where wildly different is perfectly normal
Dear Househunters,
Dear Househunters,

Dear Househunters,

On the advice of my dear Facebook friends, I am getting my sarcastic snark out before I sit down and write a polite bullet point list about my house. I was afraid that if I wrote it out and left it on the counter for the next showing I would not only lose a possible sale, but would very likely end up in a padded room. And there’s no wine in a padded room.

See, if you hadn’t noticed, there is a school (GASP!) directly behind my house!!!! Oh my God, the unending horror of an elementary school! A place of learning, for children ages 5-10. Humans that age really are the scum of the earth and should be avoided at all costs. And a large number of them? God only knows what they might conjure up. The could rise up against their adult overlords and take over the neighborhood! Throngs of knee-biters on scooters and bicycles, terrorizing nearby homeowners, laughing and being merry and enjoying life. And we can’t have that, can we?

Never mind that this is one of few affordable houses in this golf club community with unobstructed mountain views. There’s NOTHING to block that purple mountain majesty. There is a large park with a community pool right there, an inline hockey rink, baseball fields, and a ginormous open field for flying kites, kicking soccer balls, or playing flag football. But. Oh.My.GOD. There is a playground rightthere. You might see joyful children! Playing! Even on the weekends. Makes the heart stop in fear and terror.

Summers? Delightful. The fang-bearing children return to their home caves for three months, bringing relief to local homeowners, who can then emerge from hiding. In May there is a large balloonfest, hosted by the town and golf club, and the balloons often fly directly over the house. One year my husband got to ride with a friend and checked out our roof from the basket. In July the golf club presents the Front Range’s Largest Fireworks Display; fireworks blast off directly west of the backyard, giving us our own personal and traffic-free fireworks display.

But what about the other nine months of the year? The ones when the blood-sucking children return to the hallowed halls of learning, threatening your well being and life itself? Dearest househunters, you must have plans to stay home all day and shake your fists, for it’s a non-issue. School starts at 9:00 am and the holy terrors are released into the wild at 3:30 pm. If you’re working outside the home, you may very well never see a joyful child. Imagine that. All the benefits of no homes behind your house and mountain views and fireworks and fields and breathtaking sunsets and sunrises and you might not have to be confronted by a child.

So, dear, dear househunters, kindly reconsider your current cranial-rectal inversion. We have lived in this home, close to the ungodly hell known as an elementary school, since before the school opened. Never once have we had a problem of any sort. Children do not climb the fence, they do not cross my yard, they do not bother my dog, they do not irritate us in any way. Unless you have windows open, you never hear them. Imagine that. It is a NON.ISSUE.

In closing, to the 12 househunters from whom we’ve received the feedback of “great house, great price, don’t want to live so close to a school” kiss.my.ass. To the one from whom we haven’t yet received feedback, I hope and pray you haven’t gone cranial-rectal on me, and will call today with an offer. To any others who may come to see our house, guess what? There is a school (GASP!) directly behind my house!!!

And it is the perfect neighbor.

5 Comments

  1. Sarah

    I see that as part of the draw. Your. House. Is. Awesome!!

    Never mind the number of times the hunt and I have talked and said a house “like the Merrills would be perfect! The size. The school. All of it.”. Sigh. Now if others could see that and send a tantilizing offer your way. Cuz a much as I would love to throw a pile of money your way and solve problems for the both of us…

    I am willing the universe to throw you a freaking bone! The universe owes you!

  2. Good luck. Seriously, at the stage we are now in our lives, it might not be a big deal…but when we were looking for a house and were younger and partied and had parties and realized that the zoning and fines would be terrible for things that couldn’t possibly happen at our house anyway (*ahem*) we told our real estate agent to NEVER show us a house by a school. And she didn’t.

    Would your majestic view have trumped our feelings? Maybe, maybe not. The reality is we wouldn’t have seen it.

    NOW, 10yrs later in our very domesticated state, I totally agree with you, even though one of those ankle-biters lives IN THE HOUSE. 😉

    We childproofed EVERYTHING and she still found a way to get in. 🙂

  3. Sadly, I didn’t have the same good experience you’ve had at your house.

    My last house was 3 blocks from an elementary school. Being on a corner lot, I put up with noise every Monday-Friday even during the Summer (hello Summer School). I worked from home and had to keep the windows closed every day from 3-4:30. On a weekly basis trash was strewn in my yard. Graffitti adorned my white fence..and was a PAIN to remove. Bottles broken on my sidewalks. Cursing. Screaming. Fighting.

    I called the school to complain, I took pix of the offending juvenlles and emailed them to the school. I called the cops. Nothing worked.

    This isn’t to say I would never buy a house near a school, especially if the view and price are right. But it wouldn’t be my first choice.

    Just my two cents 🙂

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