Of Selling Homes and Family Pets

Our house is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard." -- CSNY

Well, I’m a San Diegan now despite living in temporary quarters. My arrival has carried with it more of a permanence as we close on our estates in Virginia next week and we are now in that delightfully nerve-racking escrow period on our home in Sacramento. I think these are both good things.

The sale of the home in Sacramento carries with it some amusement. We got an offer, we countered, she accepted. That was simple and happened over a 24-hour period. Seems as though she wanted the house and didn’t want to dicker like the dickering that was done to us in Virginia. However, our buyer in Sacramento had four items she wanted included in the purchase price: our spa, our refrigerator, our barbeque and the family cat. Yes, the cat.

Now some truth: the cat was not loved in our family, despite being with us for 10 years. It was rescued as a malnourished kitten by a soft-hearted and, as it turns out, soft-headed Mrs. Laz, and was appropriately named at the time, Bones. Over the years Bones developed decidedly unfriendly characteristics. She swipes at you as you walk by, loves to stare down small dogs and let them taste “the claw” when she’s feeling particularly feisty. If you decide you want to get near her and scratch her on the chin, you have about 30 seconds before she bites or claws you. She also enjoyed torturing mice, birds and lizards and bringing their dying and mauled bodies into our house just in case we wanted to watch the final fatal blows.

So when our counter offer was returned, our realtor wrote “refrigerator, spa, barbeque and cat convey with no warranties and no value.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. I hope our buyer loves our house and the cat. The house is certainly worth loving; can’t say the same for the cat. Bye Bones!