Looks Like I'll Have To Sell The House

[Zema Bus]

All this unpacking and moving stuff around has taken a toll on my back. Some things I haven't found yet, like my wifi access point, so I can't get wifi going yet. I found an older one but not the power adapter, I try to keep the adapters with the device, but the movers pull them out for some reason they often end up in a differnt box. Maybe one of the other adapters I have would be compatible, but the printing of the power specs is so small you need a microscope. I do have a magnifying glass but I haven't found that yet either.

[Grogan]

Yep, that's got to hurt, moving.

I used to get called after people moved to set up their computers. Often it would literally be a big tangle of wires, cables and adapters all crammed in big ball inside a box and I'd have to sort what went with what and where it was going to go. Umm there are no electrical outlets here... "I dunno, put it somewhere else then" lol

[Zema Bus]

I've been struggling with tangled wires for two days lol!

I finally found my wireless access point, it was in the last box I hadn't yet opened. Why is always the last one. Hooked it up to my makeshift network and instantly after it was ready my phone connected to it. Now I can get my kitchen computer going.

[Grogan]

It's like living in a video game... where the item is deliberately in the last box you'll search. (sometimes literally, where if you search that box first it won't be there)

[Zema Bus]

True lol!

[Zema Bus]

The manager at the client facility I work for asked if I could work for at least a few hours on Saturday. There was no way I could predict how long it would take to get things ready. I'm just now reaching the point where things are cleared enough in one of the rooms to start setting up my workspace. I routed a long Ethernet cable from my router and the fiber optic box located in the living room to stay in compliance (can't use wireless for this). I'm taking a break to rest my back, then I'll figure out how to arrange the tables and get everything connected and arranged like it was before so that the work laptop doesn't give me grief.

[Grogan]

Holy fuck eh? Demanding assholes. They think everything is to be a "Just in Time" operation where they have the bare minimum of people, but they think they are machines at their beck and call.

Do not feel "guilty" for not being able to do it... let them play their psychology games on someone else.

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan. I took a pic of the living room and the two TVs I now have. The house came with the big one and I parked my 49" TV on wheels next to it. Until now, I thought my 49" TV was huge lol! My backup pfSense router is next to the lamp with the wifi access point and switch on top, and the fiber box is on the wall behind the couch.

Living_Room.jpg (125.83 KiB) Viewed 71545 times

My regular pfSense router is in a small rack, I'm going to disassemble the rack because I can't really use it now with the limited space here and it's in the way and too heavy to move (and no place to move it to). I'll revisit it again when I have more space - an extra large room added to the backyard.

[Grogan]

That's cool that it came with a big TV. Use it as a PC monitor and play a driving game, it would be pretty immersive (and a bit dizzying)

It sounds like you're doing well, moving is a major ordeal, especially doing all that alone. There's no deadline now at least.

[Zema Bus]

I could do that

I do unfortunately still have to get my old house sold, my realtor in CA has been working on getting it ready, and pictures are scheduled for Wednesday. Thanks to Trump and his tariffs and higher inflation the real estate market is now tanking in that area. It had been a hot market for many years. So now we'll have to list it at a lower price to attract buyers. Not that it's nearly as bad as that currently but I bought that house right before the big market crash in 2007/2008 which left me underwater for years. Bad timing, my specialty.

Here's what my new workspace looks like now, I had to focus on that today. My work Windows laptop is connected to the three screens and on the right is my Debian machine that has all my reference material and where I do all my work related searches and continuing education. I'll probably change out that particle board desk, the edges are sharp and uncomfortable. I put a big rubber mouse pad over it, it helps but not enough.

workspace1.jpg (170.16 KiB) Viewed 68693 times

workspace0.jpg (162.74 KiB) Viewed 68693 times

I'll have to call the 2 ISP's in CA to cancel their service, it can't be done on their website, they don't want it to be easy. This wouldn't still be the case if Trump's FTC pick hadn't killed one-click cancel. Frontier has a reputation of being especially difficult to cancel with, even when you tell them you've moved to a different market they'll send you to the retention dept, keep you artificially on-hold, and pass you around to multiple people. I read that you can expect to be on the phone for at least an hour. One guy tried it through chat and it took 3 hours to get his service cancelled.

