The house not taken ...

This house would have been within our budget, but there were a few things that made it hard to swallow. This house is being offered furnished, and in addition to the pictured furniture (don't worry moms, the broken glass on that dish cabinet is taped), two of the three bedrooms came with built in armoires. perhaps the French would cringe at that word  used in this case -- they were brick walls covered in cement and painted, like much of the rest of the house, leaving little interior room for clothes, etc, in addition to the questionably pleasing exterior.

But the real kicker (or shall I say head-butt-er?) was the door-jam between the dining room and the kitchen, just behind the dish cabinet pictured.  Even after being warned, I still got a goose egg on it.  I checked it afterwards, and standing straight, it comes to the bridge of my nose (about 5' 8").  I guess I should be glad I didn't get a broken nose on it... Turns out all the people working on the house are significantly less than 6' 1", and no one noticed that it might be a problem for someone like me.

Power to the people

I don't know why it took me so long to notice these.  Once I did, I saw them everywhere.  Truck chassis, welded together into power poles.  Of course.  Why not?  I understand power costs $20/mo. for a household, however much you use (and however much you get!) Someone said that there is a lot of disrepair and inefficiency in the power delivery because the people working on the lines don't live where they would get power themselves.  But if $60 is a good wage for a night guard, I doubt he would be paying that bill anyway.  Twice in one week I saw a notes on the desks of someone I visited (once at a colleague's house, once in a university office) that were written in bold, red ink, "to be cut off in 24 hrs!!"  I wonder how often they get those notices.

The house not seen ...

This picture is of a house supposedly available that a colleague took for me, but we tried to see it on three consecutive days, and couldn't.  He was supposedly there every afternoon.  But not those three ...

Fun with wires

This is the fuse "box" for our "best case" house.  I'm told the hole is there because there was an electrician in the attic recently, hooking things up.  We'll need to figure out how good city power is to this place, and how we can/should coordinate it with solar panels -- which will need to be wired in here, as well.

plumbing, anyone?

This is a shot of the kitchen in our "best case" house.  Notice the visible gap between the sink and the drain. this is supposed to be redone (with the cabinetry completely replaced), but what will it look like afterward?
No offense meant, whatsoever, to those plumbers (nor their wives!) who did actually offer to come over and help us set up house, had we been here in their timeline...

Wanna buy a house?

In my house hunting trip last week, I found many houses unfinished, but "ready" to rent, that is, to take a down payment (of rent) large enough to give the landlord enough to finish the house.  One house needed $11,000.  I understand that some of us with justice issues might balk at giving someone an interest (and collateral) free loan so that he could have a house that you could then pay him to live in. But there doesn't seem to be any other way into the rental market here.

So I asked about the market to buy, which is basically people who have given up hope on finishing their house, and are willing (or need) to sell it.  This house was going for $37k.  Yes that is grass growing inside.  Yes there is no roof.  Yes the forms are still on the cement pillars. And local advice is that it would take another $20k to finish it.  And how much time?  Back to the rental market...