Testing… testing… H20
This is the first time I’ve ever been involved in selling a house so it’s safe to say I’m extremely inexperienced in this whole process. Or I could just say I’m learning a lot through this process- which is absolutely true. One thing that has to be done before the closing of a house in New York state is the testing (and passing, I would assume) of a water sample. Our real-estate lawyer sent us the instructions and we blocked out some time to make the 2 hour drive from Cleveland to Chautauqua to get it done so we can keep the sale of our house moving along. Lest you think this is boring post about the logistics of getting a water sample where we spend a few hours and $20 to get it done- please do not be fooled as we were- this did not go to plan.
We started our trip at the Chautauqua County Environmental Service office in Mayville, which is about 20 minutes from our house and then proceeded to our home to get the sample. We also decided to take some bedding home to be washed (we’re done staging, so anything to make moving simpler), fed and changed the baby because who doesn’t bring their 4 month old along on a 4 hour roundtrip mission (?), and then back to the county offices to submit the water sample. So far that part did go just as we planned.
Once we returned to Mayville, I waited in the car with the baby for what felt like a long time for just dropping off a water sample. Naturally, I was scrolling Instagram and checking out a taxonomy of rapper’s names on a very fetching poster I saw on an ad while I waited. Finally, Matt returns to the car and he looks rather unhappy. I ask if he’s okay and he replies that he is very not okay and that today was literally a giant waste of time. Upon handing in the water sample, the clerk replies that they can’t accept this from the homeowner, no, it must be taken by a third party through the lawyer’s office. Surely this cannot be, Matt says, because our lawyer’s office emailed us printed instructions, including that there was a fee of $20 and we told our realtor we would be coming to do this and he never said a thing. Oh no, says the clerk, you can’t do it yourself and it’s $150 (!!!???). That was not a fun revelation after traveling 280 miles with a baby- who rode in that car like a champ, by the way, so thank goodness for that!
Also, this sign made us laugh all day and night- so maybe the trip was worth it after all:
Oh Tod! How could you!? Hahaha- this is amazing. Better yet, a couple of miles down the road there was a sign for a gravel company (hahaha!)! Who knows if Tod owns it, but we kind of hope that he does. We also hope the sign-maker gets their gravel soon!
To wrap this up, nothing is finished and we can’t move forward until we get a sample. Matt emailed the lawyer’s office and was awfully kind, considering the circumstances, but surprise, surprise, we haven’t heard anything back as I’m writing this (3 days post email). After we get the sample, we need to convince the seller of our new house to close by the end of the month (April) so we don’t have to send all of our belongings into storage. Our buyer is eager to close as well and it doesn’t look like we’ll close on the new house before we close on the old house. We’ll see how it all works out. Sooner or later we’ll be ripping up carpet and scraping popcorn ceilings! Here’s to adventures. 🙂