myJaxonIf we don’t go crazy once in a while, we’ll all go crazy. - Hawkeye

Jesse ranted about this a little while ago, but now it’s my turn.

We decided to buy a house instead of renewing our apartment lease. We’re both ready to have someplace be ours. Someplace we can build upon, live, and get comfortable with. I know Jesse is getting tired of moving and we really need to get Ian into his own room. With this in mind, we started looking for houses back in February and we found one in March. We put an offer in on March 19th and we’re still waiting to hear whether or not the bank accepted our offer. You heard me write, it’s been 3 months since we put in the offer and they still haven’t given us an answer in writing. When we put the offer in, we asked for an answer within 72 hours and a close date of May 15th. The owners accepted the offer right away, but because it was lower than what they still owed on the house, they had to get it approved by their bank. So we knew we had a good chance of getting the house, so we stopped looking until we heard yes or no.

Three weeks go by and we still haven’t heard anything from the bank, so we call and find out what’s going on. We’re finally told that the offer has gone to a negotiator who will have the final sale, but it’s not going there until the 26th. So we have to wait another two weeks before another guy will even look at it. Fine, whatever, at least we know something is going on.

At this point, we’re in May already and we still haven’t heard anything from the negotiator. He’s supposedly has had the offer on his desk for two weeks and our close date is coming up. We still haven’t heard anything. Finally, we hear that the negotiator has requested a Buyers Purchase Opinoin. Basically, he’s asking other realty agencies to assess the house to see if our asking price is reasonable. This makes sense to me. The BPO is set up and has been done and we’re told that the negotiator will have the report within 3 business days. We’re getting closer to my frustration level at this point. The negotiator has 7-10 business days to look at a sheet of paper(s) to determine whether it is good or not and he takes every one of those days. The 10th day is a Thursday and we still don’t hear anything until the next day, the 11th day.

We’re finally told that everything looks good and we should get a lender set up (which we had already done three months ago), but now the negotiator has to have someone else sign off on it. The guy who was suppose to have the final say is now saying he has to give the file to someone else and that we should have an answer by the following Monday. Finally, we’re getting some where.

At this point, I should mention that both the sellers and the seller’s realtor have been calling this bank on a daily basis to get them to hurry up with their decision. We’re not the only ones anxious about this offer. The house is close to foreclosure and the sellers know that they are lucky to have an offer on their house in this housing market. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the house, but it doesn’t have a garage and that’s generally a negative thing for most people. We’re fine with that since we do only have the one car and Jesse doesn’t mind shoveling off the snow.

Now, Monday rolls around and we don’t hear anything. By 3pm that day, the Realtor is trying to get a hold of someone and she’s been put on hold for 30 minutes before she has to go. Tuesday comes around and still no word, so she gets back on the phone with the bank and sits on hold for 2 HOURS and finally gets someone. She’s told she’ll have an answer by 9pm that night. Wednesday comes around and another 2 hours hold session and she’s told she’ll have an answer by 5pm.

Yeah, this place hasn’t really been good on their deadlines. We still didn’t hear anything by Wednesday at 5pm and that night I told Frank earlire that day that if we don’t hear anything, then we needed to start looking again. Jesse and I are both getting frustrated and the lack of activity in finding a house was starting to get to us. Thursday comes around and since there still wasn’t an answer, Frank sent us some houses, we looked at them and picked out 4 to see on Saturday. Friday comes around and we’re finally given an answer. Sorta. We’re told that the bank is faxing a pre-approval letter to the sellers. Our offer has been pre-approved and while I’m not sure what that means, it gave Frank enough hope that we called off the house hunt.

And finally, we receive some good news this past Monday. The bank sent an approval letter to the sellers. The bank approved the offer. Of course, this was all conveyed verbally and we still haven’t seen it in writing. So after waiting 3 months on a yes or no answer, we have a 90% yes.

I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful part either. The bank that took 3 months to give us a decision wants to close within 15 days. 15 days! They take their sweet time in getting us an answer, but they want it down ASAP. It normally takes 30-45 days to close on a house and they want to do it in half the time?! Granted, Jesse and I want to be in our house by the end of the month since our lease is up, so we’re fine with that, but just the fact that they said that is appalling. I laughed when I heard that. It still bugs me that these people who constantly told us they would give us answers by certain dates and then continually didn’t give any answers by their own deadlines want us to be out in less time than it normally takes for a mortgage to go through. They are extremely lucky that we have our act together and have given everything over to our mortgage lender and were only waiting on the purchase agreement. As it is, we still don’t have a signed purchase agreement. We’re told we have a house, but it’s not in writing yet.

