I feel so country right now - I was in middle school before I even knew that there was such a thing as “city water” and I was amazed that people had to pay a water bill.
Where do you think that people in rural areas get their water from?
This thread is currently right above this thread:
Is it more expensive to be a man or a woman?
Where you, even sven, are being taken to task for oversharing and coming across as too well-off to have anything to complain about.
To be clear: I do NOT feel that way about your commentary in that other thread; I just find the irony to be quite thick.
And **squeegee **- you overshared in your OP, no doubt in part because you felt lousy about your role in the house situation and it was adding to all of the other crap feelings are you dealing with. So…don’t do that anymore 
And while you are at it, take care of yourself and focus on your health and family.
I actually do know about having a well. I own a lake house that used to have only a well, til enough people moved in to the area that we could all share the cost to run city water, back in the late 70s. Before that, we used water very sparingly; we bathed in the lake and routinely used the outhouse during the day.
But I thought that things had changed. I mean, my insurance agent just lowered our house premium because our nearest firehouse is within a mile of our home. What would you do living in a home that was miles from a fire station and only a half-empty well to rely on in case of a fire? Just let it burn? (Now THERE’s an idea…) JK
Anyway, best of luck to the OPer. Selling a house is very stressful. But I do think that he’ll feel much better if he tells the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
All of which are probably a good example of how easy it is to come off poorly on a message board, especially with personal stuff. The OP seems like a reasonable guy, and I really do hope the health issues work out and he is able to maintain the focus he needs to get his financial situation back to a place he is comfortable with.
You know, you’re actually right. This thread made me feel even more so that we were committing an immoral act, dumping a house with a dry well on someone. We HAD disclosed that it went dry last year, so we weren’t hiding anything. So now I’ve instructed my agent to not sugarcoat it, and just tell the other agent that we think it’s happening again. It feels better to get it in the open.
And you know what? She thinks it won’t kill the deal. Really! I actually laughed in her face when she said that (if you can laugh in someone’s face over the phone). But she really thought so. Huh. Okay, if things go well, I’ll be astounded, but miracles do happen. And I didn’t lie to get the sale.
I don’t understand your issue with that concept. As I said above, every house in my entire town has a well as the only source of water, and most people have mortgages. The seller might need to prove it’s functional, but I doubt it.
Because I thought it would be un-insurable (I may have made up a word) due to the risk of fire. Apparently I was wrong.
We, too, were shocked when our leaky basement turned out to be a non-issue. I thought for sure they were going to ask us to install a french drain or a sump pump. But they didn’t.
Crossing my fingers for you. You’re experiencing two of the most stressful things that can happen in life - selling your home and going through a divorce. I hope in 5 years you can look back on this thread and take a big sigh of relief.
We had a flood in our basement a few years before selling. It was because the previous owners had installed the sump pump upside down. We disclosed that and every other little thing we could think of - fridge dripped a little? Include it.
The disclosure it your chance to protect yourself. If you have disclosed it and it’s in the conditions statement, that prevents the new owners from coming after you. Most people won’t walk away if your house is priced fairly for the location/condition that it is in.
I’m glad the well issue won’t be weighing you down anymore.
The booze won’t solve anything. Get help if you need it. Try some cocoa, exercise, or reading a book if you are having trouble sleeping. Now is as good a time as any to try that hobby or activity you’ve always wanted to do, but have never gotten around to doing.
It sucks that you are going to run in the red for a while. My brain loves to go ‘all or nothing’ on me in situations like that, telling me that I failed to plan so I should just go ahead and throw out all of my plans and blow the rest of it, too. Don’t fall for this type of misthinking regarding your finances (or anything else). Stick to your budget and you’ll be back in black soon.
Say “Thanks!” for the things you do have. It helps keep things in perspective when you take a minute to be thankful for the drive thru getting your order right, your friends and family, your roof, the night sky, etc. Even though things are tough, some things are still going your way–acknowledge and appreciate them.
For my family, I would wait until I had 2nd and 3rd opinions and some idea of treatment options–we are a bunch of worriers, so if I didn’t have a plan I’d get overwhelmed with info from them. If I were feeling like I couldn’t deal with it myself, I might confide the situation to my sister who could keep the secret while encouraging me to follow-up as needed.
Good luck and take care of yourself.
Yeah, be sure to get the 2nd and 3rd opinion on the prostate cancer. Treatment is tricky-- maybe the “no treatment” will turn out to be the best.
