Just to be upfront…a lot has transpired in the past week, so this will probably be a pretty lengthy post. You have been warned :)
I’ll back up to last Friday. Travis and I met with Amy at Regions to sign paperwork…lots and lots of paperwork! Good thing I have to sign my name 50 million times a day at work, or it probably wouldn’t come so naturally. She explained all of the stuff about our upcoming loan to us, which made me excited and nervous at the same time. Closing day is less than a month away. So we leave the bank, eat a quick supper at Rosie’s (yum!), and then head to the mall for some Christmas shopping. In honor of my parents taking my sister and me Angel Tree shopping several times when we were growing up, I wanted us to do the same thing this year. I let Travis pick out our “angel”, and he chose a little 10 year old boy named Ramzie. Now get this…what made this little boy special, apparently, was the fact that he listed a “science kit” as one of the items on his wish list. Haha :) So, off we went in search of a science kit. We finally found a “cool” one at a toy store (I think Travis was reliving his childhood a little!). We also bought Ramzie a card game from another toy store and a new pair of jeans and a sweater. I hope he’ll enjoy everything!
Saturday morning was the big inspection on our house. We met the inspector there at 9 AM, and we were there until almost 11:30! He’d set up a radon test last Wednesday in the house (which takes at least 48 hours to complete). Steve, the inspector, walked us through the house inside and out and showed us all sorts of things we didn’t know. Overall, we learned a lot, and the house was in pretty good shape according to him. He found a couple of safety issues that can easily be fixed (by the sellers before closing), and a few other minor issues that the sellers would hopefully fix as well. If anyone needs a recommendation for a home inspector, let me know because he was great! Darlene, our realtor, took our picture in front of the house before we left Saturday morning.
Yipee!
So, we left the house feeling pretty good about everything. Steve said he would download the results from the radon test and send us an email with his inspection report later that afternoon. We went home and got ready to head to Montevallo for Alan and Katie’s wedding. Andrew came over and rode with us down there. The wedding was beautiful, and we had a lot of fun! Katie looked gorgeous, not surprisingly, and they both seemed really happy. It was great to see a lot of people from Tuscaloosa that we hadn’t seen since May as well!
Alisha and me at the wedding!
Bad news, however, arrived in the form of an email just about the time we got seated for the ceremony. Steve sent us the results from the radon test, and the house tested really high with radon. Really high. According to the EPA, if your house tests higher than 4 pCi/L, you need to have a mitigation system put in. Well, our house averaged 20 pCi/L!
Some of you may not have ever heard of radon. I hadn’t until earlier this year. If you go to the EPA’s website, you can learn more about it. Basically, it’s a gas that you can’t see, smell, or taste that is formed from decaying uranium in soil. It can get into your house from cracks in the foundation or even through the water supply, and if it builds up to high levels, it can cause cancer. It is the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer (behind cigarette smoking), and the EPA estimates that almost 1 in 15 homes in the U.S. have high levels of radon. Check out this map to see which parts of the country have the highest radon levels (red = the worst).
Anyway, my first thought (since we know someone personally who lived in this area, never smoked, got lung cancer and died in his 40s) was to say “Let’s walk”. Because we can technically get out of the contract, since radon is considered a safety issue. But, what’s to say that the next house we found that we liked wouldn’t have the same problem? All of north Alabama is in the red on the map. Plus, we’ve also learned that just because your house tests low or high for it at one point, that doesn’t mean that the next test will have the same result. The results depend on the weather and the pressure in the atmosphere at the time. So, what if we found another house we liked, got it tested and the results came back ok? Who really knows if the results would be the same time if it was tested a month later? Here’s the kicker: the people who own the house now say that they had it tested back in 2007 when they bought it, and the results were fine. Now they’re 20??
Basically, the only way to assure yourself that the radon levels in your house are within the acceptable limit is to have a radon mitigation system put in. We got a couple of quotes from different companies in the area, and they cost between $1000 to $2000 to put in. Of course, if we decide to stay with this house, we’ll have the sellers pay to put a system in.
Right now, the house is being re-tested for radon by a different person. The sellers offered to pay for it just to double-check that the first results were accurate. This test should be finished tomorrow, so we’ll hopefully know by tomorrow night what the new results are. I’ll keep you posted, of course!
Moving on, it has been freezing cold around here lately! I feel like we are living in Antarctica, not Alabama! Travis actually got to leave work around lunchtime today because of the sleet/freezing rain in the area. It was so nice having him home during the day…brought back memories of our college days when we’d actually see each other at other times than just at night.
Work has been crazy this week. A lot of out-of-the-ordinary stuff happened to my patients, which translated into me feeling like a pretty awful nurse. Most of it I guess wasn’t really my fault, but it was still frustrating. I wish everything went smoothly all of the time, but some things are just out of my control. Anyway, I had a breakdown yesterday after everything happened. Luckily, Mom answered her phone and helped calm me down and remind me that I’m a good nurse and stuff like that just happens sometimes. I have the best Mom :)
If you’re still reading at this point, I’m proud of you! I figured this one would be a little long-winded :)
Hope you are staying warm and dry this week! Aren’t you thankful for a warm place to sleep at night? I know I am!
