Buyer Tour du Jour: San Francisco hills, Ghost Hunters night vision foreclosure, and a family we'll see on Intervention or Obsessed

House #1, Mt. Airy, Condo: Great style but super small, instant veto. I got to drive through Chestnut Hill on the way and I must say, I haven't been there since I was a kid and taking a look through adult eyes I see the appeal. As a matter of fact, I liked it so much that I'm adding it to the list of places I'd like to move to myself. Right below Doe Run but above Wallingford-Swarthmore. (No. There are no commonalities between the three, I'm just all over the place.)

Houses #2-5, Roxborough
#2- We arrive and the sellers greet us at the door. This is such a Gilbert Grape house. As in, a family with a very high level of dysfunction, so high a level in fact that the home has fallen into utter neglect right beneath their noses, seemingly unnoticed by the residents. They were kind enough to clear a walkway through their hoarder cattle-chutes, and the piles we were seeing were AFTER the UHaul had come. I'd venture to say things had been even worse before the truck got packed up. Someone had been smoking with all the windows shut for years. Delish. The appointment was scheduled for a 30 minute time slot. We lasted 30 seconds. See ya!

#3- Josephine and Harold Elderpeople had a lovely row home where time had stood still through many decorating trends. Interestingly enough, they had a glittery disco-ball style switchplate in the dining room, right next to the obligatory Last Supper painting hanging above the sideboard. Bert & Ernie twin beds pushed next to one another in the master, Mr. Elderpeople's pajamas laid out for the night. Crocheted tissue box covers. Lovin it. What? Why yes there was powder blue tile in the bathroom. How did you know?

#4- Do you smell the rice-a-roni? Because according to these hills, this is the San Fran section of Roxborough. Country bumpkin, distance-running Sarah deduces the next showing is "right around the corner" because I have no concept of how many feet are in an hour of walking and my Blackberry map makes it look super close. So with three dogs in tow, we go up and down, up and down, the neighborhood changing dramatically with each peak and valley. Thankfully after all the exertion this house gets the highest rating of the night, a 6 out of 10. No grass in the backyard but a nice first floor. The neighbor sends us the stink eye, but we kinda deserved it. If you're walking down Pechin Street in the Rox and you have three dogs with you and a Nalgene water bottle, and those dogs need a drink, here's what you don't do, apparently:
a) you don't dip the bottle into the neighbor's (above ground) pool (in their front yard) because they'll think you're tampering with their (chlorinated) water.
b) do not, I repeat, do NOT ask the blonde at Rich's water ice to fill the Nalgene bottle with tap water. It will just confuse her. They have tap water policies at Rich's Water Ice.

.........Creamsicle flavored water ice break........more walking..........

#5- We're now almost an hour late for this appointment due to the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk I just led us on, but the property is vacant so I have the agent's okay to show whenever. Well. It wouldn't have killed him to mention utilities are not running. We enter this amazing old building through the 'gorilla cage' of a front porch, after some lengthy admiration of the grapevines growing there, to discover we'll be touring this home by the light of our cell phones. It's pitch black outside, and pitch blacker inside. It looks like we're filming an episode of Ghost Hunters. I keep expecting a ghost or squatter or for some reason a menacing pirate (?) to step out of the shadows and into the greenish light cast by my Blackberry. While I'm busy admiring the backyard with buyer 1, buyer 2 shines his light upwards and voila-- we realize the kitchen ceiling is falling in and there is mold EVERYwhere. Buyers 1 & 2 freak out and rush to leave; I in turn freak out because I'm terrified of the dark and have been left to fend for myself against the squatters/ghosts/pirates. It totally sucks. If it weren't for the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work this place needs to be livable, it coulda been the one.

In conclusion, no winners tonight but progress comes from the misses as much as the hits. I'm starting to question my personal life as I found this to be one of the most enjoyable Friday nights I've had in a long time. Anyone free next week?