[Grogan]

Trump is the reason nobody is ever going to have nice things ever again. Why would they want to make it difficult for citizens to cancel things. It's outright raping of society what these people are doing. They want you all begging for scraps, hat in hand while corporations steamroll over you. They are fucking up society on purpose so they can have the spoils.

It's starting to look more like Zema's place already

[Zema Bus]

The old house gets officially listed today, pics were taken yesterday.

I got Frontier cancelled at the old house. I took them on first since they had the worst reputation. But the process wasn't as bad as I had read, it may have helped that I mentioned upfront that I had moved to an address outside of their territory. My phone got disconnected just before finishing up so I had to call them back and go through the initial hoops all over again. Next up is Spectrum cable Internet.

[Grogan]

Not much point in aggressive customer retention then.

In Canada, if you are getting nowhere trying to get payments stopped, we have stronger consumer protection regulations. The ultimate authority is Visa, you just call them and say you've tried to cancel and they'll stop (and/or reverse) the payments. My sister got tricked into signing up for a "lifetime membership" to a gym and found out when she was moving out of the area that she couldn't cancel. Who in their right mind would sign up for something like that, for the rest of your life, with no way to cancel. The creeps wouldn't stop the membership fees, so she got Visa to spank them. I once got double billed by movers, and calling their office was getting me nowhere. The person on the phone couldn't find records of it, hence it didn't happen. After a few calls they did something and I got billed for it again instead of being reversed. That was it. VISA! and they reversed the payments.

I hope your house sells quickly.

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan, it's up on all the major real estate listing sites, so now it's a waiting game. If it doesn't sell quickly one tactic that may help is to offer an interest rate buydown (since the high interest rates is a major factor slowing the market). Sometimes sellers will increase the asking price in exchange for a rate buydown. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

[Zema Bus]

This is after the first 24 hours on Redfin:

This home is popular
It's been viewed 674 times. Tour it before it's gone!

And 1 save on one of the other sites. My realtor thinks we could be in escrow within a week or two. I really hope so, starting next month I'll be paying for two mortgages, that won't be sustainable for very long.

[Grogan]

Indeed, that will suck the life right out of your rectum, two mortgages to pay at once.

I hope those are real stats, but that sounds great if it's a popular listing already.

Maybe you should up the listing price

(mostly joking, I doubt you want to take chances)

[Zema Bus]

Yeah pricing is kind of tricky right now with the high interest rates and my timeline, so I'm going with my realtor's recommended price to attract more potential buyers. If there are multiple offers it could result in a bidding war and a higher selling price.

I finally got my game machine setup. Because of the situation here with limited space and without Ethernet in the walls and where the machine is making it difficult to run a long cable to it I'm going to see if I can temporarily get by with just WIFI. I don't anticipate any big downloads for the next month or so just Arch updates and whatever games Steam wants to update.That board is 6 years old and has built-in WIFI, I found a couple antennas in my stash.

[Grogan]

That solar setup you put on the house probably has buyers wetting their panties. That added some value I'd think.

You couldn't snake a 100 ft cable to the PC?

[Zema Bus]

Yeah that's what I'm hoping, plus it's owned solar, a lot of houses for sale with solar either come with a solar loan or a lease.

I could run some cable to it, but I already have cables running around on the floor and it's a trip hazard. I put throw rugs over them where they cross walkways but I don't have anymore throw rugs.

[Grogan]

Wifi is fine if it's good wifi. You'll find out how it goes in that house I guess.

[Zema Bus]

I received two offers, one under asking and one at the asking price. So I accepted the higher one. It should go into escrow tomorrow and finally close around April 21st. With the market being sluggish I didn't want to hold out for a higher offer that may not come and risk running out of money with two mortgages. Wish I had been in a position to do this six months ago when the market there was stronger. So if everything goes well I'll finally be free in four weeks!

Tomorrow morning I'm going to the nearest MVP location (Motor Vehicle Processing) to get my license and registration transferred over Those are private companies authorized to do what state run DMV offices do, just minus the crowds and standing in line for hours.

