Moving Part 3 - Slave to the phone

Getting the house in a pre-show state is not that difficult. You get into a routine. We don't let dishes sit and dry, we hand dry them. We don't wait until later to pick up toys, clean the kitchen, clear off the tables, make the beds. We do all of that as soon as we can. And for the most part this works pretty well. When we get the call (sometimes 12 hours in advance, often 30 minutes) we get the kids ready, swiffer the floors, check the bathrooms, check the litter, clear out the sink and motor away. no problem.
Well, okay some problems.

1. Chicken, as I may have mentioned, is pretty sick and routinely vomits or had diarrhea, often on the carpet, or the wood floors, but most likely a few inches from his litter box just not quite able to make it. So, we are being pretty good about following him with a scrub brush, and keeping extra carpet cleaner, Oust Air Freshener etc.. I still live in fear about coming home to find a big poo in the center of our bedroom and a little note from the no longer buyer. So far it hasn't happened. One time we forgot something, returned, and I found both a vomit and poop but was able to clean it up before the buyers arrived. Hopefully the smell wasn't too bad.
2. Away time. So normally a showing takes an hour, but averaging as we have 2 to 3 showings a day, we frequently find ourselves with two hours or move to kill. Sometimes we get one person at 11-12 and another from 1 to 2. Is it worth coming home, potentially making a mess, and then leaving in time or staying out to 2?
   Sophie and Will normally nap from 1 to 3 or so. So that time is especially hard to be out during. If we have to wake them to get out, it is even worse. The Carolina summer reaches 100 degrees and 90% humidity. So, outdoor fun is limited to short spurts. We've been using some of this time to visit neighborhoods we might want to live in. It is slow and boring for the kids (who are really good for the most part, and listen to their books on tape in the car). And it is pretty frustrating for us too (see part 4).
   The most popular time for showing the house is 6-7pm. This would normally be end of dinner, bath and bedtime for the kids. A little later for bed is no big deal, but the mixed p schedule is getting to them, and us. We ate dinner in our house once in the last seven nights. We are slowly exhausting the variety of foods available in our price range and kid tolerance. We've also probably put on several pounds doing this. Right before a beach vacation! It sucks not being able to schedule your time, especially for food, naps and baths (which are now rushed things much to the kids displeasure, they love bath time). Carly and I are wrecks.
   When we start to head back to our home, we have to call our voicemail to make sure another showing was scheduled in our absence. This had happened more than once resulting in us driving around, usually in the darkening day just killing time. Once a couple went over their allotted time and we basically drove back and forth waiting for them them to drive off. It is getting old fast, Friday (vacation) cannot come fast enough. We did, after showing the house fourteen times, decide we could put a blackout time for naps on our schedule. So now we get a two hour break in the day. That should make it a little less hectic.

So far the feedback has been good. Two offers (lower than we wanted) in one week. Fifteen shows. One return show. All pretty good news. Who knows we might even have a contract before we leave on vacation! Well we'll see about that.