Well, once again we blew Patti off.

Remember last entry when I mentioned numerous phonecalls? Well, one seems to have come through.

Today, we looked at a 1997 Dutch 16×80 trailer. For a repo, that thing was immaculate. It has no appliances, but we were told it was a 2000, so we’re hoping that the fact it was really a 1997 will sweeten the pot a little bit. But we loved it. It was clean, bright, and didn’t have a huge number of things wrong with it like the others we’d looked at. Aside from being told the wrong year, what we found were nitpicky things that could be fixed pretty quickly/easily.

We made an offer on it and put down our $200.

Then we took off and went to Parkwood Green, got an application, and checked out the lot that would be ours. Ed (aside from me misunderstanding that the park office was also his home) seemed to have no problem whatsoever with what was happening. The fact that the bank was willing to play ball with us tells me that our credit can’t be that horribly off. The only thing they said was that we’d be better off with just Mom on the mortgage, or else the student loans may mess us up. (No problem.)

So far, it looks like we’re going to be paying about $150 a month on it, on top of the $320 for base rent. Not counting any overages from the electric, that basically comes out to be just $5 more than what we’re paying at Alpine Meadows. However, we won’t be paying for water, sewer, or trash… nor will we have to pay for Luna or our cats.

When we got home, Patti was bent all out of shape because we didn’t drive back down to 54th street to place an offer on the tight thing she showed us.

I’m trying to be nice to her, but her pushiness knows no bounds. As far as we were concerned, there was no “thinking” — she basically told us we were coming in today at 4pm to place an offer. Not, “would [we]” or “if you would like to”… but told us we were coming in to place an offer. I told her we weren’t interested and why. (Too tight, master bathroom pretty much unusable to us, etc.)

She tells me, “We have other trailers, hun.” *growl*

“Yes, but our health is suffering… my grandpa suggested we should find an apartment and regroup once we’ve had a chance to rest.” Yeah, health as in Mom has almost had an accident every night this week since we’ve spent the better part of the day running from one end of the county to the other.

“With your credit, you won’t be able to get into anything.” Oh, really. How do you know? Have you checked our credit report without our consent?

I pitch my voice more aggressively, “Patti, we can not afford to keep driving to 54th street and beyond.”

At this point, she is not happy. Not happy at all. Oh well. I guess she’s starting to get it that we’re not going to be paying her an extra $2000 and she’s not getting whatever kickback she wanted to get by shoving us into Glenwood Estates.

Anyway, provided things go through okay we could be looking at only one or two days without a place to stay. We could move our things in (by next Wednesday possibly), but we can’t live there ourselves until all inspections are done.

Please keep your fingers crossed and prayers coming. There’s going to be a lot of prayers in this house until we figure out where things are headed. I’m so tired that I can’t even dredge up the hope. Patti’s deflating comments about our credit have gotten to me a bit. Everyone I’ve talked to has said to ignore her; she’s just getting a kickback from Glenwood… but I’m emotional enough that I am feeling discouraged.

Maybe this is a solution, but I’m just not sure. I’m discouraged/depresed enough that ambivalent really doesn’t describe me.

We closed on the house today and walked away with $30,000 plus another $5000 we’ll get after we vacate the house for a grand total of $35,000. Then, we ditched our Realtor and got a ride from Poppa to the Trailer Park. We got to see a total of four - count em, four! - luxury “trailers” (Oops, Manufactured Homes) all more loaded than the one we saw before. They started at $19,900 and went up to $50,000, all of them having garden tubs or whirlpools in the master suites, sometimes walk-in showers, spacious kitchens, skylights, decks, new carpeting, blinds, appliances, and more. The last one we saw had cathedral ceilings, 5′x6′ walk-in closets, tons of skylights, a sliding glass door, a totally open floor plan that would have driven the cats nuts running around in, and was freaking huge!!! Definately not the dark, dank, dungeon-like trailers I remember Aunt Leota living in back when I was a kid.

No, these had all the amenities of an expensive, luxury home for a fraction of the price. We chose the $19,900 one, which will fit us nicely. Quite nicely. Plus, it’s vacant. It had a few repairs, which Poppa pointed out. We informed the assistant manager that we were leaning towards it when we left, and she promptly sent in the repair order. By the time we’d gotten home, we’d made our final decision. We called her back and she sent out the paperwork we need to sign.

Overall, a very good day. We walked to the local grocery store and got each of us a pint of Ben and Jerry’s as a kind of reward, but we’re not totally ready to celebrate yet. We figure we’ll really splurge on a celebration once the trailer is ours and we’ve shut the door behind us. Yeah! ^_^

Additionally, it was interesting watching Poppa’s body language and facial expression. He went from dubious when he picked us up (”Why are you -???”) to guarded, then to intrigued (”You mean we could build garages?!”). His parting comment as we left the assistant manager was a question about building garages on the lots, which she responded as though he was asking for our sake… instead, his response was along the lines of “Actually, that was for me.” Makes you kind of wonder. He has to be paying an arm and a leg for his condo; I’m beginning to wonder if he didn’t go home to Caroline to talk over one of those manufactured homes with her.

The park seems really quiet and seemed nice, though they didn’t even try to hide the fact it was far worse before. They seem to have received the park after a series of bad managers and seem to be turning it around in a long, hard fought battle. The section of the park we’d be moving to is apparently the quiet side, mostly elderly or older residents - although we did see a good many children. (Oooh, Halloween is going to be COOL!) Oh, the park also has a pool too. ^_^ Doesn’t seem too shabby.

Major hugs again to Theresa. ^_^ Yes, your hugs are major good luck! Stalk us all you’d like - we love you! ^_~ We’d be glad to help with webpages after all this is over.

Well, over the past few days I’ve come to the conclusion that Theresa’s hugs are major good luck. ^_^ *super huge hugs back to her* We told the couple over in the trailer in Parkwood Green thanks, but no thanks. We’ve found a trailer with even more amenities than theirs for only $25,000. Now if only we could hurry up, get down there, and see it… probably even make an offer on it… we’d be all set. Apparently, this new park is HUGE and filled with trailers for sale by their owners. Mostly, they seem to be elderly people seeking to get out, move to a assisted living place, or are moving in with their kids / grandkids. The $25,000 one belongs to an elderly couple and the husband, sadly, has alzheimers. The Kids/Grandkids are building their own home and are planning to move them in as well to help take care of him. The lady seems very nice and I can’t imagine them putting the trailer up for sale if the house isn’t close to being finished. We’ve survived an entire summer in an 8×12 travel trailer and we can survive a few weeks at a friend’s house. (I doubt we’d be able to stay at Poppa’s, since Caroline is supposibly allergic to animals and I don’t think their condo allows animals.) So anyway.. that rocks our world.

Mom’s in a good mood today; she had nine hour shift today - so we’re going to be rolling in some nice money. She’s talking about - since Conrad is driving us down to GR on Tuesday anyway for closing here - seeing about how much a Taxi would cost to take us to the park and then see if Poppa would come pick us up and take us home.

Packing is going along nicely. I think a few more days and Jass and I will have much of the unnecessary things in the house all packed and ready to go. Mom still needs to contact Maryann and see if we can “borrow” her shed to store our crap in…. maybe Jodi too. Anyway, much love to everyone!