I’m moving to a small, mostly tourist city from the neighboring bigger one for work/back to school for a professional degree, so house/apartment hunting, as they are mostly suburban and where I lived before had a highway and train tracks.

Because I had an old Jeep with usually no roof and was going to be working and studying all the time for a few years, I had two absolute housing conditions:

1: That it was quiet, no shared walls or loud environments.

2: It needed a garage to store and maintain the Jeep, as paying a shop would not be viable.

An agent calls me, and she says:

Agent: “Okay, I see the house you inquired about, and it was just rented, but I have a list of places that may be suitable.”

Me: “Okay, sure, send me the first address where I should meet you.”

Agent: “Okay, I will send you the office location; we can go from there.”

Me: “Yeah, I guess that works.”

I get there, and she is outside by an older little sedan.

Agent: “Hi, great, let’s hop in and let’s go!”

Me: “Um, okay.”

Agent: “So this first place is great for young people!”

We get to the house, and there is a tourist-themed bar next door with music blasting at 11 AM.

Me: “No, way too loud.”

We don’t even get out of the car.

Agent: “This next one is more out of the way.”

We pull up and have to wait for a train crossing.

Me: “Trains, why did it have to be trains. Nope! Let’s go!”

I like trains, but after horns going off and a ten-minute blast at 12 AM every night at the switchyard, never again.

So, onto the last place, she pulls into a one-way street the wrong way and almost hits a big diesel-lifted pickup that would have squished us like a bug if she didn’t turn hard, bouncing right over the curb and onto the sidewalk.

Agent: “Oopsy! Uh, look, it ends well; we made it! Look, this is the next apartment, very affordable! See!”

It’s an old, what I learned later, section eight complex, with only street parking, as the sign we almost hit says.

Me: “Quiet, with no shared walls and needs a garage. Do any of the places on your list meet that?”

Agent: “Um, let me take you back to your car.”

Silence all the way back.

Agent: “Is it safe to assume you won’t be renting through me?”

I give her a look, and she just says:

Agent: “I’m sorry, hope you find a place.”

I did find a house the next week and stayed four years until that management changed.

We are in the middle of trying to sell our house, and we have had multiple prospective buyers come by. We aren’t living in the house anymore, but we do keep going back to fix up whatever the feedback on the house is.

We get feedback from a few buyers, all to the tune of the same thing:

Feedback: “The fan switch in the master bedroom doesn’t work.”

It was working the day we finished moving out, so we went over there, and I started disassembling.

Nothing appears to be wrong with the wiring in the smart switch. Then I get to thinking:

Me: “It couldn’t be that simple; there is no way multiple people tried this without thinking of the simplest possible solution.”

I walk over to the fan and pull the fan cord. It instantly comes on and starts spinning.

I work at a real estate office. The street-side windows of our office show off a lot of the housing deals in the area, including the listing price. Some older guy has been standing outside for a while. At first, he was glaring at the listings, but then he started glaring inside at us.

We try to ignore it at first, but when he starts making actual clients uncomfortable as they walk in, we send out the boss to talk to him. The boss stands by the doorway so we can overhear the conversation.

Boss: “Can I help you, sir?”

Guy: “Yeah! You can tell me why all these homes are half a million f****** dollars!”

Boss: “They reflect current market rates, sir, but we do have some homes that are cheaper. Were you interested in—”

Guy: “—F*** no! My son kept telling me he couldn’t afford a house like I did at his age, and he told me the prices! I didn’t believe him, so he told me to walk past here and take a look! I can’t believe you people! How can you sleep at night charging so much?!”

Boss: “As I said, sir, these prices reflect the current housing market. They’re influenced by a lot of factors, such as inflation, supply—”

Guy: “—It’s because you’re f****** selling to all the immigrants! [Non-current president] let millions of illegals in here and let them take up all the houses! Houses that should have gone to my American son!”

Boss: “Sir, if a buyer is approved for a mortgage, then it’s not for us to discriminate based on where they came from, but I can tell you right now that if they’re not an American citizen but have been approved for a mortgage from an American bank, then they are definitely here legally.”

Guy: “You people and illegals are the reason why the country is so f***ed! My son can barely afford groceries because the government is giving all the money to these illegal freeloaders to feed their f****** birthright citizen babies!”

Boss: “Sir, if the government has to step in to support these people, how are they also able to buy up all the half-a-million-dollar houses?”

Guy: “Because you won’t sell to real Americans! F*** all of you!”

Boss: “Sir, engaging as this conversation has been, I need to ask you to move along now.”

Guy: “I ain’t going nowhere until you sell my son a house!”

Boss: “Sir, please leave now, or I will be calling the police.”

Guy: “Do that and I’ll call ICE and have them come down here and deport your a**!”

Boss: “You call your people, I’ll call mine. I’ll be going inside to dial 911 now.”

By the time my boss has made it to his desk, the guy has stormed away. Thankfully, he hasn’t come back, but my boss called the police anyway, who came by to look at the camera footage and make a note of the incident.

I really feel sorry for that son and hope he can move out soon!

My coworker, a realtor like me, has uploaded photos of a house he’s got on the market. He took the pictures himself, with the permission of the homeowner, and he’s quite proud of the listing.

The homeowner calls him:

Homeowner: “So, I saw my house listing.”

Coworker: “I put it up this morning. Hopefully, we get some interest in the coming weeks.”

Homeowner: “Yes, sure. Anyway, about the photos.”

Coworker: “Are they okay? I took them myself and—”

Homeowner: “—The photos are great! Good lighting. It’s just…”

Coworker: “I remember you asked me to make the place look lived-in. I got all the furniture, and the cat kept photo bombing me, so I included a few of those too.”

Homeowner: “Yes, it all looks lovely. But… I don’t have a cat.”

Coworker: “You… don’t have a cat?”

Homeowner: “Nope. No pets at all, cats included.”

Coworker: “So… then… whose cat was that?”

Homeowner: “I was hoping you could tell me.”

Coworker: “The cat was in the house when I got there.”

Homeowner: “I’m never home in the day, so the little bugg*r is probably gone by the time I get home.”

Coworker: “…I don’t know what to say.”

Homeowner: “Keep the photos up! They’re great! The cat adds character. Anyhoo, I’m going to go buy a camera system now…”

A week or so later, the mystery was solved.

The neighbor’s cat would climb a tree in their garden, which had a branch that got close to the homeowner’s roof. The cat would get on the roof, jump down through a skylight, navigate a bookshelf, and just… chill throughout the day. The cat would, like clockwork, leave around 3 PM, leaving no evidence, at least, not until my coworker let himself in during the middle of the day and gave the cat a photoshoot…

A realtor is showing me around an old house.

Realtor: “And the signal here is real good. The wifi can go out for miles.”

Me: *Stopping, and looking at him.* “Wifi… for miles?”

Realtor: “Yeah, it’s that good!”

Me: “Wifi… installed via a wire in this house… can spread out for miles?”

Realtor: *Enthusiastic.* “Yup!”

Me: “I… don’t think you know what wifi is.”

Realtor: “Sure, I do! It’s the Facebook and the YouTube!”

I did not go with that real estate company after that house…