I Don't Know What To Do.

I found out recently that the house my grandparents used to own is back on the market. Some of my happiest memories, not just from childhood but life in general, are connected in some way to that house, and the people who used to live there, namely my grandparents.

My grandmother sold the house in 2004 after her second fall (thankfully, she didn't break anything that time) preparatory to moving to an assisted living retirement home. She originally asked $220,000, but had to lower it to $189,500, and the "man" who bought it nickeled and dimed her down another $500 to $189,000, AND made her include all the major appliances (ie. refrigerator, deep-freeze, stove, and dishwasher).

Well, needless to say, I wasn't to happy about the way that "man" took advantage of my grandmother's need to sell and move into a retirement home. I would have bought the house myself, but had nowhere near the amount of money I would have needed to put 20% down, let alone make the monthly mortgage payments and all the other bills and expenses that come with home ownership (eg. water, garbage, sewage, taxes, insurance), so, I didn't buy the house, but I did, I suppose, put a kind of curse on the new owner.

Now, it seems, my curse has born out. I have learned from my grandparents' former friends and neighbors that the "man" lost his job, his wife left him for another man, and his daughter got arrested for something to do with drugs and is now in a juvenile detention facility near Ventura, California. Ah, justice (and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown).

I have given some thought to trying to buy the house back myself, but I'm not sure it would be a good idea. Where my grandparents kept the house immaculate and in perfect condition, the "man" who bought it wasn't so particular and the house needs a lot of work and the neighborhood isn't as nice as it used to be. I'll have to think about it some more, but if I decide to buy it, I'll keep you informed.

By the way, some of you may have wondered about my use of the quotation marks whenever I referred to the ' "man" ' who bought my grandparents house. I use them to indicate that I don't think the "man" in question was much of one, nickle-and-dimming my grandmother the way he did, and use the term only to refer to his biological gender, and even that I have my doubts about (the size anyway).