I'm traveling for business and won't be posting again until Wednesday, but I thought I'd leave you with something substantial to chew on while I was away. Enjoy!
I can't believe I haven't mentioned this before, since it's so, so funny. You might share this sentiment if you live in Los Angeles or a similar overcrowded urban area, but Stephan and I are eternally on the lookout for a cool, low-key place to go on weekends to escape city life. We really like going to Carmel, but it's about 5 hours away, so that's kind of a hike if you're only going to stay for the weekend. Last year we checked out Big Bear and kept trying to find a vacation rental in Ojai/ Santa Barbara that would take our dog, but kept coming up empty. Anyhow, at the tail end of the Christmas holiday we went to go check out Pine Mountain Club, which is this cool little mountain community that's right up off the 5 freeway. Like, literally, you go to the middle of the Grapevine from L.A. and turn left, drive up the mountain, and there you are. Pretty cool, and they get snow! The one problem I had with this location was that the houses were WAY too close together for my taste, like, Big Bear cabin style, where you can see into your next door neighbor's house and everything. This probably wouldn't be a big deal for some of you, but hear this, man-- if I am going away for the weekend, I better not be able to see what ANYONE ELSE IS DOING. I don't want to see anyone, hear their music, smell what they're cooking, I MEAN ANYTHING.
I know, it sounds weird. Have we not talked at length about my OCD? It's a real problem, man. Look it up in the DSM. You better just be thankful that I got past my irrational fear of spoiled food, because that doesn't produce nearly as much funny material. Did I mention that when I was 14 I could only eat food that came out of packages? Yeah, good times. It's a good thing I'm past that one, because this salmonella outbreak in peanut butter thing would seriously have been enough to push me over the edge about 15 years ago. We'll get back to OCD at a later date.
Getting back to the point-- while we're in Pine Mountain Club we happen to go into one of the realty offices, just to see what might be available there. As it turns out, since this community is on the fringes of L.A., it's unfortunately being hit very hard by the recession, and so they have alot of foreclosures/ short sales/ reduced price properties up there, which would have been great if, like I said, the houses weren't so close together. Because I was curious, I asked the realtor for a list of properties, and she gave me a printed-out MLS listing sheet that had all the prices and descriptions. If you're still reading this, you're about to get to the best part of the story, because RIGHT below the printed sheet was this Microsoft Word-looking document that was stapled together, and the realtor may or may not have meant to give it to me. On this Word-looking document was a series of EXTREMELY honest notes about the property listings. Maybe too honest, if you know what I mean.
And now, I will re-type the notes, for your amusement. I am leaving off the addresses, of course, because a) these were just notes, and are probably confidential, and b) I doubt you're going to go looking for property to buy in Pine Mountain Club anyway, so it doesn't really matter. For the record, though, Pine Mountain Club is a nice place.
But, here's where it gets really funny. Here were my top 10 favorite "side note" comments from the list.
1. "Serious fixer"
2: "Close to highway, smells like smoke, needs work."
3: "Lots and lots of paneling"
4: "Bathrooms gutted, kitchen doesn't have a window, registered sex offender on street."
5: "Pretty cool, unpermitted street downstairs, views"
6: "Not a short sale, but cheap"
7: "Bit of a fixer, not very nice."
8. "Not bad."
9. "No curb appeal, but pretty nice inside."
10. "Once was gorgeous."
This made me wish that all real estate agents would be this honest about listings. In fact, this makes me want to start a fake real estate blog, just as a joke, where all the properties are described as "not that nice," and "really small" instead of "charming" and "cozy." Ha!
