#239 One month in Wilmington at our house

Arriving at Wilmington was just another stop but it kind of puts a bow on a pretty dang big trip.

We had a certain amount of pressure to get back to Winston by Thanksgiving. After that we needed to get the house better positioned for sale. If we did we wouldn't have as much pressure as we wanted to go to Florida for the winter.

Prior to this we really had to keep busy moving across the country in order to make it to Thanksgiving on time. In a roundabout way we need to get to Florida because it's getting so cold.

One of the things that I noticed as we drove that killed me is the yard looked awful. I noticed there was of a lot of trash all over the place upfront especially at Porters Neck Road.

People who do construction work ride by our house every day and either on the way down to figure eight island or on the way back their trash tends to find its way all along the road. It seems to end up in our yard area which is officially called the North Carolina DOT right away. I always called it my yard and took care of it like it was my yard.

This is not a great look when you come up to look at a house for sale.

I wish the yard had looked better. My neighbor's child was mowing it a little bit I had a guy named Felix was looking out for it a little bit. I assumed the realtor would peek now and then. I appears that no one was really looking out for it that well. It had a garbage kind of weedy overgrown dirty look. It makes me sad that we could have had activity on the house but if they saw if the yard not so much.

I spent a week or two getting everything cleaned up tidied up pretty.

I did something interesting with my garage. I tried to look at it the way a stranger would. It was bright white vinyl siding so I felt like if it blended into the woods it would be better for the sale of the house. I got out a paint sprayer and some paint and began to do sort of a camouflage job on the garage. I really proud of what I did.

I decided that it needed to blend into the woods and now I felt like it did.

The water damage occurred on January 10th and were not completely finished with the rebuild at May 10th. It would be ready to rent on June 1st. We are actually considering selling the property instead. It's a little unnerving but I think the truth of it is that this was a season. I am realizing that were kind of willing to close the door on we had. It was a wonderful life there we raised children there. It's a wonderful property but as India and start our new interesting travels with their RV we are considering being campground hosts around the country for a few years. I don't need this property causing worry as we are absent traveling about. It’s the kind of a little stress that we could do without. We think that if we just cash out and invest the money into a mutual fund or something, we would have a much more relaxed travel about the country. As a landlord you're always worried about what if this and what if that. I think we just decided to let it go. We can always buy another house in the future. I think the disaster forced us into downsizing much sooner than we would have expected but I’ fine with it.

The other thing that was beyond disturbing happened back around August or September.

Dominic the husband of the realtor had noticed that there was a big humidity problem. There was a glaze of mold over the kitchen cabinets the floors had buckled horribly. I've never heard the word cupped meant but it means it's when a brand-new hardwood floor curves up on each end.

The realtor said since the house was a MLS any realtor could come by and show it. Somebody turned off the HVAC. It was humid summer in Wilmington and no one noticed for two months. The realtor said she thought I was having someone watch the house but not so much. We never really discussed it in any detail. I told her the neighbor’s kid was supposed to be mowing the yard. I was a little devastated and it bothered me that there was a hint it was my fault. I think it was bad communication and I’m away so I think we should have been more clear on whose doing what.

Dominic said with my funding would get two dehumidifiers and set them up to begin to try to solve the problem. I had just hoped that things might get better. If we have to resurface the hardwood would be around $5,000 and that's sad because it's brand new.

I went under the house and found that I suppose the dehumidifier was working okay but it was just going through a garden hose the access part of the crawl space. Of course it couldn't be like that permanently. I'm not even really sure the water was leaving. I really wanted to get it both dehumidifiers under the house and have them permanently draining into the drainage system somehow.

The other thing I decided to do is we really needed to get the humidity out of the house get it out of the wood was to get it bone dry like a kiln. I had asked some hardwood people and they thought that it would probably help.

I rented a thing I like to call a jet engine heater. It is a cigar looking device that uses kerosene and when you light it a fan starts and ignites. It creates the same effect that a jet engine uses. You can rent a 50,000 BTU or a 150,000 BTU. Since more is always better I got two of the larger ones.

I rented it for 2 days and put one in the far bedroom and one in the back bedroom. I ran them until it was about a hundred and ten degrees inside the house at what I would call 0% humidity. This was my great idea and I still want to believe I think it worked it reduce the humidity level down to a ridiculously low level. The floors came back to normal except for one section that Dominic had to replace.

After this was done and the garage was painted, the yard tidied up we could leave and hope for the best. It was really productive visit. With this done we headed South.

I also wanted to revisit I thought about getting to Wilmington this was not a small milestone. We left this property June 2016 around the country counterclockwise to Thanksgiving then went around the country clockwise and now it's pretty much Christmas / January one. We have officially wrapped up the big RV Extrusion of seeing the country with the daughter.

It's like you take a little bit of a breath and go wow what a big trip. Arriving back in Wilmington sort of finished it up. India and I had sort of begun to think that something weird happened to us along the way because it was supposed to be a year off.

Somewhere along the way we began to think this lifestyle is the most interesting thing in the world. What if we just sold the house and did it full time like because there's a lot of full-timers out there.

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We went by Jay Michael Philly Deli one afternoon which is where my little sister says that they make better cheese steak sandwiches than Philly does. She's been to both Philadelphia and Jay Michael Philly deli and she feels like Jay Michaels has got it down to a science.

We like it too and the picture is a silly sculpture of a guy upside down in the parking lot that I've always enjoyed

I was looking on the web for opportunities in the Florida Keys

I saw this and just thought it was a funny ad

KEYS.CRAIGSLIST.ORG

find my car. $50.

My car was left somewhere in Marathon. problem is I don't know where. $50. for location. It is a 2016 black Honda civic. drivers side rear window has a big hole in it.