Project Dream House: Crazy Neighbors and the Quest for Land

We aren’t “town people.”

Timothy grew up in the country. His family has land and his grandparents’ 150 acres was within walking distance. I grew up in town but I always had dreams of living in the country. I think there are plenty of kids like that who have these glowing dreams of living on a ranch with wild horses and endless sunsets.

It’s kind of like the dream many of us had, at some point, of growing up to be a marine biologist. Because we deeply care about animals in the ocean, and because all marine biologists do anyway is swim with dolphins. Every. Single. Day. Right?

Oh, I forgot one. The dream of going to college in Hawaii. If you going to go to college anyway, you might as well do it in Hawaii, right?

Anyhow, I digress.

The point is, when Timothy and I first got married, we were living in town and we did not like it. We wanted to have a house on a few acres with room to roam. However, we didn’t yet have enough cash to buy it, and we weren’t willing to get a mortgage for it. So, we took baby steps and those steps involved little houses in town.

Both of those houses in town involved some interesting characters. Have you ever had crazy neighbors? I’m almost positive we’re a magnet for them.

Let me tell you a story.

Searching for Our First House

Back in the day, (circa 2009) we were searching for our first house to buy. We had been searching through all the listings online. After Timothy got off work, I would jump in the truck with him and we would go see all the houses in person that looked decent online. We learned quickly that some realtors can be quite cunningly deceptive.

One house that we saw online looked pretty good. We were looking in a lower price range because we wanted to pay cash. Therefore, a “pretty good” house was as good as we were going to find at the time. Well, after work, Timothy and I went to see this “pretty good” house.

Not as Advertised

We soon discovered that what the online pictures didn’t show was that it was attached to another house! It was a duplex. It never said anything about that in the listing. Imagine our surprise! Each side of this duplex had different siding to make it look like two different houses. The realtor’s picture was purposely taken to not include the house “next door.”

We kept staring at it thinking maybe they were just built really close together but they were, in fact, attached. That would have been nice to know before we drove over there.

Trains or Blacklight Rooms?

We found another house that was in our price range but it was sitting a few feet away from a working train track. I’m almost positive that old house would have rattled every time a train came by. We were newly married and had those whimsy thoughts of, “I could live anywhere with you” but I’m so glad we passed that one by and kept looking.

One day, we had a few houses we wanted to visit with our realtor. One of them was currently a rent house with renters in it. We had a scheduled appointment to go inside but I don’t think they tidied up one bit before we got there. The place was a mess. It had a one car garage that had been built in to make another room. In that area, was a smaller room full of glowing blacklights and bean bags.

On the way to the blacklight house, we passed by a house for sale that we had somehow missed online. Our realtor contacted the realtor who had listed it and got permission for us to go in. It was vacant so it was easy to make a last minute appointment.

THE One

As soon as we walked in, we knew it was the house we wanted to buy. It wasn’t attached to another house, there were no odd rooms filled with blacklights, and it wouldn’t rattle from a nearby train. The downside was that the kitchen had white wallpaper with green vines on it. No big deal, right? Well, not really. The bad part was that someone had continued those vines over the back door by hand painting them on the wall.

THEN, they glued wooden birdhouses to the wall to finish the look. Oh, and there was also shiny, peach colored, wallpaper with metallic swans in the hall bathroom.

Our First Crazy Neighbor

We were standing there looking at the birdhouses on the living room wall when the neighbor let herself in the front door. She was munching on a bag of Cheetos with wild eyes and muttering about something we couldn’t understand. We all stared at her in shock and our realtor, under her breath, said, “Deal breaker.” We didn’t take the hint, though. We bought the house anyway. (We were nuts dreamers in love.)

We loved that little house for three years. We just didn’t like where it was. If we could have picked the house up and moved it to a different location, we would have. We didn’t like living so close to the neighbors.

We had a tiny back deck that we would sit on when the weather was nice. Well, I’m pretty sure the guy who lived on the other side of us must have had GPS trackers on us because it seemed like he knew every time we walked out the back door.

