We are definitely going to do that. It’s just… like maybe people shouldn’t prey on the elderly?
Anti rant of the day - the baby is one whole year old today!
We did that for my 93-yo mother, and one of my brother’s recorded her voice mail message to refer people to me as the screener for the potential call that should be handled. So far, after 3 years, I’ve gotten three calls - one from her bank and two from people on her list worried because she wasn’t answering (so far, a sign that she has either misplaced her phone or somehow turned off the ringer).
Oh, yeah. There are lots of real shits disguised as people out there.
yay I know sometimes you wondered if he was going to get there …
Mom has an elderly cousin who has been in some facility or other since just before Thanksgiving. (I could create a whole thread about the indifference and borderline neglect she has experienced both from these shitholes and her immediate family…) Despite this cousin’s age, she was able to use her old iPhone fairly well, so Mom had been in the habit of calling this cousin at least twice per day to check on her. This cousin ended up in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly her phone has gone missing. It’s an iPhone 5, so it’s not terribly valuable, but it was her only means of communication since 1) she can’t remember all those phone numbers and 2) the room phone somehow always gets placed out of her reach. Mom is convinced the phone got tossed with either a food tray or the bed linens; I think her immediate family got tired of her confused, late-night calls and took the phone away. 
(I showed Mom how to set the “focus” options on her phone the first time that happened.) Either way, my poor Mom is convinced that she’s talked to this cousin for the last time.
Also, fuck the North Carolina DMV for requiring one’s full legal name to be on the Social Security card when applying for a Real ID. Even the SSA thinks it’s a bunch of bullshit, especially when one’s full legal name is already printed on the state-issued license.
How are they going to keep poor folks from voting if they make it easy to get a new ID? Don’t blame the DMV, I’m pretty sure they are just following whatever bullshit law the legislature passed.
I’m sure that’s true. I’ve looked at requirements in other states out of curiosity; there are plenty of places where they don’t seem to care too much as long as your full legal name is on something.
He gave us a run for our money, several times.
I have thought of another annoyance. I live in a trailer park and, up the street from me, a house seems to be having a horrible water leak. It seems to have completely saturated the lawn and is running down the driveway and into the drain near my house. Now, this doesn’t really impact me, but this water has been flowing since Saturday. And I am concerned. Is someone gonna fix this? Are we just gonna let this horrible water leak completely wash out the house? Are we just gonna waste gallon after gallon of water? Before you ask, I did call the office to let them know because, orginially, I thought the house was empty. But it’s not? It’s hard to say. I just hope someone finally fixes it.
Speaking of North Carolina - We are just beginning the process of looking for a house to buy in the Raleigh/Durham area of North Carolina. (We had been living in Los Angeles forever, moved to DC last year to be near the kids. They are moving to NC, so we will follow them.)
Reason for rant - Apparently this area is a very overheated sellers market for real estate. The pricing is very much more affordable than LA or DC, but the market itself is very heated. Everything is going for way above asking price, which is stupid in it’s own way. Consequently, they have adopted a few buyer strategies to win that are new to me. And being of a certain age, I can’t help but think, “Dang, that’s kinda stoopid!” I really want to line up everyone in the local real estate industry and three-stooges slap them to wake them up so they will stop this nonsense. All of this is my understanding having just jumped into this world.
But anyway, they are:
“Due diligence money” - I guess the term is frankly meaningless, but what it means is offering a portion of the down payment upfront that is paid directly to the seller (not through any escrow accounting). Say a house is priced at $500,000, a 20% down payment would be $100,000. The buyer would pay $50,000 directly to the seller upfront as enticement to accept the offer. Then when the sale closes the buyer would come up with the remaining $50,000 (plus other buyer costs). One downside to this is that the usual method of wiring money gets pushback from sellers, as they “don’t want to hand over their account information”. We’ve also seen that banks limit the amount of money one can wire to an individual, rather than to an escrow officer. So, instead, people have to run around and get cashiers checks and overnight them, or some other option. Oh, and if for whatever reason the sale falls through due to the seller, they have to return the money. I’m familiar with up front earnest money, smaller sums that are used as incentive, and sometimes forfeited if things go south. But this is handled a bit differently. Overall, kinda dumb, if you ask me. So, the seller has a sum of money a few weeks earlier than they would have otherwise. Okay, I guess.
“Appraisal gap money” - I guess this is not new, but I’ve never heard of it before. It works like this: Offer amount is accepted (say $500,000). The loan would typically be 80% of that ($400,000). The financing company appraisal comes back saying “we think this house is only worth $450,000, so we’re only going to give the buyer a loan for 80% of that amount ($360,000).” The seller says, “Whatever, you still have to pay me $500,000.” So, the buyer has to add to the up front money to bridge the gap. Had the property been appraised at the original purchase price, the down payment would have been $100,000 (20% of $500,000). Instead, the down payment is now $90,000 (20% of $450,000), with an additional $50,000 cash needed to make up the gap, so the total is $140,000. And the buyer starts with an “under water” valuation on their property. Again, Okay, I guess.
As I said, maybe I’m old, but ISTM that if they priced the houses accurately to being with they would eliminate much of the “over asking price” froth, and tamp down the “appraisal gap” nonsense. As for the “due diligence” part, what next? Only accepting bags of cash upfront? “I want this house, here’s bags of cash, now get out!”
My Oldest Sister lives in the RDU area. She said last Christmas that if she were to sell her house, some developer would buy it, tear it down, build an even bigger house on her postage-stamp-sized property, and sell it for three times what they paid for the original house. Which would not be cheap. This has happened in her town since the real estate bubble started building.
We have also been having a problem in some of our cities here in NC (Charlotte is the worst for this) where investors’ LLCs have been doing exactly that. Cash up front, usually over asking price. The company fixes it up and rents it out for an exorbitant sum, thus taking another house off the open market.
You’ve probably already resolved this, and may already be aware, but farm supply stores such as Tractor Supply, Southern States, carry pine bark shavings.
Wouldn’t they just need to visit the local courthouse, where all that info would be associated with your deed/property taxes?
The question is how did they get the phone number to text to? I’m pretty sure I’ve never supplied that to the county.
I would read it.
Try searching for yourself in the online white pages & various online people finding services & you’ll probably find a site that ties your phone to your address/name. It’s rather astonishing (terrifying?) how much information they accumulate by connecting info from various sources. Much of it wrong, but still fascinating to see how good their algorithms are in making those connections.
Make a call to the water company. Odds are they will shut the water off regardless of being asked to by the owner.
So that’s where it gets a little difficult. The city supplies water to the park as a whole and sends 1 bill. The park then splits it among the residents. The water company doesn’t own the pipes inside the park. I did call the park though… again… I’m hoping it’ll be fixed when I come home tonight.
I had a request to purchase my mother’s address. I thought the apartment complex would be quite unhappy with the situation.
The mini-est of rants:
THE CORRECT ORIENTATION FOR A SCREEN DISPLAYING CONTENT IS LANDSCAPE!
I don’t want to see Please rotate your device again unless it’s an instruction to restore the display to the CORRECT (landscape) orientation.