Sunday’s Chores around the House

Staining the Deck

Well this hadn’t been done in a few years and it was in desperate need of staining. I scraped the porch and found stain left over from when we stained the house. It took only about 2 hours and it wasn’t all that bad.

Trimming the Forsythia Shrubs

I took out my Ipod and listened to Government Mule as our Forsythia shrubs have finally finished blooming and all the flowers have fallen off. This was a good day to trim them back so they will come in nice and full next year.

Picking Lilacs

Then when I finished the Forsythia shrubs I went out back and clipped a bunch of Lilacs to put on the Kitchen counter. They sure do smell good this time of year.

After the lilacs finish blooming then I will trim them back so they will be nice and full again next spring.

Last year they were about 10-12 feet tall as I had to use a ladder to trim them back. Somehow we didn’t have as many this year as we have in the past.

Stained Front Door

We have a real nice wooden front door which needed polyurethane coated on it. I ended up putting 2 coats on and it looks great I guess I should do this once a year and not wait so long between coats.

Taking cell phone calls while with clients/customers

I often find it amazing when I see agents walking around with clients/customers in the middle of demonstrating a home stop and answer their cell phone. Do they say excuse me? No, not these agents.

I know there are many reasons why we need to answer our phone. It could be we need to take a call from another agent we are meeting later on or we are waiting for more information about a house we are showing with these clients.

What about the agent that is sitting in the conference room writing a contract and stops to chit chat with a buddy. Is this rude or what? I see it all the time and I wonder what the clients are thinking.

A couple of weeks ago I had to meet an agent at a property he was showing in order to drop off an escrow check on a sale we put together. I pulled up in front of the house and waited for him to come out.

He exits the house on his cell phone which cracked me up and I get out of my car to hand him the check. He is still talking and talking to me at the same time. I just chuckled inside.

I am thinking where are his buyers? Out of the corner of my eye I notice the listing agent walking from the back yard with her phone in her ear. Where are the buyers? At least five minutes go by and both agents are still on their phones and then finally the buyers come walking out of the house.

Both agents say they have to run to whoever they were talking to and then they say goodbye. Everyone mingles in the middle of the street and off we all go.

I guess I might be “old school” but then again I wonder how the buyers felt being left alone to wander on their own while the agents are chit chatting. I guess I wouldn’t mind being left alone to talk to my wife about the property but if my agent was taking phone calls that had nothing to do with us, that would bother me.

I feel if you are going to take a phone calls then that phone call should be about the clients/customer, not about what tee time you have to make tomorrow or about your girlfriend taking little Johhny to the dentist.

If it’s an emergency from home that is understandable and please keep your phone on silent. It’s all about the client/customer not you.

Muffler Repair Get Second Opinion

I have a 2001 Saab 9-5 Wagon with a little over 100,000 miles. Seems to run just fine as I change the oil regularly at 3-5,000 miles faithfully. My wife Monika took the car to Concord, NH a couple of months ago to a meeting and when she just about got there she could here some scraping noise and when she got out of the car she could see there was a problem. She asked for some help and a few guys said that there was metal hanging from under the car near the muffler.

So, when Monika was leaving a REALTOR meeting in Concord she stopped off at a garage and they told her she needed a new muffler and that the heat shields were rusted. They told her the muffler was so loose that it was ready to fall off at any moment. When Monika got home I noticed it was loose but it wasn’t all that bad. I called my mechanic and he said a new muffler would cost around $850.00 to install and he would order one and call me when it came in. I still have not heard from him.

We are headed to Washington D.C. for our annual REALTOR conference the second week of May. So, after much prodding and insisting I finally took Monika’s advice to get a second opinion and I called Meineke Car Care Center in Plaistow, NH. I had them change the oil and asked them to give me a price for a new muffler. They took me in at 10:00 this morning and by 10:40 I was on my way home.

Ernie checked me in and as he returned from the shop and mentioned I didn’t need a muffler as it was just fine and not leaking and it only needed to be anchored as it was a little loose. It is stainless steel and does not rust. The heat shield’s were rusted but not falling off. He welded the piece to the frame that was loose and changed the oil and I was all set to go. It cost me $20.00 to get the welding done.

It pays to listen to your wife and get a second opinion. I am pissed at the garage in Concord as they were definitely trying to take advantage of a women woman.