There is a stranger sleeping in our new house tonight. With her stuff, and her dog. Because she didn’t move out when she was supposed to. Weird story. Read on.

It seems that unusual things just happen to us, and maybe if you’ve read the blog from a while back you can agree with this. But, this time, it has nothing to do with the number 17, at least I don’t think it does. Our new phone number at this new house does have one in it. Ugh.

We were supposed to take possession of our new townhouse today at noon, so we met our realtor there at about that time and as she put the key in to open the door and let us in, we notice a bunch of boxes, the kitchen table, and… a dog! Yikes, the seller hasn’t even moved out yet! What the heck?! We lock up the house and go sit in the car, trying to get a hold of someone that might know what the deal is. Well, it took about 3 hours before someone was able to reach her, and we found out that she had gotten the possession date wrong, and thought she had another 5 days. Don’t you mark these things in your calendar? It’s pretty important.

And while Josh laughed, I was a bit peeved, since she already denied us into the house for a couple of BRIEF measurements and we were chomping at the bit to get in there to get started. We needed window sizes, countertops, bathroom floor measurements, light fixtures, fridge dimensions and to check our paint color choice before we can do a single thing! Plus we had a meeting to pick these things, and wanted to start painting today.

So, today was wasted. Tomorrow, same. And finally, we get in on Saturday morning, which leaves 4 days to paint 3 floors of house and demo some things before OUR movers come on wednesday. How inconvenient. Ugh. I would have maybe expected this in a foreclosure, but not in this case. And I think there were personal issues involved there, but I dunno, just seems to me that a moving day would be pretty important (if not to you, to others involved), even if you had to talk to someone (your realtor) to change the date, because if she had done that we probably would have been accomodating if notified. Instead we walk into a stranger’s house with all her stuff in it. Would have been super awkward if she was home.

Anyway, it was a strange and disappointing day. I’ve been sleeping less in the past few nights thinking about getting started, and now I must wait just a bit longer. I’m just glad things worked out easier than they possibly could have (like if she didn’t sign the papers and decided she didn’t want to leave after all, oh boy).