Barrie Creative Feature

Let's meet Kim Thompson; the owner and operator of Barrie Creative.  Kim runs a great website, that includes recipes, fun ideas, diy projects and her life in posts.  Recently, she wrote a post about her buying and selling process of her homes.  Here it is:

Part 1: The Selling Process

The selling process can be a whirlwind of emotions. Anyone who has ever bought and sold a house understands what I am saying by whirlwind of emotions. Within the period it takes to sell, you basically live in what can be best described as a staged showroom; don’t touch or use anything and for the love of God please don’t make a mess!!! Next, showings give you their feedback! It makes you feel like you should just burn down the house and start fresh because it is obviously a giant pile of rubbish. You need to have a bit of a thick skin, because people can be brutal. I was entertained by some crazy comments and some of the requests we received. Full on remodel requests. Buy it and you can remodel to your hearts content.

Great news, sold first week – or so we thought. Ended up third time was the charm. First offer lost financing; second had to sell their place first (wasn’t even for sale yet); and the final offer was the one who was actually in a position to even seriously make an offer. Once that sold sign went up it didn’t get any easier. The buyers, well, made the whole process unnecessarily difficult. Not a fun experience, and I’m not going to lie I was afraid at times to answer my realtors calls! Finally, our house closed and we were able to all breathe a sigh of relief.  C’mon, who are we kidding here?! In true fashion, the following day, I had a rather rude request from the buyers to pick up the cans of paint that we left. I had left the cans of paint that matched the house colours for touch ups, I did not pursue arrangements to get those; your house, now your paint! Welcome to home ownership folks! I admit, I was a bit of a bitch and didn’t leave them a “welcome to your new home” note with garbage day and mail instructions etc. like I normally do. But overly rude & demanding people can figure it out on their own. Might be petty but made me feel better – it’s the little things that count right?

We were so excited to get into the new house and unpack and start fresh with new memories. Until the water showed up……

Part 2: The Buying Process

We started the buying process off with a wishlist of items that we were looking for in a new home; and thanks to our fantastic agent, we found something that hit every mark on our list (and then some) pretty quickly! Offer in – check! Inspection went well – check! Now let the excitement and planning begin!

I have been through the buying and selling process a few times now and no matter what, there is ALWAYS a hiccup. I say hiccup, but at the time this hiccup was a “omg, the world is ending disaster” that can only be solved with a pile of swearing, waiting…. and more waiting. Let me give you a quick idea of what I mean in case you have never bought or sold a house. You wake up early to get the moving van or meet the movers in our case. You proceed to pack the van and get things cleaned and ready for the new owners while you wait for the call from your Real-Estate Lawyer to tell you that you can come pick up the keys to your new home. Skip ahead a few hours, the truck is fully loaded, pets are confused and you begin to wait in a very empty house for the call. If you are me, you call for an update and get told that we are waiting on either the bank, the sellers lawyers or some other hold up that keeps the clock ticking on the three men sitting in the moving van that I am now paying just to wait.

FINALLY at 4:45 pm we got the keys. At least it’s only been 4 extra hours of waiting…… The excitement is back and we are on our way to the new home with the keys. It is smooth sailing from here and everything gets moved in without an issue. Eeeeeeee I can‘t wait to start unpacking and setting everything up. By this time it is 8-8:30 at night so Hubby and I order a pizza (a moving must have) and begin getting a few things set up for the night; have a shower and basically collapse in bed exhausted.

We wake up refreshed and ready for another busy day. I walk downstairs and I see it, right away. The beautiful white crown moulding and ceiling in the living room now has a very noticeable large area of brown staining that was obviously not there the day before. Everyone knows that staining on the ceiling means water leakage. SUPER news for our first night in the house. Who, what, where, why and how come all race through my mind because we had an inspection! I went and grabbed the inspection report to double check and no dampness was detected. Right above that area is a very pretty, fully tiled master bathroom shower. Obviously I am I being punked!

First step for us was to call our trusted professional contractor to come over and have a look at the area. What he found after his inspection was a very obvious pre-existing leak that most likely had been there since the installation of the shower itself! WHAT!!!!! The water damage that happened that night unveiled the cover up that had been done to hide the issue. It became apparent that the previous owners had most likely never used that shower in the time they owned it after finding out themselves it leaked. It seems they just covered up the area and continued on. The weird thing is that the other shower in the main bathroom leaked, A LOT, which we did know about from the inspection and we fixed that right away. We couldn’t help but wonder if the previous owners ever showered, or did they just wash themselves with a rag on a stick! This situation seems like an HGTV special to me, Brian Beaumler are you hiding somewhere? Please be, no.. ok, so at this point we contact our lawyer as this is a violation of the closing agreement. Turns out that even though it is a violation we might be left on the hook for this! If we don’t get an acknowledgement from the previous owners on this, we have the choice to take them to small claims court at our cost. I’m sorry but again WHAT!!! Someone please tell me what is the point of having a closing agreement if nothing is upheld by the lawyers? So this saga continues

I am upset. I don’t blame the inspector for not catching it, as our contractor said, they cleaned it all up to look perfect as if nothing happened, and the shower water would have taken a few hours to show up on that ceiling. Basically, after we left from the inspection, it would have shown up and they just got the white paint out and covered it up again. It’s pretty upsetting that people are able to just sell their problems and move on, no repercussions or be made to be held accountable. It’s disgusting.

We are going ahead with the shower repair which has involved so far taking the floor out of the shower to discover the root of the leak. What was found was some very shabby DIY efforts. The wrong shower drain was used and it wasn’t attached to the bladder/water proofing to seal it, instead caulking was used. Even I know that won’t keep water out and I am not a pro by any means! The flooring wasn’t supported properly to hold the weight of the shower, and there was movement, which leads to cracked concrete which leads to leaks. So we truly could of had a shower in the living room one day when it fell through the ceiling. Safety first.

The living room ceiling will need to be dropped and replaced in order to remove and clean up all the water damage areas and mould. So I call that phase two and that will be done over the next little while and then all will be clean, mould and leak free!

Lesson learned in all this, sometimes things happen to good people.  No matter how much you try to avoid these situations buying a house or anything for that matter is a gamble. Fingers crossed there isn’t any other major issues to repair but only time will tell. The sad truth is you don’t know what other people could be hiding and only when you actually live in the house will you uncover them.

I invite you to read more from blogger Barrie Creative visit www.barriecreative.ca today or follow my posts on Facebook.

Thank you to Kim for telling your story.  It was great to get a 'behind the scenes' perspective from you.