Jerks and Puppies =)

Well well...I definitely knew October would be an exciting month, but I guess I couldn't have predicted all the reasons why!  Items we already had on the docket:
1) A wedding in Vegas
2) My girlfriend, Caroline, coming to visit
3) Moving into our new home

Sounds exciting, right??  I sure thought so!

I already knew I would have a lot to write about, but now all that is taking back seat to the latest influences in the Felice Household...Jerks and Puppies.

Yes - you read correctly.  I have realized there are some seriously huge jerks out there and they  have definitely made an impression on this happy newly-wed couple.  But they also lead to puppies.  Don't see the correlation?  You will, after I explain.

Jerks - I guess some people never out-grow it.
Honestly, since I entered my "mid-to-late" 20's I didn't really think that jerks would affect me anymore.  I mean...I haven't really had to deal with any jerks pretty much since high school (with the exception of your occasional work-jerk).  I figured when you grow up, you either outgrow being a jerk or you are just old enough to avoid them altogether.  Well I was wrong.

Allow me to explain - let's rewind to early September:
Marc and I signed a lease for a super cute, 1930's Craftsman-Bungalow style home, and we were PUMPED about it!  Roughly 2500 square feet and absolutely darling with a cute, traditional fireplace, front porch and fenced in yard...we were in heaven.  Plus it has a man-cave where all of Marc's "Steelers" stuff can go.  The fenced in yard was an especially large plus, since we have been hoping to get a puppy within the year.  Not anytime soon - probably summer 2011 at the earliest - but we were excited none the less.

How cute!  Our new home...soon...

Note the yellow linoleum with blue flowers.  Nothing like a little "charm" - circa 1972 =)

Dining / Living room.  See the adorable fireplace and chandelier?

View from our front yard.  Yep - there's a park and basketball courts and a garden!  Seriously - I love this house!

 

Sure, it came with some "old house" character, like yellow linoleum floors in the kitchen and a pink, seashell-shaped sink in the bathroom, but overall, it was perfect for us.  We could not wait to move in...but only after the house was cleaned and the previous tenant had moved out.

This sounds normal to most people.  Usually when you rent a house, the previous tenant moves out and the house is cleaned before you move in.  In order to keep this story simple, I will just say that this was an incredibly lengthy process.  The person who had lived here before us basically trashed the place...like...hoarder-style.  I'm talking food smeared on the kitchen cabinets and blind cats doing their business wherever they wanted.

It was quite disgusting, but like most things, with a little elbow grease and some patience, the house was finally clean and ready for us.  Marc and I got our keys about a week ago and we were excited to see the house was cleaned, freshly painted, and ready for the Felice's to move in.

Now, let's fast-forward to last weekend:
Marc and I had strategically planned some overlap between new house move-in and apartment move-out.  The plan was for us to move all the small things ourselves and have movers get the furniture.  We'd done this before and found it to be the best process with the least amount of hassle.

So last Saturday, we made amazing strides in the move-out process.  We packed up a lot of miscellaneous stuff on Saturday (books, skis, extra clothes, china, etc.) and put everything in the basement.  The plan was to pack up the kitchen/laundry room on Sunday along with some bathroom stuff.

Sunday:  Jerk-Face Strikes!
I'm not gonna lie...we were both a little hungover from our post-OU/Mizzou game party...so we were in no rush.  I made some breakfast, organized a little and decided to head out for a Target run while Marc watched football (I don't watch the NFL).  When I got back, we were going to start packing the aforementioned items and bring them to the house.

This Target-run was pretty typical.  I had some coupons, browsed some stuff I didn't need, and then just made my necessary purchases.  I wanted to stock the new house with paper-towels and toilet paper.  I also bought a Shark Steamer since most of the new house in hardwoods and I wanted to steam clean my floors...I've been wanting one of these bad boys for a while so I took the opportunity to get one =)


I would have normally gone straight home, but I decided to swing by the new house and just drop everything off.  Thank goodness I did. 

Floods
I opened the front door and immediately panicked.  There was a HUGE puddle of water in the living/dining room and I heard running water.  WTF?!  Did a pipe burst?  I did a quick mental check to see if I remembered turning something on or off in the house before we locked it up the day before.  Couldn't think of anything.  I immediately shut the door and ran around to the back.  I don't know why, I just thought that's where I should go.

That's when I saw it.  Someone, some JERK-FACE, had broken our kitchen window with a garden hose, stuck the hose inside, and turned the sucker on, full-blast.

I should have taken pictures of all this, but I didn't.

I immediately pulled the hose out, turned the water off and called Marc.

Resolution? 
I'm sure you can imagine, there are a ton more details I can go into about what happened next...but the gist of the whole thing is that our move-in date has been pushed out just a teensie bit.  What's happening next is that Marc and I will have movers put our stuff in storage and live in a hotel for a few weeks until the house is ready.  They found aspestos, so the whole "repair" process is going to take a lot longer than they originally thought.

Hole in the kitchen window caused by the hose.

The HVAC pipe filled with water and fell.  You can also see a hole in the ceiling caused by the water damage.

Heavy-duty de-humidifiers and vacuum thingies to suck the water out of the wood floors.

What about the "Puppies" part of the heading?
Ah yes - the silver lining.  There are actually a few silver linings in this situation.  The first is that we're getting new floors in the whole house.  Trust me, if you had seen the old floors, you would know why this is like...not even silver...it's like platinum lining.

The next silver lining is that as a result of this whole thing, Marc and I have decided to push up our puppy purchase!  Originally, we weren't really going

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to think about getting a dog until the spring - maybe even the summer.  But with the recent happenings, combined with the fact that Marc travels a lot, I would just feel a lot safer with a companion now.

So there you have it!  The puppy-shopping has begun for the Felice Family!  I'll provide some more details on the puppy search in later posts...but for now I just wanted to let everyone know what the dilly was with the new house.

Oh - just for the sake of sharing - the police said the flood culprit could be one of two situations:
1)  Teenagers engaging in October/Halloween-related pranks.  
Considering the area we're moving into, though (it's pretty expensive and swanky) the officer said this is likely not the case.  Either way, this is more reason for me to hate teenagers.
2)  Previous tenant, or someone related to them, is pissed at the home-owner. 
Officer said this is likely the reason this happened and that stuff like this is pretty typical.  She said there's practically zero chance this was aimed at us - it's likely aimed at the landlord/homeowner.

So for now, we're just going to try to make the best of this shotty situation and focus on our new puppy search.  Wish us luck!  Stupid Halloween.