but he wants to get the house listed and see if there's interest. That's the kind of thing a new flipper would be prepared to do. We've had such issues in other houses we've flipped. It's pretty minor, compared to putting in a new floor, and adding a whole new roof after tearing down a rotten addition. The buyer will be getting this house with some of the major repairs already done.

Now let's call Realtor Guy!

White Lines Are Only a Suggestion

Call the parking police! I've got another perpetrator! You'd think people would be able to fit a car between two white lines. It's not rocket science. It's not brain surgery. It's not even PARALLEL parking. 

This was at 10Box last week. I couldn't choose another space, because this was the only open handicap space next to it. It's like those white lines are only a suggestion. If you want to make the excuse that a car on its left was over the line, then I say this car's driver should have known that the space wasn't big enough. Had there been another handicap space open, I would not have parked here. I had to squeeze T-Hoe's right-side tires over into a bit of the striped walkway. There was still plenty of room in that walkway. There's no ramp or anything here.

Anyhoo... that kid in the background was looking at me. Surely he could see my phone was angled down. I wasn't taking a picture of him smoking, heh, heh. Just evidence of this bad parker. Oh, and there was a LITTLE DOG inside that car!!! Temps were in the mid-80s. The windows were down partially. But that means somebody could have taken that little yippy dog, or it could have jumped out and been in traffic.

Seeing parkers like this make me think of the movie The Heat, with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. When Melissa gets the last parking space, and it's so tight that she can't open her door enough to get out. So she slams it into the next car about10 times, then crawls out the window. It's SO satisfying, heh, heh. Of course I would never do that. I'm not limber enough...

Hick Was Mown Away

Since Hick had surgery last week, our grass has continued to grow. He's not supposed to sit on hard surfaces, or get bounced around for a couple weeks. He last mowed the front yard/field and BARn field and adjacent road frontage of our other 10-acre plot on Wednesday before his surgery. Hick LOVES his zero-turn mower, and even in the oppressive heat, he kept the grass trimmed.

Anyhoo... Hick had HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) mowing the yards of the properties in town. They're the most urgent. Especially Lap House, which is over in Sis-Town, where the mayor is not a fan of Hick. It wouldn't surprise me if she carries a ruler to stop by our properties there to see when she can send out a nuisance letter, heh, heh! 

The plan was for HOS to come out here and mow on Wednesday, but it rained a lot on Wednesday morning. The grass wasn't dried out by 1:00. Too wet to mow efficiently. Of course that rain helped the grass grow some more. Thursday was no good for HOS, because he had a previous appointment and couldn't get away in time. 

Friday morning, Hick was off to his SUS2.5 (Storage Unit Store 2.5). I asked if HOS would be mowing in the afternoon, since Hick only stays until noon on Fridays. "I don't know. If I can get ahold of him, maybe."

Around 12:10, I heard mowing in the front yard/field. I waited for Hick to come inside, but he didn't. I figured he had HOS mowing, and he was puttering around over in the BARn or the Freight Container Garage. I went about my business at the kitchen table, innernetting on HIPPIE. I saw the zero-turn mower come around the end of the garage to mow the back yard. I looked to make sure it wasn't Hick! Nope. Jeans when he was in shorts. A bright orange shirt when he was wearing white. And a bucket hat, when he always wears a cap. I noticed that HOS was mowing really fast. But there's a lot of grounds to cover.

At 2:00, I got a text from Hick:

"Our neighbors mowed the grass for us."

"Wow! Why?"

The person I had assumed was HOS was not HOS at all! I had to call for more details. Hick said he was coming home with HOS to mow, and saw two of our neighbors mowing, with the front yard/field, the BARn field, and the next plot almost done. He stopped to talk to them. Nabe 1 said they wanted to help out. Hick offered to pay for the gas they'd used, but they declined.

"Earlier in the day, I had put something on my Facebook about having surgery, and not being able to do anything physical for a couple weeks. But that my shop was still open. Nabe 1 sent me a message asking if I was okay. I told him I was. He said he was worried, because of how I never let our grass get that high. That was the last I talked to him. He didn't say anything about mowing."

When Hick got home later that evening, he put a message on the Facebook page of our enclave, naming those two neighbors, and thanking them for the mowing. Our across the road neighbor put a message in response. "Hick Thevictorian, you have the nicest lawn of anybody in our association! If you ever need anything, let us know. We can mow your yard for you next time." Hick thanked her, but said he would use HOS, who had already been contracted to do the mowing.

What a nice gesture from these neighbors. We are not close with any of them, but they're stand-up guys who occasionally talk to Hick. What goes around comes around, and Hick's good-deeding has come home to roost. The only loser is HOS, who was expecting to earn some money. I'm pretty sure he'll get over it.

A Typical Friday

You know what Friday means around here. A CALL FROM HICK'S HAREM! Now they can't even wait until evening. They've got to get their Hick fix earlier and earlier.

I was in town at 3:39 when I got a text from Hick:

"I'm taking HOS [Hick's Oldest Son] home and then running by the apartments, a lady lost her key."

OF COURSE SHE DID! It's FRIDAY! Keys only get lost on Fridays. And only women lose them. Not the four men who live in the senior apartments. And let's not forget Hick put in a KEY BOX for all the residents, so they know what to do if they don't have their key. You know I had to get the details when Hick came home at 5:00.

"Which one was this?"

"The youngest one. The one who's kinda goofy. She helps all the rest of them, because she's younger and can do more."

"She's not the one with the shoe keeping her door from closing? Or the bra sunbather? Or the one who got the drinker lady locked up? Or the one who needed two air conditioners? I'm sure I've heard this name before."

"No. But she did get into it with the drinker lady before. The drinker lady was mad at her. It's not the one who called the police."

"I thought you had a key box so everybody could get in, and you wouldn't have to drive to town."

"I do have a key box. But she BROKE her key. So I didn't want her taking the spare out of the box."

"She could have used it to unlock her door, and put it back."

"Actually, she called me earlier, and I forgot about it. She got in with her key, but she was trying to lock the door back, and it broke off. So she cain't leave to go nowhere because she cain't lock her door."

"So what did you do?"

"I had a spare key made for her. I don't want her having a master key. I went by to give it to her, but she wasn't there. So I left it on her table."

"Wait! I thought you said you had to go because she couldn't leave. But apparently, she COULD!"

"Well, she did, but she left her door unlocked."

Hick's reasoning is starting to sound like the way his Harem thinks. Who knows where that gal went. Maybe the Harem convened, to plan new ways to draw Hick back to town on Fridays. I guess three days is a long time to go Hickless.