If you are house hunting be sure to walk the yard. If there are dog feces in the yard but the owner claims to have no dog, pass on the house. The neighbor’s dog clearly already thinks of the lawn as his own personal toilet. Do you really want to fight that battle?
Speaking of an ideal world, wouldn’t it be nice to find out if your neighbors throw loud midnight parties before you move in? But what are you going to do, sleep in your car outside the house to check the goings on in the neighborhood?
Well house stalker, as long as you are about it, you may as well check to see if planes, trains or noisy automobiles run past the house at three o’clock in the morning. The problem with this question is that you yourself need to be awake at 3AM to answer it honestly. Every sane person will claim his neighborhood to be perfectly quiet and cozy when he is trying to sell you his house.
Some other nice things to know might be: Do the neighborhood kids think it is their divine right to use the street in front of the house you are going to buy as an absolutely brilliant place to play soccer or touch football?
And let’s get back to the dogs. Does the whole neighborhood parade with their dogs over the sidewalk in front the house? If so, don’t buy the house. All dog owners lie. You lawn will be crapped on.
How close is the house to the great outdoors? If you can see water now then you will feel mosquitoes sooner or later. Lake front property implies lake front mosquitoes.
Is there an oak tree in the yard? If the answer is yes then congratulations you’ve got squirrels. And with squirrels come mysterious holes in the ground as the squirrels insist on burying nuts in the fall and digging them up in the winter. If for instance, you make the mistake of putting your bulb plants directly over nut central, your bulbs will be dug up and discarded. No malice intended but sometimes, as the commercial jingle goes, you feel like a nut.
Are there many birds in the area? Birds can be fascinating to watch but birds poop where they live. Even the bright red cardinal is best watched from across the street.
Are their cute fuzzy bunnies? Then prepare to step on rabbit crap. It really is too bad that rabbits don’t eat enough grass and weeds to make themselves good gardeners.
By the way, rabbits attract cats that are considerably larger than house cats…
If you are in a place like Texas, then even armadillos may be attracted to your new yard. Armadillos are the only animal I know of that carry leprosy. Yeah that Biblical disease that kills nerves, damages skin, results in body parts falling off, is really bad for vampires, and gets you shunned. You may have to put up with the armored pigs but don’t touch them and don’t feed them. Let animal control take care of the dead ones if at all possible.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment