Pocono People

This past winter gave us a true idea about the people who live in the mountains year around. Because the winters can be rough, a self-sufficiency is developed. We have one neighbor who will drive to the store on his tractor when the roads get too covered. Pretty inventive, especially when he is wearing his bright yellow rain suit over his winter clothes - on his bright blue tractor. At least he is visible and he is not going to let a little snow keep him home! I see that this is where a four-wheel drive vehicles were developed to be used.

The common point of conversation becomes "How about that snowfall?' or "How did you make out driving in that weather?" or "Any damage to your (choose one or more) house, car, boat, shed, truck, etc?" We wanted to get inventive this year and use our old Volvo, which could not pass inspection and should not be driven on the road, to plow our driveway. We had a large sheet of heavy aluminum left out by our barn, so we thought we could tie it to the front of the vehicle and plow - right! That so did not work the first time, so my husband went to the local hardware store to get something stronger to tie the metal to the car. Two hours later he came back from the hardware store with so many ideas he did not know which to try first. The concept intrigued the salespeople and most of the customers in the store - it became a real brain storming session! For months afterward, anytime my husband went into the store, he was asked if the concept worked at all (it didn't) or did we try another way (we did). We ended up selling the Volvo - we still see it being driven by a guy who was willing to put in the time to get the thing to pass inspection - or something like that.

A little thing can become a big event, especially during a dull winter. My car was totaled after sliding on ice and banging into a rock and a tree on my husband's ride back from the closing on our old house in NJ; he was just three miles from the new house. Fortunately, someone was riding by the accident when my husband was getting out of the car and stopped to help.

This was a strange phone call for me to receive:

"Hello, your husband just had an accident with your car and he asked us to call you to come get him."
Excuse me?
"Your husband asked us to call you to tell you to come get him."
Why didn't he call me?
"No cell phone signal where he was, so we rode down the road so we could call you."
Thank you and I guess he is okay?
"Oh he is fine, but he is afraid of how you will react."
Right...

I never got the woman's name who called, but thank goodness she did. By the time I got to the scene, there were (no exaggeration) 8 cars of first aid and fire volunteers, 5 cars of looky-loos and a state police cruiser. It was like everybody came look at the excitement of a car wreck on a Tuesday night! And I show up - in my nightgown with a winter coat thrown over top! But really, everyone was so kind and concerned.

Weather, continued

We lived through winter, so we expect spring to be absolutely fantastic. And, to my mind, it is - the trees are blooming, the grass is getting green, the snow is coating the ground... Well, we should know better, since one of our biggest snowstorms came last April - 6 inches on the ground and the temperature went up to 60 the next day. Really, winter and spring starting dates are relative. As the local weather casters say "we have had snow as late as June.' Please!

This year we were living on borrowed time with our heater and the time ran out 2 weeks before the temperature hit 50 for the first time. The heater/boiler has been in use in this house since the 1930's - a good long run, I think. So we have been using electric space heaters when it gets too cold and we are back to wearing layers. Still, I cannot complain - the flora and fauna believe it is spring and winter is over. The bugs say its spring, too. No mosquitoes yet, but annoying little gnats and flies.

If summer is anything like last year, we only needed air conditioning about 2 weeks out of the whole season, when it hit about 85-90 degrees and was humid. We ran our AC from May to September in NJ, so this is great.

Weather

Okay, we are in the mountains, so a person should expect some drastic changes in the weather, right? And we were prepared, since we had a vacation home up here for the past 5 years, right? Well, not quite....

It turns out that our little house on the hill is higher than much of the area, so we do get some interesting weather patterns. The sunrises and sunsets are gorgeous, and the clouds are so close and easy to observe. (Okay, we are not that high. But compared to NJ, we are.) It also turns out that we are on a weather line, which means that it can be sunny in the front of the house and snowing/raining in the back of the house. Remarkable! When we watch the weather on TV, we have to take an educated guess as to what we will get. I do know that whatever temperature they predict, we can usually subtract 10 degrees.

So how do you prepare for the weather? I know we have more sweaters in use than before, and dressing in layers becomes a fashion statement of necessity. I used to laugh at the locals who walk around in shorts and t-shirts as soon as the weather hits above 50 degrees. Now I understand - you really want to get out from under the heavy clothes by the end of a long winter. And, yes, you do get used to the cold. Not that you don't feel it; but it does not hurt so much, and when you go to warmer climes, you now laugh at the people bundled up! (It's only 45 degrees, so I don't need the coat with the sweater!)

Moving In

We decided that we should move up here as soon as possible after closing so my husband could start a job that he had managed to find in-between looking for houses. Have I mentioned that we have cats? I will not tell you how many, but enough that moving takes the planning and coordination of starting a new company. Certain members of the feline family are okay with the moving process, (the 'zen' cats), while others feel that any movement away from their usual spot is an affront to their whole well being and must be punished by any means possible. So we loaded them into their carriers (That was fun! When one sounded the alarm, they all hid!), buckled them into our cars and headed off for three hours of the most ear piercing cries and moans that humans were ever meant to hear. And crying is not the only means of expressing displeasure, and it goes without saying (but I will) that much cleaning had to be done to the interiors of the cars!

