love thy neighbor

Background Info: Our apartment lease is up in a couple weeks, so Joe and I have been looking for a house to move to... with a yard... so we can get Mr. Bondi a little brother/sister that Joe will insist on naming "Homie"... which I think is the worst name for a dog ever, but I digress. 

We just found a place that is dirt cheap - I won't even tell you how cheap cause I don't want to make any Manhattanites cry. And really, it's perfect for us - well, except for the fact that it's really a really old house and has a strange odor, a little bit like what I imagine crack would smell like, and umm... then there's the sex offender neighbor and the stuttering landlord.  

Red flags? No, we'll just work around these little issues. So Say I.  


Friend:  did i hear you and joe signed a place??

me:  not yet

we did FIND a place though

and we are meeting tonight to potentially sign

Friend:  sweetness - where's it at?

me:  need to determine if the neighbor is a level i sex offender or just a sex offender "dabbler"

i'm gonna knock on his door and bring him cookies 
Friend:  and children?

haha sorry bad joke

me:  no seriously, on the king county sex offenders list, the address DIRECTLY next door is listed as sex offender, so i studied the pic and im gonna go knock on the door - check him out.

Friend:  haha creeepy

me:  WELL... the landlord legit said on the phone to me, "there's just the problem of the neighbor. he's a little cranky. But if he gives you any problems, just call us and we'll get a restraining order"

WTF

Friend: uhhhhh

me:  but actually the landlord stutters, ALOT, so it was more like, "we-e-elll thah-ah-rrS ju-ju-just the"

me: So maybe we just have a cranky neighbor and then somewhere close by a sex offender. Probably best if the cranky neighbor is the sex offender, that way we kill two birds with one stone?
Friend:  hahahah

me:  place is right behind kangaroo and kiwi pub..

like 2 blocks from greenlake on 99

it is an OLD house

but has a lot of character

each room has different color walls haha

big basement with space for beer pong, etc.

and if i felt so inclined, i could decorate it really vintagey

Friend: i'm a big fan of old houses - i think they have a lot of character missing from today's housing

me:  yeah.. well theres the problem of no dishwasher but joe fancies himself a handyman and thinks he's  gonna install one :-)

im going to point and laugh.

So here's what I got:

***LOCATION                               

PROS: Easy access to freeway for commuting, 2 blocks from Greenlake, Across the street from my favorite Pho restaurant, stone's throw from one of my favorite pubs, and directly next door to a great pizza place. On second thought, that might be a con.

CONS: Directly next door to a pizza place, "cranky neighbor" that we potentially need to get a restraining order against?, sex offender neighbor possibly (hopefully) same person as cranky neighbor.. But since little kids don't like cranky men, probably he wouldn't have been a very successful sex offender. So probably not. Oh, and if you're thinking he might not have been a 'child molester' sex offender, he was. I saw.. on the creepy and addictive find a sex offender near you site.

***LANDLORD

PROS: Lives over an hour away.

CONS: Has serious speech impediment. Conversations take 3x longer than humanly necessary.   

***HOUSE

PROS: Spacious, new carpets, big rooms, big basement, washer and dryer...

CONS: Smells funny, possibly like crack. Not that I would know. Every room has different color walls. No dishwasher. 

Thoughts??  Besides the obvious, that I have Mad "Paint" Skillz. Have you ever tried to use that program? It is less user-friendly than those grocery store Self Checkouts. I think I'll stick with Photoshop.