The inspection

Most people probably wouldn't blog about the house inspection and what is wrong with the new house they are moving into etc. I guess I'm not one of them.....lol
While I won't disclose the exact price we paid, I will say that it is several tens of thousands of dollars less than it sold for in Feb of this year. The internet is a great thing. I can go to the county and look up what the house sold for over the course of its lifetime. We paid substantially less!

Our inspection took twice as long as Betty's. I'm actually glad about that because it means they really looked hard at it. Three main issues were discovered:
1. The well system.
Our well is a mix of old technology and new technology. Modern well systems consist of a
1. well(duh)
2. A pump to pump water
3. A flow/pressure switch to tun on the pump
4. An accumulator to maintain water pressure
This is how Betty's system is.

Our system is slightly different. It contains all of the above with the addition of a very large, and old, storage tank. Most of the system is new or appears new.
The storage tank, picture a large hot water heater, leaks water out of the top because the pressure relief valve is missing. I think it has been missing of a while. There is a shut-off valve going to the storage tank, but it leaks, hence the leak at the tank. To me though, this is an easy fix. I can either replace the shut off valve or the pressure relief valve and cure the problem.

2. The electrical wiring.
While the majority of the wiring is fine, there are places where a previous owner did some wiring that I just don't understand. I mean, I understand what he did, just not why he did it THAT way. It was like he said, lets do this the worst possible way, it should be fun!!!!
To me, these are all easy fixes. i've done enough electrical stuff that I'm not concerned in the least about being able to fix it.

3. Plumbing.
1.Both toilets in the house drain very, very slowly.
This is minor also, I think, as all but one of the sink drains worked perfectly. The toilets are clogged locally near the toilets. A snake should easily cure that.
2.One sink was clogged. I fixed this after removing what we affectionately call out here, Palmetto bugs.
3. A slight sewer gas odor outside the house. This is the one that concerned me the most.Both of my home inspectors said they were not worried about it and that it was likely related to the slow draining toilettes.

Other than that there were no major issues with the house. The inspectors felt is was in good condition considering the age of the house and that it only needed minor repairs.

Live and learn

We went to our house, and I hesitate to call it that because we don't have the keys yet, and met our neighbors to the north. According to them, our house is not in Pahrump Township, but just in Nye County. We are a mile or so north of the Pahrump township limits. This means, according to Gary our soon to be neighbor, that none of the rules in Pahrump apply to us or our land. Yes there are still county zoning laws and such, but want to build an addition or improve your property? No PERMIT required!!!

The former home owners raised white German Shepherds and boarded horses at our new house. According to Gary, the Shepherds were the meanest dogs you ever met. They were always penned up and only got out by accident. It sounds like they had no socializing at all. Gary said they bit everyone who entered the yard, although that may not have been a bad thing....lol

Pahrump is a small town of 30,000 roughly people. It is also very rural. You can go to the local ACe Hardware and order stuff out of the JC Penny catalog, much like you could out of the old Sear catalog back in the day. One issue this bring up in regards to police/fire/medical emergency is that probably for the first 20-30 mins(or more) of any event, you will be on your own! Many businesses store water on site for the fire department to use in case of a fire. We will have several police officers living within 1 or 2 houses of us, but at an average lot size of over an acre, that can still take precious time to respond. Hence I will be purchasing insurance from Smith & Wesson. Well maybe not them but my baby Glock, along with some other firepower should suffice. The crime rate in Pahrump is very, very low, but none the less I will be prepared.

All of the people I've met so far in Pahrump have been VERY nice and hospitable. Gary offered to come over and help any way he could although he pointed out that he was pretty old and had a bad back.

On a different note, our house was constructed out of blocks made by a local company in Pahrump. They have since gone out of business, but it adds to the history of the place.

We close on May 7th and I can't wait. I already have some minor repairs planned. The house does have some minor plumbing issues that make it non livable right now. I think(hope) they will be fairly easy to fix. We are going to be on a well/septic system wich is totally new to me. Our home inspector asked me if I knew how to operate a well system and I said sure...you walk up, and turn the faucet on!!! He kind of chuckled and went on to explain all of the components and how they worked.
Our home inspectors, Sunrise Inspections, were great! VERY friendly and informative. I know we bugged the hell out of them. I finally had to call Karen outside so they could actually do the inspection.

Betty's house inspection was perfunctory. The house was built in 2006 and it showed. It still smelled new. There were some minor issues with the grading in a few areas near the foundation, but that was all.

Our house, on the other hand, built in 1983, had a 2 page list of issues. Most were minor. This door didn't close right, that tile was cracked. Stuff we already knew from looking at the house the first time. I was concerned about the stuff that I didn't know about.

We came, we saw

and now we are leaving. Almost 2 years to the day, minus about 1 month hopefully, we will be leaving Las Vegas for more rustic environs. We will soon be the owners of over 1 acre of prime Pahrump realty. Well it will be an acre and it will be in Pahrump. Not to sure about the prime part.....lol. But it will be ours, and the banks.

An acre is more land than I know what to do with. I've never even owned a yard before.

Yup, one acre of prime Nevada dirt! It's all ours! Here you can see the tiny spec that is our 1600sqft house. At least it is not 2,600 miles away.

The view, with some strategic planting of shrubs, will be awesome!


Here is Karen's garage.



Here is my garage.


This is the front patio surrounded by a brick wall.


This is one of the trees in the patio area. It needs some trimming and TLC.


One of the side entrances to the patio.


The front of the house.

The house does need work, but what house doesn't? We are trying to think of a nome for the property, my dad suggested "Money Pit".

My kind of town.

Today we traveled out to the China Date Ranch in California. We drove through Pahrump to get there. Of course we stopped by our(hopefully) new house also!
While driving down 160, the main road in Pahrump, we saw a guy standing on the side of the road with an American flag, a poster of the U.S. Constitution, and a six shooter on his hip! Although all of Nevada is an "open carry" state, meaning that you do not need a permit to carry a pistol so long as it is not concealed, you would never see that in Las Vegas!!!This is my kind of town!! Next time I go out there I will try to get a photograph of him. Once I move to Paahrump, I just may join him once in a while with my baby Glock, to exercise my rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the State of Nevada. it should be fun!!!! This weekend I will post about our trip to the China Date Ranch.

We have submitted an offer on the house and are waiting to hear a response from the bank that owns it. When a realtor shows a property, they leave a business card on the kitchen counter to show that they were there. As of today there were only two cards there and one of them was from our realtor!

The Caughey compound

...hopefully.

Built in 1983. This house has more character than you can shake a stick at. There is a story behind every brick. Not all of them good.


Their loss, my gain? Maybe so, but I don't like to operate that way. Then again, someone was going to get this property, why not us???

The couple that lost this(their) house to foreclosure still live in town. I could have lived without knowing that. But you must take hold of opportunities that present themselves.

This house is an opportunity.

While not the nicest, or newest home we looked at, it was the one that made both of us stop and think about the possibilities. Not so much what it was, although nice in its own right, but what it could be!

Oregon

House