I’m excited about getting a house, but I haven’t spread the news before this because I’m afraid the stupid bank is going to come back and say they’ve changed their mind. That whoever told us the offer was approved wasn’t allowed to do that or didn’t have the authority to approve it or whatever. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know it’s a little pessimistic, but with this bank, it really wouldn’t surprise me.

Since I have been giving this bank a glowing review, I should probably say who it is so other people will know the crap they dish out. The bank is Indy Mac and I think it’s out of California. I’ve never heard of it, but Jesse did a Google search on it a couple of days ago and found some interesting articles about them. He actually found a forum where some of the staff talk about working at Indy Mac and some of their underwriting process (and none of it is good). Another site, Planet Feedback, has an article where someone was trying to cash out their $80k CDs and the bank wouldn’t release the funds to them. If you want even more reading material, just check out this RSS feed. I have yet to see an article stating this bank is any good.

As it stands right now, we’re on track for purchasing this house, but I won’t get excited until I know it’s in writing. Now I’m done. I can’t think about this any more. I really want this house, so I’m hoping everything comes through with the inspection on Tuesday.

In other news, I came across something interesting at the library. The Library of Michigan Foundation, Macy’s, and the Cultural Alliance of SE Michigan are offering adventure passes to a bunch of the local museums that came be checked out at the library. I can get two or four free passes and I wouldn’t have to pay for anything. Talk about awesome! The Detroit Children’s Museum is on the list of museums and I’m thinking of taking Ian. Anyone else want to go?

I hate mice. I am really really REALLY hating mice right now. For the last couple months, mice have been invading my home. We have killed 15 since the end of August. My stupid complex hasn’t really done anything to fix the problem either. After the 12th mouse, they finally looked around the outside of my building and found a nest. They took care of that and said that should be the end of that. Yeah, it wasn’t. The next day another mouse was caught in the trap in the kitchen and today I found yet another mouse. The maintenance guys keep telling me it’s all my fault too because I leave cat food out. Well, excuse me, but I’m not going to starve my cat and if I put the food up, that’s what is going to happen. Is it too much to ask that they actually look to see where the mice are coming in at? I know that they can squeeze through tiny holes, but seriously, to your job and actually take some time and look. Is it too much to ask that they attempt to solve the problem instead of just looking at it and pointing fingers? If we still didn’t have another 8 months on our lease and breaking it would be expensive, I would actually start looking for someplace else to live now. I’m thinking Ian and I will take a walk up to the office Monday and ask again for them to figure out where they are coming in at.

I don’t get what the problem is.  So a state wants to make it a requirement that sixth grade girls receive a vaccine that will help prevent cancer.  That seems like a good idea to me.  I would want to protect my child from Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) if I could.  There are people out there who think the government is meddling in a parents right to decide that, but how is this any different than requiring newborns to have certain vaccines within the first few years of life?  The vaccine is there to help prevent a disease.

“For the life of me when the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) and the other experts come forward and say this is safe, it’s been tested and it’s available, why in the world would we not make it available,” Gov. Rick Perry said. (Businessweek.com) I have to agree with Gov. Perry.  If it has passed the CDC analysis and there are other experts saying it’s safe, why not take advantage of it?

“Genital HPV infection is very common, with estimates suggesting that more than 50% of women will become infected with one or more of the sexually transmitted HPV types at some point during adulthood.  By age 50, about 80% of women will have been infected with genital HPV infection. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2004)” (wikipedia.org)

As a society, we’ve already started taking precautions against HPV.  As a female, we schedule year Cervical Pap Smear test to make sure we haven’t caught anything.  One of the things doctors look for during this procedure is HPV, and since HPV can result in cervical cancer, why wouldn’t a person take an extra step to ensuring that you don’t get it?

Maybe I’m just ranting at this point, but why are people against a cancer vaccine when everyone is crying for one to begin with?  Yeah, it’s not one of known killer cancers (i.e. lung, breast, etc), but it’s still a cancer.

I don’t ask for much, but when someone schedules a meeting with me, I actually expect them to show up.  Is that to much to ask?

