That time we had to hire a lawyer

Let's talk about the excitement of this past week (or so).

Friday (April 10): We bought our house! Popping bottles to celebrate!

The weird thing was, after closing, the house was still filled the staging furniture that had been there to help the seller make it look good (it was a flipped house, so it had been vacant for awhile). Since the house had clearly been sold, and was now ours, this was unexpected and confusing. The seller never even showed up to settlement. Now that it's all said and done, I can safely say online that this guy was horrible to us and completely jerked us around throughout the entire process. We hated him so much, although we never even met him or found out his name.

At settlement, the seller's agent texted our agent asking if the furniture could be removed Saturday morning, which we agreed to. Annoying, since we kind of had plans (um MOVING) but whatever.

Saturday: Eric was at the house before and after the time we agreed on. No one showed.

Unrelated adorable baby picture.

Sunday: We hadn't heard anything about the furniture, and were getting pretty irritated that we couldn't move in. Sunday night at 11:30pm, our realtor got a rude email from the other realtor, but it really didn't have any information to solve anything, It was just nasty, blaming us for not waiting around all day for the movers. Our realtor responded on our behalf, basically wanting to know who was liable in case of any damages when the movers did come.

The furniture is clearly nicer than ours. But we wanted to move our crappy stuff in.

Monday: Still no word until evening, when another email showed up from the other agent. It said we would be charged $300 a month for the furniture, and they would be contacting their lawyer.

EXCUSE US, WHAT?



The email implied that they wanted to get the furniture on Tuesday, but didn't give a time or state that directly. Obviously we had to work on Tuesday, that whole having jobs thing is kind of how we bought the house in the first place.

Tuesday: I spent my entire lunch attempting to stage whisper to a lawyer on the phone, over the sound of my pump, but not so loud that people who were in the meeting taking place outside my pumping closet could hear me. Oh, and eat. So that was fun. He was very helpful but pretty much said that if we needed to hire him, we better be prepared to part with a lot of our hard earned money and not see it again.

We received an email saying movers were coming to get the furniture Wednesday night, and if we didn't let them in to OUR house, we would be charged $7,500 for the furniture, and also that we were liable for anything broken or missing from the items that had been in the house for months before we even set foot in there.

Our response was that we agreed to let the movers in at the time they demanded, but asked that before the movers entered, we received proof of their insurance, and for the fourth time, we requested a document taking financial responsibility for any potential damages the movers might cause. Every time we asked this, the seller's realtor blatantly ignored us.

All this so this kid could have a yard.

Wednesday: We got no response to our requests. We called lawyers asking if we could just put their stuff on the curb. Every lawyer said no. After work Wednesday, I unhappily left a message for the lawyer I'd spoken to Tuesday telling him we needed to hire him.

But then, Wednesday night, we finally got the phone number for the woman who had done the staging. Up until this point, everything had gone through realtors. We talked to her, she was super nice, and instantly agreed to sign the liability document and come over Thursday to get the furniture.

SO. Turns out it was the seller's SHADY realtor. She had never told the stager that the house had sold, so the stager was never able to get her furniture out. The stager had then informed them that, by contract, they were responsible for replacing the furniture. They tried to backtrack, insisting they had told her, but couldn't produce documentation. Their plan was then to turn us, the new owners, and the stager, against each other, to deflect blame and avoid paying. The whole time, they had been telling her how we were ignoring them, trying to keep the furniture, and saying nothing to us, other than refusing to take liability.

How's that for a story?

Thursday: Finally the weight was off my shoulders, and for the first time since Sunday, I didn't feel nauseous with anxiety. I arrived at work and told my friend how everything worked out and how happy I was.

Less than a minute later, Eric called me. From an ambulance. He'd been hit straight on by someone turning left in an intersection while taking Dalton to daycare, and they were being taken to the ER.

Still cute.

It makes me nauseous and teary eyed again just to type that. I ran down to my teammates classroom (the kids hadn't arrived yet), completely hyperventilating, and tried to tell her what was happening but I couldn't even catch my breath. My teammates are AMAZING, she told me to get out and they handled everything. I drove to the hospital. It took less than 30 minutes but felt like years.



Thank god, all was fine.

We were there a few hours while both my boys got checked out, and they were both given a clean bill of health, other than expecting soreness. We're waiting to hear about the car, but the air bag went off so it's likely totaled. Definitely not an ideal time to take on a car payment (both our cars were paid off), but we honestly don't care, we'll work it out. We're just both so thankful that's our biggest problem from the accident. That night, Dalton stayed in our bed pretty much all night. They didn't say we had to monitor him at night (only during the day), but I needed to monitor him at night. And snuggle him. And hear him breathing.

Back in September, before he was born, I registered for a fancy convertible carseat, the Britax Marathon (the next one up that kids use after infancy). I didn't expect it as a gift, I planned to use the registry discount to buy it. I wanted to go home and get it and install it before Dalton even left the hospital, but the doctors and nurses insisted it was fine to take him home in the infant seat after the accident. That was the last time we used it, and we aren't bothering to get another infant seat for this big guy. Now he's in his big boy seat! Eric got a second one from Costco that night, which is currently installed in the rental.

That night, we had our first family dinner in the new house - so much to celebrate!

Friday: Other than Dalton and Uncle Jesse, the most beautiful sight I've ever seen. 

My own washer and dryer.

I've been hoarding quarters and carrying baskets around like a chump for the past five years, and it became a real PITA with a baby.

That was our week. Tonight is our last night in the apartment!