Confound You, Murphy

The past month has been the adventure of a lifetime—one which I hope never to repeat.

A move always brings on challenges and stress, things best avoided anywhere near the age of seventy. But when you’ve made the decision to live close to one of your children and have already made one cross-country move to achieve that end, you live with the consequences. 

Silly me.

Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong, it will. I’ve never seen that so fully displayed as I have this past month. I moved from Tennessee to Montana four years ago with no problem—even carrying a cat and litter box along for the ride. Since we no longer have a cat, I expected the move from Montana to West Virginia to be a piece of cake. Plus, I was going back east, back to the Appalachian Mountains that feel like home to me, where I grew up camping and hiking.

Was I ever wrong.

Turns out, the area southwest of Charleston isn’t growing, so there’s no new construction to consider and any existing house that goes on the market sells quickly. The older, established neighborhoods are often unreachable due to the steep, narrow, winding roads required to reach them. Though simply a challenge when hiking, add speed to the recipe and these hills and hollers are traumatic to drive through.

We found a lovely, older home that was overpriced based on surrounding sales, so offered a lesser amount, but the sellers’ disclosure form revealed that a good portion of the yard and landscape, including a stone wall that we admired, encroached on a neighbor’s property. The sellers said they had a gentlemen’s agreement with the neighbor, but we hardly expected that to transfer to new owners. We dropped that one from consideration. 

We found another house, one that was only ten years old. It, too, was overpriced, but we made an offer. Our inspector found major water problems under the house which the owners insisted had been corrected, showing us five-year-old documentation. Stop, people. What you had done five years ago obviously has no bearing on what’s true today. The sellers refused to allow us to have an inspection/estimate done by a specialist. Just, why? We let that one, too, fall by the wayside, even though the sellers came back and nearly begged us to go ahead with the additional inspection. Should have allowed it earlier, people. 

Next came two houses in our preferred neighborhood, the one closest to our daughter’s home, but the sellers were asking much more than we felt the quality and condition warranted, so we let those go. Four offers in less than a month that went nowhere. Other potential homes came on the market during that time, but were snapped up so quickly, there was no opportunity to even see them. 

Finally, after three weeks of looking and fretting, we got the jump on a house that hadn’t yet hit MLS or Zillow. We made an offer that very day, full price. The house was built in 1959 but had had lots of updates and was immaculate. 

Was this the one?

Our inspector came the following week and found water in the crawlspace, surprise, surprise. Our daughter warned us that all the houses in West Virginia had water under them because of the constant rain. How right she was.

But our inspector also found water damage on the floor in front of a fireplace the sellers had boarded up and finished as a wall. Was the water coming from the roof, where water had not been properly directed away from the chimney that abutted the house? We didn’t know. But there were also electrical problems, outlets that weren’t properly grounded, etc., an electrician’s services required.

So, we entered negotiation stage. The sellers got an estimate of $11,000 for the crawl space corrections, while our basement guy estimated $37,000. Quite a difference. We asked the sellers to lower their price $40,000 to cover the cost of repairs. They countered with $20,000 and said they would go no lower. We let that sit overnight and the next morning, our realtor called to say they had reconsidered and would lower the price $30,000, Sold.

With two days to go before closing, we got busy having utilities transferred to our names, a true pain since everything is automated and it’s a rare thing to find human help. We’d need a certified check to pay the mover before he’d unload the truck, but for that we needed a local bank account which we didn’t have. We went into Truist where it took two hours to open an account. Two hours. But their computer system wasn’t working properly. The banker said it was working fine just before we arrived, so we must have jinxed it. Murphy’s law? And then we had to get money into that account since our primary bank had no branches in West Virginia. Depositing a check would not get the money into Truist in time to pay the mover, so we had to rely on a wire transfer. For that we had to put Google Chrome on our computer since Safari couldn’t cut it. Just, why? We’ve used Safari for years and are comfortable with it. Why did we have to get a new browser?

Then we faced the trauma of wiring the large purchase price of the house to the title insurance company. Amidst all the warnings about fraudsters stealing funds, we were scared to push any buttons especially since we once again had to use unfamiliar Google Chrome.

When we attempted to get the internet hooked up, we went to the Optimum store. It was managed by humans, but they quickly gave us a number to call so we could talk to a bot instead. We like the human touch, people.

Moving day arrived. Our driver Vic’s helpers didn’t show, so he rescheduled for the following day, when his workers showed up two and a half hours late. Then they took an hour too long for lunch. Oh, and the moving van couldn’t manage the narrow roads in our neighborhood, requiring a U-Haul rental. It took three trips for the movers to transfer our belongings and get them into the house.