So why move them out of the old house first? Because the realtor selling the NJ house said that the only way to get the house sold was to de-cat the house. Now, I kept a very clean house, but we did have litter boxes that some people found objectionable and I understood that. So, welcome to your new home kids!

The Mechanicals and Fix-ups

The house was really move in ready, but everybody who moves into a different house has to put their imprint on it. That means paint, clean, and fix the flaws as you see them. The house when we first moved in had one very small bathroom, so we knew that we would have to add a bath and remodel the original bath to make it a little more 'roomy.' The heater worked, but needed oil. And the previous owner left a washer and dryer in the garage, which worked but had to be dragged back into the house and hooked up.

Quite frankly, there was no real rush to get anything accomplished at the new house - the one our realtor said needed a lot of work - so we concentrated on getting the house in NJ sold. We had to paint that, do some minor repairs, stage the house to sell - and then wait a year to get someone to buy it. What housing downturn? I week after we had listed it on the market, we had an offer from a business man from Guatemala - who promptly disappeared! So our lives for the first year here consisted of shuttling between NJ and the Poconos.

Moonshine House

There were other houses that we looked into besides the ones I reviewed in the previous blogs, but sometimes you see a house and the potential as a home is there in your heart. Let me say here that the potential was not entirely 'visual' by any means, especially in the snow and the cold weather, with very little light inside and the remnants of whatever was left behind by previous owners. But something hit my husband and I as we pulled into the driveway of "The Moonshine House."

I had seen this listing on-line, and had asked our realtor about seeing it, but he seemed to feel that it did not meet our criteria and showed us quite a few other houses first. But one day he was showing us another listing on the same road and offered to let us see for ourselves that this house needed too much work. The long driveway went up a hill to a modest little house with a two car garage - so far, so okay. We went inside and it was like a time warp to the 1930's - even the phone was a rotary dial wall phone. (By the way, try making a call to an automated system with a rotary phone - the system does not recognize the number you are dialing and hangs up on you!) Paneling was the decorating style of choice for the couple who had lived here - dark paneling. Initially we called the house 'the dark house' but the moonshine house soon seemed a better nickname. We think - educated guess - that the previous long-term owner, the family who built the house - made their own wine. We found wine jugs, wooden baskets, remnants of a grape trellis, etc. So, Moonshine House! That and there was a flower vase out on the side yard that, for all intents and purposes, looked like - a butt! We all saw it and thought the same thing! Oh, and the moon shine comes in the picture window in the living room.

So we put in the offer to the owners, who had just purchased the property 6 months before but then found out that the husband was being shipped out to Afghanistan. They were just starting to renovate when they received the news, so they had to sell. Unfortunately, their renovation left a lot of garbage in the garage that we had to get rid of. So we paid pretty much what they had paid and moved in April 1. Profound.

The original owner had been a caretaker for one of the big resorts in the area and had been very selective in his plantings, besides the grapes. We could tell that there had been love in taking care of the property, as well as the finish details in the carpentry. The place had good bones, but needed work to bring it into this century. And so the story begins.

Finding a Home - Continued

As my friend who accompanied us reminded me, I did not cover all the houses that we reviewed. If there is a piece of advice that I can give about looking for a new home, it is to bring a friend along. The friend can look at the property without prejudice - without thinking of how the furniture will fit in that room, or why something appears out of whack, or even how to get back to that street the 'special' house was on. A friend is also a great person to bounce ideas off of, since your spouse will be considering his or her concepts, or, in my case, involved in a conversation with the realtor!

More Houses

In reviewing the MLS listings, we saw a 'fixer-upper' for a really low price that was described as a 'Doll House.' It was, although I think most doll houses are larger. There was off-street parking, for one car - small car - and the 'driveway' ended in a large rock on the side of the hill. Oh, and you wanted to get out of the car, too? Sorry, no room for that!

Inside, the living room was cute, the two bedrooms just fit the twin bed in each (I guess the hubby and I sleep separately?) and the kitchen was another 'step-saver.' The listing said there was a second floor, which there was, with steps that you had to lay down to climb up. Something out of an old war movie "We're taking the hill, Clancy, one at a time." My husband did climb up there, but he could not stand up. We heard there was another apartment downstairs, but I could not climb down the hillside to get there. Okay, if I were 30 years younger, wanted a place for my own, maybe..

