In addition to the requests to fix this and that, the new offer had an amendment that referred to our termite problem. Basically, it said they wanted the right to back out of the purchase at any time “due to structural damage”. Well, that just wouldn’t work for us, we want time to buy a new house too and I told our realtor that.

It dawned on me that we’d be out of town starting the day after the two week inspection to see if the termites are dead. So we’d have to wait three weeks and that means we’d have to leave the contract open-ended until then. I decided to get on the phone with Terminix. Thank heavens I had that warranty, they have been really good about this whole thing.

I asked them if, since I was leaving town and this was holding up the sale of my house, would they be willing to open the wall to look for damage before the normal waiting period. They obliged. So I set out to round everyone up to come over and watch them open our wall.

I thought this would be best, we’d see it there was structural damage now and get a firm commitment to the contract. My instincts told me that the damage was cosmetic, I just knew it would come out good.

So, everyone arrived at 6:00 p.m., we had the buyer, her agent, my agent, Brent, me and the contractor. We all sat around the living room while the contractor cut big holes in my wall and ceiling. Just as I thought, there were no termites and there was no damage. Now that’s not to say that termites hadn’t been there, there were mud tunnels all over the sheetrock and on the studs. The contractor checked the studs, they were solid and there was no damage.

The buyer’s realtor however, she must be an idiot. She kept on and on, “what about on the other side of that piece of wood?”, “what about upstairs on the other side of that piece of wood?”, “what about on the other end of the room, there were tunnels over there?”. I could just choke her. The buyer could see there were no problems, she was calm and sane. It was her agent that was a nut.

Finally it was over. The contractor said he’d be back on Saturday to fix the holes. There was no sign of termites present. There were no signs of damage to the wood in the wall. The contractor will be replacing one decorative board on the front of the house. The only problem seemed to be matching the paint after he makes the patches. We have never painted that room and there would be no way for them to match and make it look good. It sounds like painting the whole room isn’t an option.

So, no big deal, we’ll paint the room. As we were talking to our agent after the buyer and her crazy agent left, we got a call. The buyer wants the house, she’s satified that there was no damage. They will remove the section about the termites from the contract and we’ll have a firm commitment by the time the option period is up, which is Thursday. YEA!!!!

We just needed to come back with a counter offer in regard to the repairs, we were not going to give them $2700. So, we countered with $500 and our really nice, huge, only 5 year old refrigerator. I’m thinking they will need one since they’re coming from an apartment and they won’t find one this nice for less than $1300. We paid $1600 when it was new. If they take it, we won’t have to move it, we won’t have to store it, and we can get a new one!

I’ll let you know if they accept. In the meantime, we’ve either repaired or are going to repair more than half the things on their list.