Sometimes I will ask Google questions just to make me feel good about my life choices . The answer from Google is always yes. In 2011 the market was suddenly full of bank owned properties after the housing market crash in 2008. Mark and I welcomed Morgan in May of 2011 and also had a jumbo sized lab named Sebastian, I mean, I only gave birth to the kid, we already had the dog. We had officially outgrown his cute 1000 sq ft house we were living in. We heard about a house not too far from us that was about to go live for sale after sitting empty for two years and if we were interested, we’d have to move fast. It was a 3/3 on 5 acres. 2600 sq ft with an 1800 sq ft barn. Mark had recently gotten into raising beef cattle so all of this got his attention. We drove to the house and only looked around the outside and in windows on a Tuesday. By Friday we had a realtor and put in our offer for the asking price- $149,500. We found out the following Monday our offer was accepted and we had 30 days to close.Next step was asking the bank for the loan and they nicely said yes with some conditions. First we had to rent out our house to show we had rental income, we did, we packed up in 3 days and moved out. We moved into Mark’s parents house while the worst tenants Craigslist could produce moved in. We held our breath when the inspector came out. When he turned on the faucets, black water came out. There was a snake in the hallway. The yard was so overgrown it may have had an animal in it that we were about to own. Thankfully the only real issue he found was the drains from the gutters were too close to the house so we had to extend those. We were living in my in-laws spare bedroom with an 11 week old baby and a giant dog. One day I realized I was missing something and decided I should take a pregnancy test. It was positive. Baby number two would be here just 12 short months after the first one. The pressure was on. I was still working in a popular beach bar in Daytona that stayed open until 2 am. One night about one week after the tenants moved into our old house, I was on my way home around 1 am. Mark called and said his phone was ringing off the hook from all the old neighbors. Apparently our cute little house on a cute quiet residential street was surrounded by cops. So I swung by. They weren’t lying, the street was lit up. The sky was also lit up with the Sheriff’s helicopter circling. I found a police officer and introduced myself as the owner of the house and immediately wished I had silently driven off. They weren’t entertained and asked who the tenant on the lease was with contact info ASAP. I pulled up the copy of the signed lease from my email and gave it to him. He told me there was a high speed chase from the city south of us that ended in our driveway, this would explain the 10 cop cars from different cities. He said when they found the car it was abandoned and nobody will answer the house door. Listen, I love watching a good true crime show, but it’s not fun being in one wondering if the pending collateral for your new home is about to have the front door kicked in. Before any damage to the house could happen there was another call from a house diagonal from us. The person they were looking for ran across the street to that house where he ingested all of the pain medication he had on him and was found unconscious on the front porch. He ultimately passed away. The search was off. We found out the next day that the house he ran to was a fellow drug dealer and that is how they knew our house was for rent, he watched me put the For Rent sign in the grass. He used his sister who had no prior run ins with the law to tell us she saw the ad on Craigslist and she was planning to live there alone. Well, she lied. Although we thought it was strange a single girl was wanting to live in a 3 bedroom house alone but like I said, we needed things to happen fast. She moved in her boyfriend who was on parole from a previous murder case to which he was potentially involved in and her schizophrenic brother who was not taking his meds. Our neighbors who previously loved us, understandably wanted to kill us. We reached out to an attorney who was a family friend and he let us know as crazy as it was, none of that was grounds for eviction. Since she hadn’t been there for even two weeks, she claimed the extra tenants were only guests and there was no proof the drugs were being sold from our house. So we were able to come to an agreement that we’d return all of the security deposit as long as she moved out by the end of the month. The date that she was set to move out would be a week after we were set to close on our house. She ended up moving out early and we were able to find new tenants quickly after reducing the rent and being much more selective. These people would become our tenants for the next 3 years. They hardly ever paid the rent on time in those 3 years, but we were able to close on 3488.

On signing day- October 15, 2011, we got a ride to the title office with my screaming baby after I wasn’t able to find my car keys. I also sat down at the closing table with no Driver’s License. Listen, I had a 5 month old baby who didn’t sleep through the night and I was pregnant, plus I had never bought a house before. How was I supposed to know you needed proof that you were really you? I probably shouldn’t have even been out in public. Thankfully our lender was there and provided them a copy. We got the keys and a nice set of shot glasses as a closing gift. But we couldn’t actually move in for about 4 more weeks. Since it wasn’t a traditional closing, there wasn’t a requirement for the bank to make the place look nice before we closed. There wasn’t even a refrigerator and it looked haunted. I think I failed to mention it was also located 4 miles down an unmaintained dirt road. We did have one close neighbor we could see, but the all around vibe was dark and scary. But still- we were ready to move in. Mark worked on the house everyday after work for about a month until the next month storage unit rent was due. We moved in the furniture that only partially filled two rooms. We turned on the tv but the acoustics were so bad because of all the extra space to fill, so we turned it off. That wasn’t going to be a problem since we couldn’t afford cable anyway. Thankfully the previous owners did have nice taste and updated a few things. The appliances left behind were stainless but we obtained a black fridge to fill that gaping hole in the kitchen. We desperately wanted to paint the house a different color than the pepto bismol pink and switch out the hideous bamboo window coverings but- we had a baby on the way.

The current baby and the new baby had the nicest rooms in the house. The long dirt road was helpful when I just needed them to nap. I would put them in the car seats and go for a drive, worked like a charm every time. It took a few years but we were able to paint the house a pretty green and then a few years later- Downing Slate by Sherwinn Williams. We welcomed baby number 3 in 2014 and the house quickly shrank. It went from echoing from all the free space to needing another bedroom. For a year, Mark constructed the 4th bedroom with a full bathroom which is now Morgan’s room. We met our neighbors while taking a family walk during the Covid lockdown. Our house also turned into a great place to isolate-was that the word they kept using? Anyway, our neighbor was riding her horse while we were walking and asked if my kids wanted to try getting on. I remember being worried she would judge us by accepting this offer since we weren’t supposed to be touching the same things without PPD- another strange term I won’t soon forget. Turns out she worked at their pediatrician’s office and told us not to worry about it and to live our lives. I liked this lady. So two of the kids got on, not super impressed, then got off. Morgan got in the saddle after some hesitation. As soon as that horse moved she lost her ever loving mind! She was terrified and wanted off! I had to walk her back to the house and talk her out of a full blown panic attack! Our sweet neighbor apologized and we exchanged numbers. The next day Morgan asked if she could try that again. Not knowing how that would go I text and asked and the answer was yes. That text turned into about a year of weekly lessons and eventually Morgan’s first horse- Jade. The girl was hooked. If she had 3 minutes of your time all you were gonna hear were horse facts. We ended up getting another barrel horse named Annie. Morgan got into the barrel racing circuit with Annie and got in that arena every chance she could get. She is now an officer with her school’s FFA and has dreams of being a horse vet after college, while currently earning a paycheck by working at a nice boarding barn on our road.

Somehow 15 years have passed. This rundown abandoned house has become the only home the 5 of us have ever known. We recently said goodbye to Annie due to old age which was a really hard loss but part of it when you decide to live on a farm. She is buried in the back and Sebastian’s ashes are in the dining room, which was his favorite spot in the house. After we were ready for another puppy, we found Whiskey. A bloodhound who also came from this long dirt road and this stray cat we named Chevy after he was found under the hood of my car in the garage. They’re best friends.

Somewhere in the middle we were able to use the equity in the house to buy the surrounding 10 acres which puts us at 15 now. We’re also in the middle of building a pool with a hot tub. All made possible by home equity. The house was appraised somewhere close to $900,000 so I’d say the clearance house was a pretty good deal.