Remind me not to sell a house to Mary...

My friend at work, let's call her Mary, is buying a house from these people. I don't know them, but the more I hear about the house, the more I'm feeling sorry for them.

Mary had been renting a house because they're old house in a small town far away from this job had sold a lot sooner than expected. They had moved closer to Omaha and were renting a house while waiting for their old house to sell. When they had bought the old house, it had taken four years. This time, it only took four months for them to sell it, which is very unusual for a small town market.

So Mary and her husband ended up offering on a house close to Omaha. All seemed to be going well when the offer was accepted. That's until the house inspection was done. Radon was detected in the basement. For those of you that don't know, Radon is a colorless, oderless gas that has been linked to giving people lung cancer.

Mary and her husband demanded that a Radon venting system should be installed in the house. That costs over 1000 dollars. Now I'm in the process of selling my house and my liability for fixing stuff on this house is only 1000 dollars. Apparently, the people they're buying for have no limit because they not only have installed the Radon venting system, but they've also made various other repairs to the house to the total of over 2000 dollars.

I swear once a week, Mary comes over to me and says, "Wait 'til you hear what's happening with the house now?"

I sigh and say "What now?"

She'll tell me the new thing and I'll hold my hands to my temples because I'm not feeling sorry for Mary, I'm feeling sorry for those poor people that they're having to fix more and more things. One of them was a load-bearing pole that was taken out of the house for some reason and now has to be put back in. And there might have been some bug spraying, but I'm not sure about that.

The other day, she comes over and says, "Wait 'til yo hear what's happening with the house now?"

I say, "What now?!" again because I'm already cringing at this point.

"It rained really hard the other day before the last inspection and the house inspector detected two roof leaks!"

"Oh no. What's going to happen now?" I groan. I can alreay guess what's going to happen next. Those people are undoubtedly in for it.

She says, "Well, they're going to have to fix it."

"Oh! Those poor people! I can only imagine this happening to us." I'm picturing my wife going "What now?!" and crying everytime a new repair comes up.

"I know, but it still needs to be fixed. They've already tried fixing it, but I guess they just put tar over the spots. I'm like 'That's not going to cut it.' I want a contractor to come and fix it."

I realize that it has to be done, but somewhere along the line, this couple that's selling the house got screwed. They went with the wrong realtor that isn't protecting them or they didn't pick a home warranty like we did or the weather was bad or someone like Mary bought their house (just kidding).