Moving on

(See “So the time had come to move” for our earlier migrations)

There comes a time when one has to stop, think. and maybe, act. When you and your wife are in your mid-eighties, living on your own in a four-bedroom house, with a large garden, that is one of those moments. If you add to that arthritus and a reluctance to go up or down stairs, and the fact that after 49 years of residence there is a great deal of maintenance waiting to be done, you can understand why we were pondering a move. We had frequently received letters and calls from realtors asking if we wanted to sell the house, so we asked one to come round for a chat, he told us that even in the decrepit state of the house (and probably us), the house could be sold as is, where is. The where is being significant as we were in an ideal location, and our three children had never needed a school bus. He said that if we intended to sell, we should find new accommodation before going on sale as it was a very hot seller’s market.

We had been told that decent apartments at a sensible price were hard to find, so we set out to see what was available, Sheila had a number of friends in one complex, but when we checked there was no covered parking which was a must considering the snow situation. We then went back to the realtor, who recommended another building down on the main street, but when we visited the only available unit, Sheila did not like the view, and there was no space in the underground parking. The letting agent, however, took us to an older building that we found much more appealing, with a lot of common space, inhouse storage, covered parking and wide hallways. With some trepidation we signed a lease, and asked the realtor to come round on Saturday afternoon to start the process of going on the market, On Saturday morning we had a visit from a friend of Sheila’s and his girlfriend who had heard that we might be selling and wanted to take a look, they immediately wanted to make an offer! Fortunately, the realtor had suggested a price earlier which was higher than I had anticipated, and they offered that figure. When the realtor came round in the afternoon, he suggested that we should at least get another offer. which we got on Sunday, but the original couple matched the increased offer, so we accepted it.

Now we were faced with a new conundrum, how would we organise our move? We had three months to go before we could move into our apartment, and we had made the necessary arrangements with the purchaser to pay and take over on the day we moved in. But what would we move in? We were going from 4 bedrooms to two after 49 years of occupancy, some things would have to go. After seeking advice from several sources, we were directed to two ladies who offered a complete service. They would make us decide what to keep and what to get rid of, and they would organize the collection and disposal of things we did not need and would arrange the move and installation of the things we were planning to take with us. We were instructed to book a hotel for a couple of days, so we would not be underfoot while they did the packing, unpacking, and installation. This seemed a good idea in theory, so we went along with it. We did encounter some differences of opinion on what should be kept or disposed of, but in the end they generally bullied us into compliance. When we returned from our hotel stay to our new home, it was completely organised and even the beds were made Mind you three months later we are still discovering where some things are.

And has our life changed from homeowner to apartment renter? See “What Stairs”