As soon as we sat down on our little swing, he would start hollering over the fence at Timothy. He wanted to chit-chat, ask a question, or borrow something. So, we started sneaking out the back door and whispering to each other while we sat on our swing, just so we could have some peace.

Time for House #2

After three years in that house, it was time to move on. We were on the hunt for another house again. We repeated the same process as before. We would search online until we had a long list of houses we wanted to see, then, after work, we would go drive by them all. If they looked decent on the outside we would get our realtor to make appointments so we could see the inside.

One house we visited had purple carpet and there was no hall. Which meant, you had to walk through the laundry room to get to the master bedroom. Then, you had to go through the kids’ room to get to the bathroom. But to get to the kids’ room in the first place, you had to go through the kitchen.

Another house we looked at had a big hump in the tile floor in the bathroom. You couldn’t open the bathroom door all the way.

We Found It!

One day, we were going to look at some houses with our realtor. Before we left, Timothy checked all the listings online again. He saw a house that wasn’t there the day before.

So, on the way to one of our appointments, we stopped by that house with our realtor. It was vacant so she was able to get the code so we could go right in. It was love at first sight. I nearly cried. After all the crazy houses we had seen, this one was excellent. Now, it wasn’t perfect. It was built in 1973 and it had a few issues. But, as a whole, it was a solid, well-built house, and it was in our price range so we could pay cash for it.

Our Second Crazy Neighbor

We had learned our lesson about crazy neighbors from our first house (or so we thought) so we decided to meet the people next door before we made an offer. We walked over and introduced ourselves. Their front and back yards were a wreck.

It was July and they had Christmas lights on the house and Halloween decorations in the windows. The backyard was full of all sorts of junk, but hey, they seemed friendly enough. However, we know now that we had on bright, rose-colored glasses. 

In spite of that, the house was perfect for us. It was near work for Timothy, it was on a half acre (our first house was on 1/6^th of an acre); it had a two car garage and a little extra square footage. We wanted it. It had only been on the market for three days and we made an offer.

After living there a short while, we realized we had moved in next to crazy neighbors AGAIN. We thought the guy we met next door that first day actually owned the home. We found out though that it was his mom’s house.

He was in his mid-thirties, unemployed, and living with his mother. Apparently, it had always been that way. He slept a lot during the day and if he was awake, he was rearranging the junk in his backyard. At night, though, is when we discovered that he really got busy.

Our bedroom was at the end of our house nearest to that guy’s house. One night, around 3 a.m., we heard some crazy noises outside. We looked out the window and we were dumbfounded.

He was dumping empty soda cans on his driveway (or should I say his mother’s driveway) and using his mom’s minivan to drive over them to crush them. Forward. Reverse. Forward. Reverse. Get out. Pile them up again. Repeat.

This wasn’t just a fluke or a one-time occurrence. This happened many times over the years we lived there. And that’s not even the half of it. One day, we discovered that he had been cleaning his dogs’ droppings out of his yard and throwing them into our yard.

After three years at that house, it was time to move on…again. We had finally saved enough to buy land and build on it.

Looking for Land

We had always been looking for land between our other moves. We just never could find what we wanted. That’s why we bought houses in town. We would find a piece of land that looked nice online but it would be a different story in person.

We would discover that it was next to a dump, the commute would be too long for Timothy, or it would have some crazy HOA that stated what your brick color had to be if you built. I mean, I like rules, but come on! 

BUT, finally, after two houses and six years of looking, we found THE. PERFECT. PLACE.

THE. PERFECT. PLACE.

It was love at first sight; 5 beautiful wooded acres near Timothy’s work! We bought it that same day and began making plans to build our dream home.

It’s been 5 years since we bought our little neck of the woods and we’ve enjoyed every minute of it! I would go back and live next to all of those crazy neighbors again if I had to because it was worth it.

We were able to save money all of those years so we could buy this land and build our dream house with cash. Now, we can sit back and enjoy all of our hard work!

All the best,
Lindsey

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