1837 Not Sure Why

Friday, June 6, 2008

I've spent the past few days in Rochester, helping Jay's eldest sister to get the late FIL's house ready to show.

I couldn't believe what they're asking for the house. It's about 1.75 times the size of my house, five bedrooms (the two upstairs are huge, and share a bathroom with double sinks, etc.), 2.5 bathrooms, 40-some windows (I know, 'cause I personally washed about a third of them), two fireplaces (one with an old marble Victorian surround) a huge basement, about an acre or more of land, huge very old trees, in a beautiful old neighborhood where every house is different and all use professional landscapers.

Even in the current depressed market, with what my house would fetch, I could buy his house and another equal to it, and still have $50,000 left over to remodel or decorate. It's crazy. Rochester must be terribly depressed. We did some shopping for decorating touches that took us all over the city, and it seemed like there were a lot of closed and boarded up businesses, and a lot of parking lots of open businesses looked uncared for. Grass growing in the cracks and so on. It seemed like the things we were looking at in the stores (patio furniture, 9x12 "oriental" rugs, towels, silk plants at Michaels, etc.) were a LOT cheaper than down here.

Conclusion, if you don't mind snow, and would like being near excellent medical centers and elder-care facilities, Rochester, NY, might be a good place to retire.

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The "crew" consisted of one of Dad's caregivers, her two late-teen/early 20s sons, her father, me, and Jay's eldest sister (who happens to be exactly the same age as I am). The boys mostly did outside work, washing the outsides of the windows, power washing the siding and the patio. The father installed several window air conditioners. The caregiver and I cleaned the inside of windows on Wednesday, and washed 40 years of soot and grime off every flat surface. Thursday we scoured bathrooms. I spent three hours on the half bath alone. Every inch had to be scrubbed. The cabinets had to be cleaned out, and --- I'm not kidding --- I had to whack things stuck to the shelves with a hammer to loosen them.

Eldest sister, in the meantime, wandered around rearranging furniture, talking on the phone, making lists of touches to arrange and things to buy, hanging pictures, and otherwise decorating. She didn't even get her hands dirty. She issued orders to the rest of us whenever she noticed something that needed cleaning.

By 7 pm last evening, I'd had it. I was lying on the floor with my head and shoulders stuck in the under-sink cabinet in the master bath, and suddenly I wondered what the heck I was doing, and why. I hadn't had anything to eat all day, and I was being treated like a hired hand. The caregiver and her family were being paid for their time. I was a volunteer. And I wasn't sure why.

At that point eldest sister said she was going shopping for more stuff, and invited me along, and I made a snap decision. I was tired, and I was going back to the hotel. And I did.

(I had been invited to stay at the house, but I knew if I did, I'd be worked into the ground, 7 am to 11 pm, so instead I spent $360 on a hotel. I'm wondering now if I can bill the estate for the hotel and the $60 in gas.)

So, I went to an Appleby's near the hotel, got a takeout dinner, and fell asleep lying across the bed, fully dressed, before I could finish my ribs. I slept 13 hours, straight through.

I went back this morning and cleaned off and dusted some shelves, and then headed home at noon. I sneezed and coughed all the way home, from the house dust. I've been digging black oily dust out of my nose for the past two days.

The realtor is bringing some people to see the house this evening. I hope they buy it!
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