We had a thread recently which got hicjacked into a debate about helping a friend move, and/or take him to the airport, whatever.
In this thread about a new house today, we get exposed to the sentiment,
How about the sentiment, “you bought the house with all its associated problems. You fix them.”
Let me tell you something.
A buddy of mine bought a house a few years back for $90,000. He recently sold it for $250,000, while he bought a different house for $250,000. He put down 10% on the house ($25K) and had associated closing costs. I don’t know how much, but let’s say $10K. By my calculations, ignoring his equity, the guy should have had about $130,000 in the bank after this.
What’s the first thing he does, “Hey Trunk. . .could you come over and help me move this weekend? I’ll hook you up with some pizza and beer.”
I kind of blow him off. I think I actually had a legitimate excuse that weekend.
A few weeks later, “hey guys, could you come over and help me paint this weekend? I’ll hook you up with some pizza and beer.”
I told him, “Look, man. I value my leisure so much that I pay someone to paint my house.” I do, too. I hate painting, so at a cost of about $50 an hour, I pay someone to paint my house when I need it. I told him, “logically, I’d hire someone to come to your house and paint before I’d do it myself.”
Him, “yeah, but this’ll be fun. We’ll paint, have some beers, put the game on the TV.” (except, I’ll be at home having beers with the game on without PAINTING.)
Anyway, I didn’t help him paint. I’m the big asshole, right?
Fast forward a couple months. By now, he’s purchased for his new house a kegerator and a shiny new tractor. How much has he actually spent on contractors? ZERO.
Because, he’s a real do-it-yourselfer. :rolleyes:
Or should I say, he’s a real do-it-yourself-but-get-your-friends-to-help-because-hey-what-are-friends-for-right-and-I’d-do-it-for-you-even-though-you’d-never-ask-er.
So now, he’s tearing down the absolutely shitty deck that came with his new house, which he knew he’d have to replace and “man, I could really REALLY use your help on this. You ever try to level a 12 foot long 2x6 by yourself?”
“Doesn’t your dad live 45 minutes away?”
“He has a sprained ankle.” :rolleyes:
“Doesn’t your brother live 2 hours away?”
“He works on the weekend.”
“You can’t get a contractor?”
“We don’t have any money left for that.” :eek: :eek:
You know what dude? You bought the house. You knew what had to be done when you made the offer. Apparently in your offer you figured, “I won’t have to pay contractors because I can guilt my friends into doing the work.”
Helping him move a big piece of furniture? Sure. Help a guy load a boiler into the back of his truck? Whatever.
Spend my entire saturday helping you move, paint or build a deck for pizza and beer? What am I, some 18 year old college kid? I’ve got a 45 hour/week job. A wife who I like to spend time with on the weekend, a pretty rigorous bike riding schedule.
You wanna get together Saturday night and watch the fights and go halfsies on the pizza and beer? Sure. That’s what friends are for.
You want me to set footers, level joists and screw in decking all day for twenty dollars worth of vittles? That’s what contractors are for.