[Grogan]

Yay... that was fast. I probably would not have gambled either at this point.

Our DMV's in Ontario have been privatized for some time. There's no choice though, the government just gave contracts to private companies. Lines got worse, as there were fewer counter staff. I've been lucky, the last few times I haven't had to wait long. I tend to register things for 2 years so I don't have to have an unpleasant visit with officious people. Licenses still need to be renewed, but we don't need to register our vehicles (plate stickers), it just happens automatically now (and at no cost) as long as you don't owe fines etc. A Conservative did that (our Premier, Doug Ford) to make voters happy, eliminated vehicle registration fees.

[Zema Bus]

I wish they'd do that here with vehicle registrations. For me in California it was $500/year to renew and get new tags, more if it was a smog check year (every other year). It remains to be seen what it will cost in Arizona. I didn't go today, I didn't have enough time because of another chore I was given - I'm trying to get through the disclosure questions, I've already been at it for hours and I'm only a third of the way though it. There are warnings that failure to disclose something could lead to extremely costly law suites, so I'm trying to think of every little thing. But what if there's something I'm simply unaware of. It is highly stressful and time consuming. Because of work it may take me a few days to complete it. I'm going to try to get the registration stuff done in the morning so that that's off my back. This is just like a video game, got to fight some boss monsters to reach the objective

[Grogan]

Except that there's no god mode cheat and the game is perpetually in nightmare mode.

Failure to disclose something... "we wouldn't have bought this house had we known there was a scuff mark behind the closet door, this man ruined our retirement home" (or something)

As long as you act in good faith, you haven't done anything wrong.

When we last had to pay for vehicle registration, it had gone up to $120 per year, and I thought that was outrageous for a plate sticker. But California wins the trophy (shaped like your ass, on its way out) for that one.

[Zema Bus]

Yeah and it keeps going up, like everything else in that state.

Well this is off to a good start. I went over there with everything the website told me I needed, and they tell me anyone coming from out of state needs their birth certificate. If only the website, which was specifically for those coming from out of state, had mentioned that, I wouldn't have wasted my time. So now I have to figure that out, and it's going to be a while since they'll have to mail it to me.

[Grogan]

Birth certificates are used as a disqualifier. It's a difficult piece of ID to replace and the bureaucracy always takes a long time. (they weaponize that when purging voter rolls and stuff too)

[Zema Bus]

I finally got through the disclosure stuff. It took forever, with a lot of redundant questions. When I pulled up my old solar contract I found one item I had forgotten about, they had found 2 pre-existing damaged tiles during their initial roof inspection in advance of installing the panels. So I added that to the disclosure document. I also documented that the rain gutters overflow during heavy rains, probably need to be cleaned out. It's a worry that something bad I'm unaware of could be found by the inspector and blow the whole thing, and costing me more money to fix than I could afford. Maybe I should have just sold it as is to a house flipper lol!

I'm going to have to pay for an online notary before I can apply to get my birth certificate.

[Grogan]

Fucking Hell, life is complicated in California. You probably don't have to fret too much, nobody can remember every little flaw. You've done your best.

I don't think I have a birth certificate anymore, it was pretty badly frayed and I can't recall sending for a new one. I don't expect to have to prove that I was born. (trust me, I was lol)

[Zema Bus]

I don't know why everything has to be a fight. The California DMV would not process my vehicle change of address despite submitting it in plenty of time. It would not go through right up to the due date. It worked without issue for my driver license but that one still has a year left. I did some reading and found that this is typical of them, and has been for years, and they have done nothing about it despite multiple complaints. So, either pay $500 for something I don't need or want, or get slapped with "substantial fines". So I chose PNO (Planned Non Operation) for $27. I think it's pretty obvious why it's this way, they're raking in more money from all the people leaving the state with registration due. I bet, that if I had already paid my registration a few months ago it would have gone through just fine. Bastards. It's going to be a while before I can register it in AZ so I'm pretty much grounded until then.

[Grogan]

Obvious that the cunts are doing that on purpose, if it's been happening for years. It's legal to fuck ordinary people every which way in the U.S.