matching tracksuits

We have a couple of plants that, in Little Shop of Horrors fashion, send out their long tentacles that wrap around just about anything.

The first plant is actually a pair, planted in an earthen pot out on our back patio. They've been climbing for some time, and one of the seed-like things (oh, I'm just too lazy to look up what it would be called) actually shot out two spouts.

We decided yesterday afternoon to rein them in a bit. Rather, like good parents, we tried not to force them to do anything they wouldn't naturally do, and instead provided them with string to wrap themselves around. We guided them, in other words.

In still other words, we finally put up a third line for it, untangled the two that were sharing a previously installed guide line (i.e., a bit of string), and viola!

Oh, what parents we're going to be!

Once everything was done, K decided the unruly plant in the computer/movie/guest room had to be tamed as well.

This time, K decided she wanted to do it herself. Rather, I was busy working on something else and she knew it would probably be easier just to do it herself. Rather, I turned up my nose at the suggestion of banging more nails into our poor walls and so K did it herself.

What would you do if you were walking into your apartment building and dropped a jar of hot peppers on the sidewalk? You'd probably come back and clean it up. Most people would.

What would you do if someone at your apartment building did it late Sunday morning and it was still there Sunday evening? (Apparently "most people" don't live in our building.)

In my "fury," I made a sign...

Immature? Sure, a little. "I'd have just cleaned it up," a co-worker laughed. That's sort of the point, though...

Oh well -- it was amusing at the time.

Kinga and I are looking to buy a house -- sort of. Kinga and I have begun something we expected to start only after a year and a half in the States: we’re looking for a house. Our thinking was based on our likelihood of getting a loan, our lack of any kind of down payment, and initially, our lack of a job or any sense of security. But we’ve been pre-approved at a couple of different places; we have decent jobs, with the promise of it only getting better; and we’re sick and tired of paying several hundred dollars a month for nothing.

Granted, the rent is shockingly low compared to what I was paying in Boston. In 1999, I was paying $850 for a one-bedroom with barely enough room to turn around in. That place is certainly over a grand a month now. We don’t even pay seven hundred for a two-bedroom place. In the summer, when we were looking at the place, I laughed when told that the apartment is spacious but the rent “is a little high.”

The real estate market here is simply going through the roof. It’s tough to find anything under $150,000 that doesn’t need massive renovation. It’s easy to find massive homes:

Two decades ago, million-dollar homes were a rarity in these hills but not anymore. In 2002, Buncombe County had 38 homes with an assessed tax value of $1 million or more. In this year’s revaluation, the number will jump to 484. […]

“It’s just boomed,” Roberts said. “What we’ve noticed is there’s a lot of new construction of those type of homes, with those type of high-end materials: slate roofs, unique woods, specialty tile. The other side of that is that people will take some of the older homes and greatly remodel the entire home or add a whole new wing, and that pushes it over $1 million.”

The luxury housing boom is not news to Ron Olin and his wife, who moved here 12 years ago from Texas. According to the new revaluations, the Olins own the highest-assessed home in Buncombe County, a new, 15,449-square-foot French chateau style house in Biltmore Forest valued at just over $6 million.

Olin, a money manager who loves the Asheville area for its scenic beauty, climate and amenities, has no problem paying his fair share of property taxes to support local government. But one point sticks in his craw.

“Once we’re in the house, maybe it’s worth that much, but we haven’t even moved in yet,” Olin said. “They did an interim assessment in 2005, and we know they raised it a lot.”

The assessed value last year was about $4.6 million, but as the home nears completion it becomes more valuable. With amenities including an indoor swimming pool, an elevator, a hot tub, sauna and seven fireplaces, the price tag keeps rising. (Citizen-Times)

It’s because of people like the Olins that this area is soon going to become so expensive that no one can afford to live here unless they’ve got a six-figure income. Maybe not that bad, but it is fairly ridiculous.

Interest rates are yet another thorn in our side. We think enviously of those who bought homes a couple of years ago when the interest rate was not bearing down on seven percent. My brother-in-law took his home loan in Swiss francs, and pays some ridiculously low percentage – under four, I think. At today’s rate of 6.38%, a loan of $130,000 would generate monthly payments of $808.06. At 4.00%, it would be $620.65, with about 40% of that going to the principal.

And so instead of looking at actual single-family homes, we considered a townhouse or condo. What do you actually own in that? If it’s a townhouse, you might own the land directly under your portion of the building, but nothing else. With condos, you jointly own the land, along with everyone else in the same building. At least it was something like that. I can’t quite recall how our realtor explained it. I’m not really interested in the land, I guess, so I didn’t pay much attention. In the end, we decided that all we’d be doing is changing landlords. And so we’re looking for a moderate “fixer-upper.”

One thing we’ve learned quickly is the sometimes-tragic effect of neighbors on property value. We found a very warm, two-bedroom place with hardwood floors and a nice floor plan that was completely ruined by the neighbor’s lack of any sense of responsibility for the appearance of his house. The yard filled with junk; Christmas lights still hanging; a balding lawn – it was awful.

“These people will never get their asking price because of that,” our realtor said. So you lose money because your neighbor’s a complete slob.

We went to the south of the city where we found a rather nice home just about a mile from Biltmore Forest – Ron Olin’s neighborhood. If there’s somewhere in you don’t have to worry about the neighborhood, you’d think it’s the area less than a mile from the most expensive neighborhood in the whole city.

Wrong.

We pulled into the driveway and new immediately that there was no way we’d even consider the house. The view from the back-bedroom window explains it.

We had a shiny black visitor last night. There was a cat wandering around the parking lot when Kinga came home from shopping – for clothes, which is why it wasn't "we" coming home from shopping – and the scrawny little thing followed her right up to the door of our apartment. Then into our apartment.

Fairly obviously not a wild cat.

She was small enough that she looked to be just a still-growing kitten. When I petted her, I was shocked at how thin she was. We decided to give a bit of food: some cheese and turkey. She devoured it, then drank from the dish of water we put down for a good five minutes non-stop.

“What is this cat?”we asked each other. Wild cat? Behavior ruled that out immediately. Homeless? No, too clean, and no odor at all. And yet, if its home is near, we reasoned, why did it drink so much water and eat everything in sight?

We tossed her out when she began scratching around on the carpet as if to make a mess there, then went for a walk to see if she’d follow. She did her business, then followed us a little way, stopping under a car and watching us walk away. When we returned, she was nowhere to be seen.

After a movie and “Telexpress” (a news show from Poland), we started getting ready for bed. For some reason, I was moved to go check if the cat was still around. I opened the door and there she was – walked right on in as if she were at home.

So we wondered what to do. Letting her sleep in the apartment was out of the question, having nothing for her to use as a litter box. We decided to open the storage room off the balcony and put make her a little bed there, with the door closed partially. I put some water in there and made a bed of some towels on a shelf in the storeroom.

Setting her down on the bed, I partially closed the door and darted back into the apartment. She stayed in for some time, but then left, only to return to our balcony door and begin meowing. We let her back in for a moment, then put her back out, this time waiting to see if she went to her little bed on her own. She did – we were elated. Then she left again.

This morning, there’s no sign of her. Still, there’s a can of tuna waiting for her if she shows up again, and a dilemma waiting for us if she shows up regularly and we can’t determine who, if anyone, owns her…