May 9^th, 2002

This had to be the worst week I’ve had in quite some time. My worst fears came true. There was a problem with the appraisal on the house. Part of the deal with this house was that I would get income from the apartments above the carriage house to help pay the mortgage. One of the apartments was in bad shape. I knew about this but I figured I could fix it up after the house was mine. The appraiser went to look at the apartments and could not get into the “good” apartment, which is rented, but only saw the “bad” apartment. (In fact, both apartments need work but at least one of them is rentable) he called the mortgage broker I’m working with and said he would have to write a bad appraisal on the apartments. The broker called off the appraisal and called me. I then called my realtor and told her about the problem. I told her I wanted to go and clean up the apartment. She called the realtor working for the home owners and got permission for me to work on the apartment. This all happened last Friday.

I went over to the apartment Friday and worked until about 8:00 PM. Both Saturday & Sunday I worked 12 to 14 hours both days. All this week I’ve been going into work at 5:30 in the morning so I could get off early. I then go and work on the apartment until 8 or 9 in the evening. I’m going to continue this until the new appraisal is scheduled. At this point I’m not even sure when that will be. On Monday the mortgage broker’s favorite appraiser will be back from vacation. There are two things that could go wrong.

The first potential problem is that the new appraiser will be too busy to get there and do the appraisal before the close of escrow. The other problem could be that I have not done enough work to get a good appraisal. If either of these happens that means I’m out the three or four hundred dollars I’ve spent fixing up the place, and the countless hours I’ve worked, and I won’t get the house. Even with this I’ve decided to just go all out until the appraisal. There is a chance it could all be for naught but I’m not just going to give up. I want the house too bad.

If all that weren’t bad enough, my car broke down on Monday, and today I had to take one of my cats to the vet. I was able to fix the car myself so that only cost me a couple of hours and fifty bucks. My cat had an abscess the size of a softball on his shoulder. He will be ok but I now have to drain it every night and give him antibiotics twice a day for the next 10 days. Loads of fun.

Will this month ever end?