The House Reveals It's Secrets. . .

We spent the first 3 days unpacking, literally unloading the truck. Thank goodness Tim Stout, our future chef, came forward with his family to help us unload. He and Cass had it knocked out and into the garage in an afternoon. Now moving out of the garage is another thing again but at least we were able to return the monster U-Haul truck and trailer combo. Just as the moving dust was beginning to settle we started to look around at the quirky problems that always come along with houses over 50 years old. 2 elements, the big burners of the electric stove were burned out. The dishwasher worked but had no water. The garbage disposal turned on but had not grind. And a host of other weirdness. And just as we were beginning to get our feet under us and had just sent the property management company an e-mail saying who do we contact for utility transfer, the power went off. The owner had transferred the service without a heads us so we spent a night camping out w/o power until the transfer work order went through and they cut the power back on.

We acknowledged our moment of 'Duh!' for not doing the transfer right away and to head off any further disasters we promptly began contacting utilities and services to transfer things into our names. Things were going just great too, until Cass called the City of Asheville who is in charge of the water. The upshot was that the landlord had never gotten an Occupancy Permit to lease the house and we would need a home inspection to obtain one. Cass said "I'm just trying to do the right thing so my water doesn't get cut off." The city was very sympathetic, they appreciated his honesty and assured us that they would send someone out first thing in the morning to turn the water off. Huh!?!

Needless to say it's been a little bit of a roller coaster since then, but the property management company was very good about scheduling the repairs immediately - as well as putting us up in a place with water and power while we waited. The last of the electricians and plumbers left this afternoon giving us the all clear [+ we made some new friends along the way, Thanks Jerry & John!] and the inspector is due tomorrow. So happy day, we really do have a wonderful house to live in that suits us very well, is big enough for guests and is now also, safe to occupy. The kids started school on Monday and are finding there grooves pretty easily. They both like their teachers, school lunch and are making plenty of new friends. So we are now settled in and hanging up pictures and figuring out where things really go and loving our new town. Drop us a line!

Here's the address: 512 N. Louisiana Avenue, Asheville, N.C. 28806 Home #: (828) 505-0473

Next Installment. . . .

Keys to the Restaurant.