Thanks.

Congrats Ghost and Mrs Ghost!

Sundae: that's brilliant news.

Thank you.

I'm acting as power of attorney for my elderly cousin. He was an out of state landlord for a house up in Wayne County PA. (His childhood home.) As his dementia got worse, he did less and less to ensure he had good tenants and he did less and less to maintain the property.

The last tenant lived there with his father, who was a good tenant, but the father died, and the son stayed on as a terrible tenant. Stopped paying rent and had a bunch of dogs who neighbors said never went outside. The animal excrement everywhere ruined all the floors and the house got a severe flea infestation. My elderly cousin, at my urging, evicted this tenant after 9 months of unpaid rent. I've never set foot in the house, but I've spoken to no less than four different people who said you have the urge to vomit as soon as you cross the threshold. It smells that bad.

Anyway, once I was given power of attorney two months ago, my first goal was to sell this vacant property. And I have in front of me the draft of the closing papers! The place has a tax assessment of $80K and I accepted an offer for only $35.5K. Sounds bad, but my real estate agent tells me we were lucky to get over $30k for it. The buyer is a small time builder who winters in Florida. He's going to gut the place and open the windows all winter to let it air out. Then renovate it next summer when he comes back to NEPA.

So I'm very happy that I don't have an abandoned slum property in PA to worry about over the winter when there is no heat to keep the water pipes from freezing. Hope I'm not jinxing it by talking about it before the papers are signed.

Good for the buyer, good for the seller. I love those situations. Here's hoping it goes through.

who inherits when your cousin dies?

That's something that I'm a little annoyed about and try not to think about because it's a decision he made when he was lucid and before I became a much bigger part of his life. He is leaving about 95% of his estate to his childhood church (which is very different today than his nostalgic childhood memory of it) and to his alma mater. And he's leaving small amounts of money to various cousins, including me. He never had siblings, and never got married or had kids. He's been alone his entire life and never formed close bonds with anyone. So he's giving his money to strangers instead of the guy who is helping him these days.

You're not doing what you're doing for money. You're doing it because the man needed some help, and you were able to help him.

And because you're one of the good guys.

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Thank you. It's true.

But damnit, if the guy has money, why can't he spread the wealth a little closer to home?

It's been fun going through his stuff now that he's in a nursing home and categorizing it into sell-able valuable stuff and junk. I mean, it's a huge chore, but I keep coming across old stuff, like this kind of ice cube tray we had when I was a kid. I brought the tray home to try out with the kids. I hadn't used one in 40 years. It sucked as much as I remember them sucking. But the kids had fun with it.

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Oh man, and your finger skin would stick to the metal... Yay plastic.

Suck is harder sufficient to describe those fuckers. :mad:

yebbut the church probably won't be ungrateful for your decision to sell (at that price)

True. They won't even have any idea by the time they get around to receiving a big fat check.

exactly. close relatives can have a horrible knack of suddenly deciding they "care" too late, specially if they feel they're losing out financially. because people...

Good call, well rid, I say.

And you may not remember this, but the water sloshes around like crazy in the larger tub with the curved corners so you have to walk super slow and be really careful putting it in the freezer.