Inspired by some of the posts in my sell my house thread, I would like to hear YOUR frustratingly humorous or humorously frustrating work stories.
Here is mine in a more complete form. About a month ago, we were delivering the household goods of a woman who had purchased a house in one of the more desirable areas of town. sight unseen. very old, mature landscaping, lots ranging in size from triple or double all the way down to converted garage in the alley, sidewalks with a bit of grass between you and the road, narrow streets, torturously tiny rooms, fire hazardously narrow doors death trap styled skinny hallways, suicidally steep stairs, you know, charming. Well this particular house when built back in the 19-aughts or there abouts, originally had a; front porch, a front room, a dining room, kitchen, back porch, basement (probably more of a root cellar) an attic and a bedroom, indoor plumbing was added sometime later, and part of the kitchen, dining and bedroom were given over to the miniscule wc. Sometime very recently someone further reduced the size of the dining room a bit, cheated a bit by knocking out a largish window and built a very very narrow (28 inches up to the turn then 20 inches wide)and short (at 5’10" I didn’t have to duck my head but did so instinctively where the stairwell went through the floor to the upper level)stair case up to the attic that was remodeled into two small rooms.
She was moving here from New Mexico, where the climate must average much warmer than here (I live in a northern state) leading to floor plans that are more open and airy…or she had a much more modern house there.
She was inflexibly determined that one of those rooms was her bedroom, we were able to get her pillow top queen mattress upstairs, barely. Her armoire at 7’ tall, 60" long and 36" deep, yeah, she was certain we were measuring something wrong. the other room she wanted as an office, the file cabinet fit, mostly.(there were damage waivers signed by this point) the desk, happily, was a crappy ass ikea affair that fortunately the packers at the other end of the move completely and totally disassembled, we never did find the hardware to put it back together, since they didn’t put the bolts and whatnot in the parts box.
at the end of the day, all she had left was to ask for a suggestion as for what to do with her stuff. standard answer is consignment and get new that will fit, and re-consider what rooms you want for what purpose.
There was a double window above the front porch. She asked if it would be possible to get the furniture in through that window. My answer, sure, remove the window, and window frame, then hire a crane to lift your stuff up and you can probably fit at least some of it in that way. No forklift though since that would require removal of at least some of the fence, and wouldn’t reach all the way over the porch roof.
Frustrating, and to me, somewhat amusing since, obviously people do this somewhat frequently, it is to me one of the heights of foolishness to buy a house sight unseen.