Home hunting

We've started thinking about buying a place here. The lease on our rental house is up in 6 months and we don't like renting. It might not be so bad if our rental agency actually responded to our requests for repairs, but this is Ridgecrest, so they don't.

It keeps going through my mind: why would I buy a house in a place I don't like? I have no answer.

We don't have a realtor yet, but we did get preapproved for a loan at the credit union, so we know we can buy something. Nothing fancy, but something. Today, as an outing, we decided to go look at some houses in our price range.

The first house was a few blocks away from us, so we pushed the boys over there in the stroller. The house was completely vacant, which I always prefer to "staging." Nice big living room with built-in bookcases and an attractive fireplace, high ceilings. "I just need to get these bugs cleaned up," said the realtor, reaching down with a tissue for some dead cockroaches caught in a spider web. The extra bedrooms were small. The master bedroom was large, with a huge walk-in closet. There was a giant cockroach on its back in the master bath shower.

The realtor offered us treats. Baby B grabbed a big cookie and we convinced Baby A to take half a chocolate-covered pretzel. Armed with this bounty, we ventured out into the big backyard. No lawn, but some very nice trees -- for Ridgecrest. Amazing how our standards have fallen.

The second house was in the north part of town, so we drove. It was on a lot about half the width of its neighbors. A two-car detached garage in the back of the lot, with a long driveway, the kind of thing where you could park about 6 cars, but you'd be constantly moving cars to get to the one you wanted. Small rooms, no space for the piano, but no visible cockroaches. Packing boxes everywhere. The owners were moving to Alabama.

The babies are currently very into rocks, in fact Baby B can even say "Rock!" In the backyard they found a selection and were very excited. The realtor was friendly and when he heard we didn't have a realtor yet, he said he'd like to give us a gift. It turned out to be a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

I can't stop thinking about our old house in Boulder. It's very small compared to our rental house here and even to these houses we're traipsing through. But it has beautiful trees, two driveways, a big front porch, a mailbox. We put in a new back lawn and a new sprinkler system the year before we left, so the babies would have grass to play on. I wonder how it's doing. Next door our neighbor, who Rocket Boy has known his entire life, is dying of cancer, without us.

I think it's going to take us a while to find a home in Ridgecrest.