They had a time getting my upright piano moved in because one of its cast iron wheels had broken off. It was fine when they loaded the instrument in Montana. 

What next?

The movers got the sleep number bed put together but we didn’t know where batteries were in order to use the remote to fill the mattress with air. Too many boxes to look through. After the movers left, we found the support pieces on the slats of the bed weren’t properly placed–one even fell off. Would we ever sleep in our own bed again? 

When we checked out from the VRBO we stayed in for five weeks, we accidentally left George’s bourbon behind in one of the cabinets. Not a good time for him to be without his soothing brew. 

What else could go wrong?

The people who sold us our home left lots of décor. I suppose they were trying to make us feel welcome. Problem was that the décor didn’t suit our tastes. The sellers also left carpets and furniture without asking us if they could, even two large recliners. Fortunately, a couple of the movers took the chairs off our hands. The rest, we donated or had hauled to the dump, except for the massive workbench that was left in the garage. The sellers’ garage never saw their cars. Instead, it was heated and cooled, carpets on the floor, and used as a workshop. They obviously enjoyed making things, so why didn’t they take the workbench with them? Because it was too big and heavy. Which meant it was also too big and heavy for us to move.

As if we didn’t have enough to do.

When settling our furniture into place, we found the office bookcase wouldn’t sit level. Uneven floor? No, one of the plastic floor pegs was protruding too far and couldn’t be screwed back into place. We took it off but then had to put a shim under that corner to hold the thing level. It was fine when it left Montana.

And then we got a third estimate for the crawlspace by the company endorsed by Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe. It was the largest dollar amount yet. Going in the wrong direction pricewise, but we wanted it done right.

We faced the chaos of the DMV to get Drivers Licenses. My person was a trainee, so processing me took much longer than processing George. Then, my license ended up costing $5 more than George’s. What’s up with that?

Speaking of chaos, that was our house as we unboxed things. Paper, so much paper everywhere and boxes to break down and get rid of. I stashed things in cabinets just to get them out of the way, but then George came behind me, moving things where he wanted them. Did I mention that we have very different opinions?

The movers couldn’t hook up our washer and dryer, something that’s never happened before. We had to wash clothes at our daughter’s home for a week until we could find experts to get things connected.

Over and over it happened, the worst-case scenarios coming true. So, we decided to go on a trip, get away from our money pit for a couple days. Blennerhassett Island State Historical Park was our destination; the place Aaron Burr retreated to in 1804 after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Also, the place where Burr conspired to start a new nation in the southwest.

Parkersburg, West Virginia, was the launching spot to reach the island. We bought tickets that would entitle us to do it all: the museum, sternwheeler ride, house tour, and wagon ride, something we were told could take three to four hours, though we doubted we would last that long with five grandkids in tow (the youngest being only two).

But Murphy had followed us. After we looked around the museum, the ticket-seller told us the sternwheeler was having engine troubles, would be an hour late getting us to the island, and would have to retrieve us early, giving us only an hour for the wagon ride and house tour. We made it to the island, took the wagon ride and rushed through the mansion in order to be at the dock when it was time for the sternwheeler to depart. We made it but the sternwheeler didn’t. It completely broke down and couldn’t return us to the mainland. 

Oh, Murphy.

Along with the other tourists, we trudged across the island to another dock where the park service folks broke us into small groups to be shuttled back to Parkersburg on two small pontoon boats they used for emergencies. Running low on water and snacks, we waited and waited for our turn, stunned that park staff was so ill-prepared for such a thing. Finally, however, we made it back to the mainland.

Despite Murphy, everything related to our move finally seemed to be working out. We obtained our driver’s licenses, we got the utilities and internet connected, the movers paid, and the house purchased. The crawlspace encapsulation is scheduled, we got rid of most of the unwanted furnishings left by the sellers and put our furniture in place. We’ve made numerous trips to the recycle center to get rid of paper and boxes, and we’ve donated many things to nonprofits. We’ve had overhead lights installed in several rooms and had electrical rewiring done. 

We’re about to get settled.

After our island getaway, when I queried the grandkids about their favorite part of the day, the general consensus was the pontoon boat ride, the remedy to Murphy’s shenanigans.

 Maybe there’s a positive side to his law after all.

By the way, Murphy, we have an unneeded workbench we’d like to get out of the garage. It’s free, but up to you to haul it away.

What could possibly go wrong?