Saw the house and we both love it! It’s definitely a huge, high-end home that borders on being a luxury home with its sunken tub, cathedral ceilings and other fancy features, and it’s definitely in a luxury park. You’d never know those homes weren’t built on-site.

There was only one thing I didn’t like and it had nothing to do with the house or our neighbor to the left. It was the damn motorcycle at the house diagonally in back. They just started letting them in, the realtor, Brenda, said. I was totally dismayed to hear that too, and that they would allow something so ferociously loud in a 55+ park cuz it makes you wonder what’s next. Loud music? Semis? Big dogs? Tom said he could tell by looking at it that the thing wouldn’t be as loud as Jesse’s Harley, but still, it was a bit too close for comfort. Not close enough to turn me off of the house completely. Not unless our immediate neighbor has one, though I didn’t see any. All I saw was a truck sitting in their open 1-car garage that I hope they never use as a workshop of any kind, even though their driveway isn’t quite as close to the house as the driveway in Phoenix was. There was only a 3-foot space between the wall of our house there and the welfare bum’s driveway. Here there’s a good-sized patio and a wall of plants and trees between their driveway and us. The neighbor’s truck suggests they may be younger. Like 50s and 60s kind of younger as opposed to 70s or 80s.

We arrived a few minutes before the realtor, parked the car in front and got out to look around. A guy was driving slowly down the street. The scattering of speed bumps doesn’t let you go that fast anyway. The guy stopped to ask if he could help us and we told him we were waiting for the realtor to show us the house. He was doing neighborhood watch. This park has all kinds of security and stuff like that. It’s a gated community, too. The back gate is always locked and the front is locked at night. Residents have a passkey to get in. There are also tire spikes that will puncture your tires if you try to enter the wrong way. When you go the right way the tires roll them down flat and they are harmless.

Like I said, this is a near-luxury home in a luxury park so I don’t want to get my hopes up. Brenda arrived stinking of cigarette smoke, and then she knocked on the door. The old couple living there, who are going to go live in an assisted living apartment once the house sells, were very nice. I’d say they were in their 80s or 90s.

I loved everything about the house, though I can’t imagine what we’d do with the rooms or fill all the space with. It would sit empty and sparsely furnished for a while because we don’t want to let our savings dip below a few grand. We’d just get what we needed right away and then wait on other things.

The living room was HUGE with its cathedral ceilings and 6 huge windows in front. That’s as many as this whole trailer has! No skylights in the place, but in a warm climate, that’s a good thing. The ceilings are level everywhere except for the living room. The online pics don’t do the place justice at all. Besides, they only shot the living room, kitchen and dining area. They didn’t shoot the laundry room which also has a built-in desk and some drawers and shelves, or the bedrooms.

I loved the huge built-in shelves in the living room between that room and the kitchen, plus the built-in hutch. Great for displaying some of the dolls.

The second bedroom is kind of smallish, but otherwise, nothing else about the house is even remotely small. You could put two king-size beds in the master bedroom. The only thing I didn’t like in there was the mirrored closet doors. Do I really need to be reminded every single day just how fat, old and ugly I’m getting? The master bath could easily hold a twin bed in the middle of it.

Surrounding the place outside is a scattering of trees, shrubs and flowers, and there’s even a good-sized workshop that we could use as a shed. I was wrong in saying it was 1500 square feet. When I looked at the list it said it was 1550. That and the workshop probably brings it to around 1700. Definitely more than we need! I have stalkers, so I better omit some of these details from my public blog.

Brenda said she just had to stop and ask my age, saying I looked in my 30s, LOL. The youngest household member has to be at least 45. After seeing the house we went outside and told Brenda we’d like to offer the asking price, and when I asked her what she thought our chances were of getting accepted by the park, she said they were very good. I hope so! But then she said a couple of disturbing things – that the manager can be “snippy.” That’s the second person to suggest this manager wasn’t very nice, reminding me of Stacey, this bitch that managed a complex I lived in down in Arizona in the 90s that made the residents’ lives hell, particularly mine. She didn’t just make me get rid of the cat I wasn’t supposed to have, she started stalking my every move. Hopefully, though, we’ll never have to deal with them after we get accepted, if we get accepted. The Klam scam has officially been kicked off our credit report! Only problem is it’s not the company they use. We’ll have to explain this to them in our letter.

Today we’re going to submit the offer and hope we beat the next two people coming to look at it who will probably also agree it’s a super nice house in a super nice location and totally worth the price. Not that I would, but I could walk around there at 3am and feel totally safe. But yeah, that’s the other disturbing thing. Two other people are going to be shown the place by different agents. I see a familiar pattern forming. After months of being on the market, just like with the Newcastle place, everyone suddenly wants to see it.

Lotta people have those little electric golf carts like my folks had in their park to get to and from the pool, clubhouse, lake, tennis courts and other goodies the park has to offer, though I’m not sure there are tennis courts there. I don’t mind walking or riding my bike so long as it’s not over 100° We’ll be dropping nearly 1000’ in elevation to close to sea level, so it’s warmer down there. Temps of 105° - 110° in the summer will be quite normal.

We never heard any barking within the park the whole time we were there, but behind the houses to the side of us are homes outside not belonging to the park. When we were outside we could hear a little barking in the distance. I just hope no loud car stereos make a habit of going back there, cuz that may be audible in the house. I’d be more concerned with the motorcycle and people next door, though, especially if they were in and out constantly and had a lot of company.

Anyway, you have 5 days to do a park interview once you make an offer that is pending approval of the park, if it’s accepted. Worst-case scenario, we are rejected but can still get a loan on anything between 20-35 grand in some other park. The other parks aren’t nearly as nice and the homes are elevated, except for one other one in Roseville, but if this park rejects you, so will Roseville. They’re luxury parks whose criteria borders on insanity.

Again, the pics don’t do this house justice, so if we get it I’ll take tons and tons of pics of both the house and the park.

Tom spoke with both the loan lady and Brenda when we got home, who emailed him some stuff we’ll need, and she asked if we wanted the tools in the workshop or anything else. This would be factored into the cost of the house. He didn’t pay any attention to what the tools were so all we’re really interested in are the appliances.

It was so nice to ride in an air-conditioned car! On the way back we grabbed a burger and fries at Carl’s Jr. here in town.