Then there was the house overlooking the creek (Blue Creek House), very blue exterior, but what a view! The kitchen was smaller than the Doll House, with an eat-in dining area for very small people, but the rest of the house showed a lot of Craftsman details and wood finishes that made us consider it seriously, but... Next door to a biker bar, small bedrooms upstairs that did not seem to have any way to get furniture to (the stairs were narrow and had a landing half-way up), and the mechanicals (heat, water pump) were original from the 1930's. We seriously considered it, but someone else bought it while we pondered.

The Raised Ranch was built over the large garage, which acted as its foundation. At this point, we were not quite desperate yet, just getting tired of looking. Still, this place was in very good shape and had been on the market for quite a while, but was in a community. The older people who had this as their second home did some unusual wiring outside for lights on their driveway, etc. that consisted on indoor extension cords strung through the trees, over the front deck, under the leaves on the ground - can you say fire hazard? And I would like to say that if you have your house for sale, put away your medications and personal information - these poor people were on some pretty intense medications!

This house we seriously considered as well, but when we went back to see the house again - second look - the owners were there and the gentleman told my husband that he really did not want to sell, but his wife wanted to move closer to the grandchildren. Well, so much for negotiation, as he also said that he would make no concessions on anything, 'he could wait forever.'

Home Sellers and House Pets

The homeowners we encountered, which were few, were an interesting lot. Some were very forthcoming about information on the house, others appeared to resent anyone looking at their house. I guess they really did not want to sell. Then there was the house with a tenant, who insisted that there were only certain times to look at the house, since he worked odd hours. We understood that, but could some accommodation be made for when he was not home? No, so we saw the outside of the house and gave up.

A couple of houses had pets, which is nice, but some pets are not friendly. When the listing sheet says "Beware of Dogs," you take heed, especially when one of the 'puppies' almost knocks the door down trying to get to you. Kitties are cute - "is that cat supposed to go out?" - and we are eternally sorry to the pretty kitty whose tail was stepped on by my husband!

Finding a Home

When do most people look for new homes? Spring, right? Possibly Summer or Fall, but not Winter. Well, we started in Winter - January, in fact. Fortunately, the realtor we used was young and willing (read, hungry) to go through the cold and snow and show us all the houses - many, many houses - that we wanted to see. Many of the houses, because it was off-season, were not heated, driveways not plowed, in some cases entire screen rooms and windows boarded up. Required some imagination to determine a potential in some of the properties!

We discussed our needs with the realtor, set our budget, reviewed the Pike/Wayne Realtors' website and off we went. There are many roads that do not get plowed in winter and we found most of them! And no, we did not have the requisite four wheel drive vehicle that appears to be pervasive up here; we soon found out why everyone seems to have them. Good thing my husband and our realtor had good upper body strength. But it was only a small car we had to keep pushing out of snow drifts, off ice, etc - only called AAA twice. (Did you know they do towing out of drifts?)

The Houses

Many homes in the area are in communities that provide trash collection, plowing, possibly a pool, sometimes security. After realizing many communities are iffy in the plowing department and consider themselves more seasonal second homes, we determined that a home outside a community would be better. That limited the search a lot. To keep things straight, each place acquired a nickname.

We wanted a view- lake, mountain, forest, but something to look at besides another house - and on a limited budget! One house we called the garage house, had a view that went on for years, with mountains, river, etc., but small - when we say small, the garage was bigger (hence that nickname). Imagine, tiny house, huge garage. And the living room was taken up by a huge stone fireplace, so there was room for maybe two chairs. The kitchen was a 'step saver' - if you took one step, you were no longer in the kitchen! But we seriously considered it - that view!

Another house we were greeted by the owner watching her granddaughter who had the 'croup.' Could we get out any faster? The house was okay, but who noticed after that? So, the "Croup House" was eliminated.

Then we looked at one we called the 'ice house.' We actually had to form a human chain to get down the hill over the ice to look at the house. This one had everything - a view, open concept, ability to add on if we wanted to, but only one bathroom and some strange right-of-way through someone else's yard from the road. But once there it was 5 acres overlooking a greenway preserve. So we put in an offer. The owner wanted to make his fortune on this house, as he was unwilling to budge on anything - wanted to sell strictly as is, at the listed price, no concessions. Amazing, since the house had been on the market for almost a year, empty. Disappointed, we had to walk away - too many 'ifs.'

Another serious consideration was the first one we looked at, which we called "three rivers" because it had 10 acres of property next to where several creeks met to make one river. (I didn't say the nicknames always made sense to everyone, just us.) It had its own pond, two bedrooms, two baths in a manufactured home, some say a trailer, but a big trailer. Some people had built huge luxury homes nearby, but this property was 'rustic.' It also included a small travel trailer near the river, which my husband immediately had envisioned as a music studio. So what was wrong with this place? Nothing, really, I just did not feel at home. Maybe because the owner was very ill in a nursing home, I don't know, but we looked at it three times to be sure. And this is why our realtor deserves his commission - we were not easy people to please, I guess. Still, he considered it all an adventure and we are still friends.