After two years of dealing with the paper-thin walls of Hyattsville House (no joke: we could hear our neighbors sneeze), Erik and I decided that we'd had enough of apartment living - it was time to try our hands at home ownership! With the lovely and talented Linda at our side, we began our foray into Prince George's County foreclosures... which was exactly as dismal as it sounds. The first few houses we looked at were down-right scary - bad neighborhoods, busy streets, crumbling facades, basement mildew you could smell from the street. (Did I mention the hoarder with the flooded basement who tried to sell us a Michael Jackson cassette tape for five bucks? We saw his house, too.) Three weekends and 20+ walk-throughs into our search, we were starting to wonder if a crack den in Riverdale was really the best we could do with our budget.
So it was with admittedly low expectations that we entered the dilapidated, turquoise-rimmed Cape Cod off of Kenilworth Avenue. The roof was a mess, the front stairs were made of blue shingles, and the front gate had CAUTION tape tied to it, sure... but the house had good bones, compared to many of the homes we'd seen. (It certainly beat the Woodstream townhouse that was advertised on MRIS as "some work needed.") Our opinions were further skewed by the fact that the power was still on, and the air conditioning (central air!) and tiled floors (ugly tile, but still: tile!) provided a welcome reprieve from the late August heat. There was some mildew in the basement, but the three full bathrooms (three!) made that minor flaw easy to overlook. We were sold, and asked our Realtor to write up a contract that night: we were on our way to buying a house!
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