Not Your House, Not Your Problem

We just had our offer accepted on our new home. The price is good largely because the owners’ decorating tastes are… interesting to say the least.

The smaller rooms are all dark colours, making them feel even smaller, yet some of the larger rooms are nearly neon! Many of the rooms are cluttered; oddly no attempt to put up shelves or storage was made.

The strangest room of all is the main bedroom which has a massive hand-painted mural of some Greek island. Even if it is well-painted, it certainly isn’t going to stay, and after a few months and several coats of paint, it is gone.

A few weeks later, I get a knock on the door and open it to find an angry-looking woman.

Woman: “I see you’ve redecorated?!”

Me: “What?”

Woman: “You’ve painted over my mural!”

Me: “Oh, it’s you. Yes, we redecorated.”

Woman: “Can you tell me why?”

I consider telling her it is because it looked awful or because it didn’t suit the room, or that it was none of her business. But I settle on:

Me: “Because it’s our house now.”

Woman: “But that doesn’t—”

I shut the door on her before she could finish her sentence. She hung around ringing the doorbell for a while before finally leaving. Her husband came round a few days later to apologise and explain that she had some dream of an art career that never took off. He apologised again, and thankfully, we never saw either of them again.