Our Quest for a Home, Part 1

A little background for you, just in case you have missed any or are a new reader....  Hubbie and I made some poor financial decisions in the early years of marriage.  Not only did we misuse our money, but we also lacked communication and had numerous issues.  It wasn't until Hubbie lost his job, we hit rock bottom, in the Fall of 2005, that my parents set up marriage counseling and enrolled us in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course, that our lives began to change.  To read the more in depth story, go here.

From January 2006 until last Fall we were slowing working through our debts.  We give God all the glory for our success with being able to pay off over $50,000 in debt in the time frame we did and while continuing to add more children into our home.  It was only by a miracle and lots of hard work that gave us the ability to pay off our last debt in September 2010.

During our entire marriage, we have always rented places to live.  In the beginning it was in hopes and in  anticipation of eventually moving from the area.  A few times in our early years, we'd look at buying, but something always came up to make us think that perhaps it wasn't a great idea and something delayed the process.  Then, after Bubbie was born and I had to work, it just never seemed like a real possibility.  We are so thankful that we listened to our inner gut feelings and never bought.  3 years ago, we moved from a townhome and into our 1400 sq. ft home that was indeed a gift from God.  The home has been such a wonderful thing for our family.  We moved in when Bubbie was 3.5 yrs old and Peanut was only 6 months old.  Never did we dream that our family would grow so quickly and we'd become so attached to the lay out and flow of the house and our gigantic yard!  Of course, the house wasn't without flaws.  Sadly, the owner has a history of not taking care of the home and we learned that immediately after our moving in.  Things were left in poor condition and things such as the bathrooms and kitchens had definitely not been maintained and cleaned in quite a while.  Some of this was neglect on the previous tenant and other things, such as wood rotting on the exterior of the home, was just neglect on the owner.  We hadn't been here for more than a year when we discovered that the home had a slab leak and it took 3 weeks to completely diagnose the issue, get workers out here to fix it and for a new floor to be laid.  Thankfully we got a new floor.  Unfortunately, it was such a time of stress with two little ones and a pregnant Mama trying to control some of the chaos and still serve meals from half of a kitchen!

Fast forward to this March.  Our current lease was coming up for renewal.  Since our landlord had been neglectful and we were expecting another little one, we were praying for wisdom on whether we should look for another home, larger or continue to stay here and make the space work.  So, we began to drive thru neighborhoods that we wanted to be in, seeing if anything was available, for rent and in our price range.  Our budget for housing had been so small, because of the incredible deal we had with our current place.  It was an easy $200 or $300 less than every other house in the neighborhood that was being rented out.  Like I said, it was truly a gift from God.  Our location really mattered, because our hope was to get Hubbie close enough to some of the running paths around town that he could just run or bike to work.  It would save on our increasing gas budget AND in car upkeep, repair and insurance for his.  We added those factors in and continued to look, but were unable to find anything.  

The last week of March was one I don't think I'll ever forget.  Stress, stress and MORE stress!  On that Saturday afternoon we had had a lot of rain and the forecast was calling for many more storms.  I walked into the laundry room to discover a small puddle of water in the middle of the floor.  Perfectly sized.  No pathways of water from walls or drips from the ceiling.  It was so strange.  Hubbie went up into the attic to see if he could see roof leaking, but nothing exactly, so we figured it was a non-emergency and it must be a roof leak coming from a door jam.  On Monday I called the rental company and left a message saying that there was a possible leak and we were asking for someone to come take a look.  On Wednesday morning, I woke up early to prepare for our busy morning at BSF and walked into the living room to find damp carpet and then continued into the kitchen to discover over half the kitchen and the entire laundry room in water.  I was so frustrated!  I called the emergency number for the rental company and told them everything....  about the call on Monday, the leak on Saturday, not being able to determine where it was coming from..... within 2 hours my parents were over here to take the 3 kids out of the mess, a plumber was here to see if it was coming from the water heater and a cleaning crew had showed up to start getting rid of some of the water.  Within 4 hrs, the water had been removed, we had a living room and kitchen full of fans and a dehumidifer, the plumber had determined that there was a hole in the hot water heater and a new water heater had been installed.  It was a crazy couple of hours and the more I learned about the damage, the more upset I was that this had happened.  

....to be continued....