Also, if the sale doesn’t go thru, consider renting (as suggested upthread) if you can. I live a bit north of you, and real estate is going through the roof with no end in sight. And this time it actually seems sustainable because there are so many all cash deals, and no one is getting shady financing anymore. Most likely your house will appreciate over the next few years.
I keep hearing people are digging wells twice as deep in your area to get to water, and maybe that’s what your property needs, if you can get a permit for that. Look at creative ways to cut back on water usage. Take it on as a technical challenge.
Hope things turn around for you!
ETA: Get a pool cover! 
Agreed. In fact, I guess I’ll go through the next biopsy in September, and if it’s also ambiguous like the first one, I think I’m done with the issue. The NIH thinks PSA isn’t even worth testing to screen for prostate cancer because of cases like mine may turn out to be: you get needless over-diagnosis and over-treatment to no patient benefit. But it’s still scary as hell being in that sort of limbo, not knowing what the hell is going on in your body. And, yeah, treatment should be approached carefully, as a majority of men end up with really reduce life quality (no sex for the rest of your life), but it beats dying.
It’s a lot slower down here in South County than up by you. We’re a really nice property, but on a country road just outside of town, and it’s tough to drum up traffic. We’ve just had 3 offers, 2 were extreme lowballs, and the one we took was quite a bit under our already reduced price. I figure if the sale falls through, we drill as soon as possible, as deep as we need to. I don’t know what that means time-wise, as I would be the local drilling companies are drilling wells nearly 24-7, with this mega-drought (1/4 normal rainfall this year, 1/2 last year) drying everyone’s water, so there may be quite a line to stand in. Also permits may take time for the same reason. My best guess is a well + pumps, power, the works would run about $50k, ouch. I’m not sure where you fit a renter for the house in there. Rent now and put the house up next spring with a new well?
Hmm, when we drilled the first time, there was no depth limit on the permit that I recall, but it was many years ago. There was a practical limit though: the deeper the well, the more expensive it was to fit with multiple pumps to boost the water to the surface, and the more expensive per gallon to run all those pumps.
Thanks, John.
Well, our pool isn’t rectangular, so we couldn’t get a hard cover (and those are quite pricey anyway), but a floating solar blanket would surely lower the evaporation.
Yes, timing is not bad for that actually. That frames the school year nicely.
I had to go that route. Well worth the $275. 
My pool is about 20k gallons, not sure how it compares to yours in size, but the cover shouldn’t be too expensive.
About 26k gallons. The cover is about $100, though a reel for it is about $600.
But I talked to my agent and we can’t cover the pool while we’re in this “under contract but still on the market” limbo we’ve been in for 37 (!!!) days, since there’s a safety issue with showing the house while there’s a solar cover on the pool, and the house is still showable until the buyer finally drops the (goddamn freaking mofo argh) contingencies.
Re: wells and fire fighting - I doubt that any home wells exist that could supply enough water to fight a fire. Compare a garden hose or two with those on a truck. For a fire near our house the rural depts. set up what looked like an above-ground swimming pool tht was kept full by tankers and the pumpers drew from it. Pumpers can be chained, but this was probably more flexible.
Just to follow up: the house deal did indeed fall through. Because of the well.
Next up: we drill. And if we come up dry, we (ex and I) are thoroughly screwed.
My agent says we should leave the house on the market. “There’s a buyer for every house,” she says. Hope so.
That really stinks, squeegee.
Why are you so dead set on wasting money trying to drill a new well? Spend the money on water-efficient upgrades that will make the property appealing as it is. And don’t allow your agent to fill the pool again. The kind of buyers who would be perfectly content living off tanked water, are not the kind of buyers who are going to fill the pool, ever.
I guess you’re referring to xeriscaping, i.e. pulling out the lawn and putting down rocks, and filling in the pool?
I see drilling a new well as an attempt to fix this property. It’s not clear to me that anyone in their right mind would buy it - at any price - without a good well, no matter what the details of the grounds were.
And drilling per se isn’t all that expensive. Just the cost of the permit and a few thousand to get someone out with big equipment for a couple of days. We did this 14 years ago and it was three grand total, so let’s guesstimate that the cost is probably triple that today, $9k. The big cost comes if you find water: getting power to that part of the property, installing possibly multiple pumps, getting the water 600 feet back to the house, big tanks on concrete pads, etc etc, which would probably run into tens of thousands, easy. So if we drill and come up dry, the (literally) sunk cost is unfortunate, but not enormous.