Dave Barry: Homes And Other Black Holes

if you follow this procedure, by nightfall your brain will be tightly packed with hundreds of thousands of bits of important real estate information, and you and your spouse will be able to have useful decision-making conversations like this:

YOU: I kind of liked that contemporary with the fireplace in the kitchen.

YOUR SPOUSE: No, the contemporary had fire damage in the kitchen. You’re thinking of the split-level, the one where the garage floor had a Rust-Oleum stain shaped like the Virgin Mary.

YOU: No, that was the colonial, remember? With big white pillars out front and no toilets.

YOUR SPOUSE: No, you’re thinking of Monticello. Remember, We went there on vacation in 1979?

YOU: No, it was 1978.

Using this logical elimination process, you’ll begin to narrow your list down to the three or four dozen houses that you are truly interested in. These are the ones you should go back and inspect in a thorough manner, using this convenient checklist:

This is a “must.” There is an old German expression that goes: “A house without a roof is like a machterstrassefurtermorgennachtdankeschoen without a gutsprechenbuchlungwiegehtvolkswagenporsche.” If anything, this is an understatement. So the first thing you should do is go up and crouch in the attic and see if you get bit by a bat. This is usually an indication that the house contains bats, which, depending on your lifestyle, could be a negative factor, especially if one tries to suck out your blood, because that means it’s a vampire bat, which means the house is located in South America, so right away we are talking about probably a fairly long commute to work.

These should be sturdy and level. The only proven way to check for sturdiness is to drop a men’s standard sixteen-pound bowling ball (Always carry one with you!) onto the floor from a height of seventy-five feet through a hole drilled in the roof, then carefully note the results. (No, the seller will not object, unless he has “something to hide.”)

To check for levelness, you will need a standard piece of string and a standard rock. Using a standard knot, tie one end of the string, then, holding the other end of the string, stand in the middle of a room, and carefully note which way the rock points. Ideally, it will point toward the floor. If it points somewhere else, such as toward a wall, this is often an indication of nonlevelness.

Forget about the plumbing. It will work perfectly. It always does, when you inspect it, because plumbing is one of the most intelligent life forms on the planet, and it would never be so foolish as to tip its hand to you. It will wait until after you have bought the house. Then it will make its move. Late some night, you’ll hear strange gurglings and sloshings in your pipes; this will be the sound of your toilets communicating with each other, making their plans:

FIRST TOILET: It’s on. Tomorrow is New Year’s Day, they have house guests, it’s four degrees below zero outside, and their plumber is in Switzerland. We break tonight.

SECOND TOILET: Ha ha! I’ll tell the hot water heater.

The most important thing to find out about the electrical system is whether it contains enough “volts,” which are little tiny pieces of energy shaped like arrows so you can tell which direction they’re moving in science class diagrams.

The standard measurement for volts is “amps,” also called “watts,” which travel around in what is called a “circuit.” A typical circuit works as follows:

At the electrical company, fuel oil is burned to set fire to a generator, which gives off electrical energy in the form of sparks, which are put into wires and sent to your home, where the electricity waits in the wall until you turn on your toaster, at which point it rushes through the wire and into the English muffin, and from there into your stomach, where it remains until a cool, dry day when you are walking down a hall scuffing your feet on a carpet and you go to open a door, causing the electricity to leap into the doorknob, where it remains forever, building up over time to tremendously high levels, which is why scientists are now concerned that if some unscrupulous entity such as Libya or God forbid an adolescent male ever figures how to release the power, he could, using only the latent doorknob energy contained in a single older ranch-style home, vaporize Oregon.

But your immediate concern, as a potential buyer, is making sure that the house has the right number of volts. Following is a chart depicting the most popular voltages currently available in the housing market:

POPULAR HOME VOLTAGES

120

220

9 (Requires 9 volt battery [not included])

Which voltage is right for you? This, more than anything else, is a matter of personal taste; and like most matters of personal taste, it is best left in the hands of a qualified interior designer.

Heating and cooling should be supplied by one or more large filthy objects squatting in a basement or closet. You should inspect these objects from a safe distance; you should also find out what the total annual heating and cooling costs will be, using the following formula:

1. Ask the person selling the house how much the total annual heating and cooling cost will be.

2. To determine the actual cost, multiply the amount this person gives you by the weight, in pounds, of the devices supplying the heating and cooling.

Make no mistake about it: there will be insects in the house. The entire planet is teeming with insect life; scientists now estimate that there are over 60,000,000,000,000,000,000 different species living under my kitchen sink alone.

Fortunately, most insects pose no threat to homeowners. All they want is to eat your food and have babies in your sock drawer and maybe crawl up your nostril while you’re sleeping. In exchange for this, many of them gladly perform useful household services, such as pooping on your toothbrush. “You scratch my back, and I’ll suck blood out of yours”that is the insect motto.

The exception, of course, is termites, which are small socialist insects that eat houses. (We don’t know what they ate before houses were invented. We think maybe garages.) Termites live in large colonies ruled by a lady termite with an enormous butt, called the Queen, who governs over a strict termite hierarchy consisting of: the Biters, the Chewers, the Spit Makers, the Soldiers, the House of Commons, the Nannies, and the Cute Little Baby Eggs. Each of these colony members has specific duties and responsibilities that are clearly posted on the Bulletin Board, although of course, being insects, they are much too stupid to remember what these duties and responsibilities are, so they basically just scurry around at random. Nevertheless, as I noted earlier, they can eat your prospective house, so it is very important that you inspect carefully for the Two Telltale Signs of Termite Infestation, which are:

1. Termites walking around with pieces of your prospective house in their mouths

2. No sign whatsoever of termites, because they are hiding

If all the items on this checklist check out to your satisfaction, it’s time to make the standard Insulting Opening Offer on the house, which we’ll cover in our next chapter.

If you want to come out a winner in the negotiations for your new house, you have to be tough. “This is not a time for human decency,” are the words of Wayne Savage, the internationally renowned lecturer and author of the best-selling book on negotiating strategy, Leave Them Bleeding in the Dirt, which retails for $178.63 and not a penny less. Which is why you need to know: