Get The Smell Out Of Here
I went fake house hunting today. I like to do that on Sundays sometimes-go browse the neighborhood for mansions I could never in a million years afford.
The real estate people never really give me the time of day when I show up, but that's ok. I know I don't look like a million dollar home buyer and have permanent renter written all over me. The great thing about not looking like I'm going to buy the house is that agents tend to forget I'm even IN the house. I can stay for hours if I want, absorbing someone else's life.
Going to open houses gives you permission to snoop through a complete stranger's things and make up stories about them which you'd be arrested for on any other occasion.
Most people do a good job sprucing up and removing anything personal before their home is shown. I have a feeling they get some sort of sheet that tells them what to do.
1. remove the photos of you in your scuba gear while on vacation in Bali.
2. make all surfaces clutter-free
3. put the toaster away.
4. take anything that will make you look odd, out of the home.
Things like that.
The real estate person usually lights candles in every room to make the house stop smelling like the people who currently live there, and start smelling like cinnamon. I guess because if you go into a house and it smells like someone else's house, you really can't see yourself living there or paying two million dollars for it. Maybe something psychological happens in your brain that you're not really aware of and don't really think about, but affects you all the same. Hm...This house is really great and all, but it smells an awful lot like the Robertsons.
The candle trick never really works that great because you can smell people through the wax.
Most of the time I can pretty much tell if I'd be friends with the people who currently own the home that I'm snooping through, right off the bat. Today I could tell I would like the couple because even though they did a good job removing most of the personal stuff from view, they missed a few things.
For instance, in the master bedroom, there was all of this gorgeous imported-from- somewhere-expensive furniture and the bed was neatly made with 5 million thread-count sheets and everything was just so. It reminded me of a really expensive hotel.
Except one of the wife's knee highs was sticking out of the dresser which was apparently the place she keeps her knee highs and socks and stuff. I judged her to be about my mother's age because the knee high looked like something my mother might wear. Flesh colored. Just a two-inch stretch of knee-high sticking out letting me know that the inside of the drawer was probably really messy. This made me happy. I could just see it that morning. Sandra running around stuffing pencils and underwear and Electric bills in any drawer she could. Phil scraping dog fur off the sofa.
There were also a few shirt's hanging out of the guy's dresser. It's amazing how a few little pieces of fabric creeping out of things gives you a vivid picture of the people who stuffed them in there---people trying to look neat who are probably pretty normal and not all that fastidious.
It sort of made me want to move in.
The real estate people never really give me the time of day when I show up, but that's ok. I know I don't look like a million dollar home buyer and have permanent renter written all over me. The great thing about not looking like I'm going to buy the house is that agents tend to forget I'm even IN the house. I can stay for hours if I want, absorbing someone else's life.
Going to open houses gives you permission to snoop through a complete stranger's things and make up stories about them which you'd be arrested for on any other occasion.
Most people do a good job sprucing up and removing anything personal before their home is shown. I have a feeling they get some sort of sheet that tells them what to do.
1. remove the photos of you in your scuba gear while on vacation in Bali.
2. make all surfaces clutter-free
3. put the toaster away.
4. take anything that will make you look odd, out of the home.
Things like that.
The real estate person usually lights candles in every room to make the house stop smelling like the people who currently live there, and start smelling like cinnamon. I guess because if you go into a house and it smells like someone else's house, you really can't see yourself living there or paying two million dollars for it. Maybe something psychological happens in your brain that you're not really aware of and don't really think about, but affects you all the same. Hm...This house is really great and all, but it smells an awful lot like the Robertsons.
The candle trick never really works that great because you can smell people through the wax.
Most of the time I can pretty much tell if I'd be friends with the people who currently own the home that I'm snooping through, right off the bat. Today I could tell I would like the couple because even though they did a good job removing most of the personal stuff from view, they missed a few things.
For instance, in the master bedroom, there was all of this gorgeous imported-from- somewhere-expensive furniture and the bed was neatly made with 5 million thread-count sheets and everything was just so. It reminded me of a really expensive hotel.
Except one of the wife's knee highs was sticking out of the dresser which was apparently the place she keeps her knee highs and socks and stuff. I judged her to be about my mother's age because the knee high looked like something my mother might wear. Flesh colored. Just a two-inch stretch of knee-high sticking out letting me know that the inside of the drawer was probably really messy. This made me happy. I could just see it that morning. Sandra running around stuffing pencils and underwear and Electric bills in any drawer she could. Phil scraping dog fur off the sofa.
There were also a few shirt's hanging out of the guy's dresser. It's amazing how a few little pieces of fabric creeping out of things gives you a vivid picture of the people who stuffed them in there---people trying to look neat who are probably pretty normal and not all that fastidious.
It sort of made me want to move in.
posted by Tara Callahan at 9:23 PM
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