Here’s the story. When Jesse and I moved into our apartment in April, we noticed some problems with the built-in shelves in our loft.  We put in a work request order thinking we would get some kind of response within 24 hours, per the guarantee and what they told us when we signed our lease.  We finally got some kind of response around day 100 and a contractor came out and sanded and stained out shelves (what I was looking for) and we were told that the actual shelf railings were the responsiblity of Ramblewood.  We placed a call into Ramblewood about getting the railings replaced (since all you had to do was blow on them and they fall apart) and possibly getting our shelves back (they orginially took our shelves in May to work with, but we never saw them again).  Their response to fixing our railings was shoving the shelves back into place.  They literally jammed them into the slots.  They never did fix the railings.  We found this out when we tried to adjust the shelves (did I mention that they were supposedly adjustable?).  It took Jesse 20 minutes to adjust the one (1) shelf.  After that, I placed in another call to Ramblewood to see about getting them fix or if they were finished with me.  Since I received a work request completion survey from them the next morning, we both assumed that they were wiping their hands of us.

Come to find out, the following Wednesday (4 business days later), I receive a call from the Maintanence department requesting to set up a meeting with the Dept Manager so he could come out and discuss what exactly I want to see if it could possibly happen.  We set up a meeting for Friday, August 11th, at 1pm (since the meeting had to occur before 3pm, I had to set it during my lunch break).  I get to my apartment 10 minutes early on Friday and proceed to wait for 30 minutes for the Dept Mgr to show up.  After waiting 30 minutes, I leave to go to work and call the Service Dept to see if I was confused as to the time.  It turns out that the Dept Mgr forgot about the meeting and tried to save himself by having his office tell me that he was on his way.  By this time, I had to get to work and I told them as such.  We set up another meeting for today, Monday, August 14th, at the same time.

Guess what.  Again, the Dept Mgr stands me up.  I call the Service Dept again to let them know that he did not make it out to the apartment and if he was still interested in meeting with me (since he WAS the one who initiated the meeting in the first place), than he would need to meet with me after work some night as I was not wasting another lunch hour waiting for a guy who has no intention of showing up.

Maybe it’s too much to ask for a Dept Mgr to actually go to meetings he set-up and initiated or maybe they just want to see how far they can continue to jerk me around.  At this point, I’m through with the.  I’ve been patient re this work request considering it has taken them over 4 months to complete the request.  I was unable to unpack the 400+ books that Jesse and I own prior to our 30-day deadline for the movers, so if we’re missing any, we’re out of luck.  And now, after I figured they were done with us, they continue to have poor communication and they wonder why I’m frustrated and upset. 

It would have been one thing if I had received any kind of message saying he was going to be late or needed to rescheduled; but to give no indication that you’re not going to be there is not only unprofessional, but tactless as well.

Just for the record, no I am not planning, thinking or even considering this, but it still offends me.

Jesse and I just got back from the doctor and we found out that I am 8 weeks and 3 days along (due date of March 10th). We go to Meijers to scan the ultrasound picture and on our way home what do we see…..PRO LIFE ADVOCATES. Okay, I have nothing against people stating their opinions, but I do have a major problem when they are using blatant falsities and trapping me into witnessing them. Driving down 44th street, there are a ton of signs depicting an aborted child of “8 weeks” looking like a war victim. I’m sorry, I just got a picture of my 8 week old child and it looks nothing like that. And no, they weren’t saying these were 8 week delivered babies; they were 8 week aborted babies. It honestly offended me to be trapped into seeing these pictures knowing that that isn’t what an 8 week old fetus looks like. Not only that, but they were holding up traffic DURING RUSH HOUR on a busy street trying to get people to sign their petition. I’m sorry, no I’m not going to sign your damn petition because it isn’t your choice what I do with my body. It’s my body, it effects my life, not yours. I will do with my damn body and anything in it that I will damn well please to. And I will not wait in my car during a green light while you get other people to sign your petition. You are not only entrapping me into your beliefs, but I will not allow some middle aged men who don’t know what it feels like to give birth, to bear a child for 9 months to tell me what to do with my body. Do they know who I am, do they know what I’m going through. No. Do they care. No. All they see is an individual who wants/has gotten an abortion and that is all they want to see.

So until the day that MAN aka (the idiots making laws who have Y chromosomes) can carry a child full term (40+ weeks), go through labor and raise it, I don’t want to hear anything from them. If you can’t experience pregnancy, than by what right do you have to make decisions concerning it?