Four Moves in Nine Months – The Madness is Over!

It seems like I’ve been MIA for a couple of months. It also seems like my life has been on semi-hold for the past year. Sixteen months ago, my husband and I started the process of selling our house. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I have moved 4 times in the past 9 months since we signed off and accepted the contract to sell our house!

Life is Stressful!

There’s no getting around it – life is stressful. However, some events are more stressful than others. I’ve heard that events such as getting married, starting a new job, getting fired from a job, starting a new business, the death of a family member, the birth of a child, moving, and remodeling a home are highly stressful. On the Holmes and Rahe Stress Inventory list, even making changes to your diet is one of the top 40 major stressors.

When I scanned through the Holmes and Rahe stress list, I noticed that my husband and I have encountered many of these stressors over the past couple of years. The one constant/major stress that has been hanging over our heads over the past year and half has been our move. I know moving might take some time for people if they are waiting for a new house to be built, but if you’re moving from one place to another, I don’t think it should normally take this long.

Forgive Me While I Rant for a Moment…

Selling and buying a home shouldn’t be a nightmare! Many people are able to do it without too much difficulty. Unfortunately, for me and my husband that definitely hasn’t been the case. We thought the sale of our house was stressful. Unfortunately, the purchase of a new one was too.  So much so, that both of our highly qualified realtors (who have been in the industry for many years) said in both instances that ours were some of the worst experiences they have had. I was pushed to my limit and brought to tears during both the selling and buying process. Let’s just say my stress level was maxed out! My husband, who rarely gets frazzled, was stressed out many times through this process too. We both have gained many new white hairs as a result!

Without going into the many details of what all took place (and believe me – we have some stories we can tell after having over 100 showings of our house and 4 different offers on potential places that we wanted to buy), here are a couple pieces of advice:

• Do not work with a realtor who is a family member of the buyer/seller. We just so happened to do that in both cases.
• Do not work with a realtor who is new or just doing realty on the side as part time gig. In both instances, our “opposing” realtors happened to be that.

Buying a House is Especially Difficult for Those with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

The typical buyer has wish list items that they want in their new place. My husband and I had them too – a larger kitchen, master bathroom, certain backyard views, etc. However, when you have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, there are also other factors to consider. Things such as how old is the house, is there carpet, is there mold in the attic, etc. These factors make it doubly hard to find a “safe” place. I plan to write a separate post about all of the considerations, so stay tuned. Even if you don’t have MCS, there are considerations you would want to take in order to have a less toxic home.

After all of the heartaches, God blessed us with the ideal place for us. He also has a sense of humor – our kitchen and master bathroom are over double the size of what we had in our previous house. We are still unpacking, painting and getting settled in, but it’s nice to finally have a place to call home once again.