Pine cones

This really doesn't have anything to do with pine cones, except one little part.

This is the story of the house that just wouldn't be bought.  Well, at least by us.  It's the story of endless frustration and dead ends.  And of how we ended up with the Cottage when we were trying to buy a farm.

Way back when, we were driving along and saw this little house with REALLY tall grass.  And Mr Eclectic thought it might be for sale.  And it was.  I told him so-and that they were asking an outragous amount for it.  But, he still wanted to look, so we called our agent and got a showing.

It had been empty for about a year or two by that point.  No one was taking care of it or the lawn.  But it had potential, and acreage.  And barns (I LOVE barns).  It needed a roof, had a hole in the floor, and a mildew/mold smell and we would need to pony up the money to cover the cost of replacing the septic if it didn't pass the county test.

We couldn't afford the asking price, so we kept an eye on it for price drops.  Instead, it fell off the market.  We noticed it in pre-foreclosure.  We went to the county and did some research.  It had liens from the IRS, the state, the bank and several other places on it.  We also found the owner's name and address in the court documents, so we wrote a letter.

She called us a few weeks after with a pretty sad story.  It was her husband's house, he built it, on family land (it had been "carved out" of a larger piece).  She hadn't known about all the liens.  They was married a few months when he passed away suddenly, leaving her a mountain of debt-she had no choice but to abandon the house she couldn't pay for.  But she would sell it to us for the amount of the morgage.

Ok, so we tried contacting Bank Of America.  What a joke.  I can name one bank I will NEVER, EVER get a loan, bank account, credit card, etc from.  They wouldn't talk to her because her name hadn't been added to the mortgage (remember, they were only married a few months prior to his death).  They wouldn't talk to our agent.  It was a giant run around.

It went into tax foreclosure, but the bank paid on the last day and redeemed.

We tried again with the bank, still no go (by this point, they paid more in taxes than the mortgage was worth). 

It went into tax foreclosure again jsut recently.  And now another lien holder is showing an auction coming up on it.  And there's a squatter living there.

Now, that's the really condensed version.  Here's the bit about the pine cone:

When we were looking at the place at some point, Mr Eclectic picked up a small scotch pine cone from the property and handed it to me.  I kept it to remind me to keep the faith, that some day we would be able to buy our "dream house".  The pine cone is now at the Cottage.  Funny how things work sometimes.