One of the challenging parts of being an academic scientist is having to move every several years at the beginning of one's career. The Isises have lived in 4 different states in different regions of the country in the last 8 years.
We've owned two homes and we seem to be cursed. You see, when most people buy a home they meet the former owners, the former owners take the money, hand over the keys, and offer a hearty "peace out bitches." Then they move far, far away and you get to claim your new home.
Unless you're the Isises. But really, no one tells the story better than Mr. Isis, so I've invited him to tell the story it. Mr. Isis writes:
So, I'm mowing the lawn, three weeks after we bought our first palatial estate. I like to mow the lawn. It's a sweaty, visceral work that, you know, feels like work. Manly work. Plus, I can put on my headphones and belt out Sweet Child of Mine and no one can hear me over the mower. Anyway, I digress. So, I'm mowing our lawn, our beautiful green lawn. That is now totally ours, and the bank's. And I'm feeling awesome. And I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I pause The Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden" (Guns 'n' Roses was done) and look up to see the previous owner of our new house strolling across the lawn. Weird, I think. Didn't they move to a town, like, three hours away? So I stops my mower and I says to him, I says, "Steve, what a surprise. What's up? How are you?"Over the next several years we owned that home we ran into the previous owner with frightening regularity. Our neighbors continued to refer to our house as "Steve and That Tramp's Place." The previous owner's child and dog spent an unusual amount of time in our yard."Not too good, actually," he tells me. "Three days after we [he and his wife] moved, I found an email open on her computer and found out she was having an affair. So, um, I'm back in town with [his three-year old daughter]. Anyway, I found some old instruction manuals for the appliances and an extra garage door opener, and figured you'd want them. Here."
Not entirely sure what to say at this point ("Get the hell off of my property; you're bringing me down and harshing my mellow" seemed inappropriate.), I mumbled, "God, that's terrible. I'm really sorry to hear that, Steve."
He continued to stare wistfully at the house for a few moments, and we talked about how he and his brother built the back deck and patio area, doing all the stone border work around the house themselves. Him thinking, "Why did I ever sell this house?" and me thinking "Why won't you stop ruining my wonderful house with your Toby-esque sadness?" Eventually, we exchanged goodbyes, and he trudged back over to our neighbor's house, where it turned out he was staying with his large dog and his daughter. It was an extended stay, as they got back on their feet, and every few days the dog or the daughter would wonder over to our back door and stand, puzzled, wondering why they couldn't come inside. Most...awkward...thing...ever. The next day, we had our deacon over to bless the house and get the bad juju out.
I thought when we bought our new home that we had moved beyond this...that we would be buying a home we could finally redefine as ours. Closing day came, we flew out to "seal the deal," and promptly learned that the previous owners were moving all the way down the street. Clearly we were improving. The owner of our last house moved next door and these guys were at least giving us a block's clearance.
Today the previous owner of our current home's daughter came over to play on "her swingset," and tell Mr. Isis the story of how her dad had assembled it, and I'm cranky about the entire situation. I realize that very young children don't really have the capacity to understand the concept of transfer of ownership, but they also don't understand why you painted their pink bedroom. Telling a little girl you painted over the unicorns her mommy painted on the wall for her (because she can see into her old bedroom window from across the street) seems to elicit the same response as telling her you just shot her puppy.
I think that God is totally pranking Dr. Isis.
Education & Careers
Comments
LOLZ!
This kind o' thing never happens to us Air Force Brats! Of course, military parents still have to restore the walls to their bland military-issue shade of white, come post reassignment . . .
P.S. That's some startling Photoshop, there. It's almost absurdly poignant.
Posted by: Juniper Shoemaker | March 19, 2009 4:21 AM
Very bizarre. The previous owner of my place is a 40-year-old Italian guy who flipped it and then lived in it for a year. He's a pretty nice guy, and I speak to him somewhat regularly to ask about certain house features (what's up with the thermostat, what wood stain do you use for the back porch, etc). He doesn't really care if we repaint, although he has continually criticized us for the color of our accent wall in the bathroom, which he refers to as 'engorged labia'.
Posted by: Candid Engineer | March 19, 2009 7:42 AM
That is kind of freaky - especially that it happened more than once. It would creep me out to constantly have random children in my yard!
Posted by: MCH | March 19, 2009 8:14 AM
Yeah I heard that Ashton Kutcher had teamed up for some Spiritual Punk'd. Consider yourselves pwned I guess.
I like this Mr Isis guy even more now.
Posted by: Nat | March 19, 2009 8:28 AM
Creepy.... if you move again maybe you should casually ask where the previous owners are moving.... and how old their kids are
Posted by: Brittni | March 19, 2009 9:18 AM
I feel your pain, Dr. Isis. We moved into a new house in December, and then ran into the previous owners at the neighborhood New Year's Eve party. Next time we see him hanging around the 'hood I plan to ask him if they feel guilty for selling us a house with a broken washing machine. That should be fabulously awkward.
Posted by: hgen9804 | March 19, 2009 9:47 AM
We buy ours from dead people so we don't have this problem. I'll take the ghost over the confused pet/child, thanks.
Posted by: DrugMonkey | March 19, 2009 9:54 AM
Ugh, that's awkward.
Could you maybe paint the exterior, so it looks so distinctly different they can't identify with it any more?
Failing that... concertina wire?
Posted by: sandy | March 19, 2009 10:06 AM
You've got interesting house karma.
Posted by: Lilian Nattel | March 19, 2009 11:03 AM
Well, we don't have this exact problem, but a similar one. We carved an acre lot off of the back of my mother-in-law's property (all joy for me, let me tell you) on which to put our brand-new, built-just-for-us home. The land that my M-I-L owned, on the other hand, belong to the matriarch of an old, large, local family who had recently passed on. She was the first non-relative to own the property, and all the various generations had carved off slices of property for themselves over the years, so we were surrounded on all sides by these people.
SO, first we learned that they all hated each other. Then we discovered that 2/3 were bugnuts crazy. One stole the gates of the pasture land attached to the property. Another dragged logs to block construction equipment for our house because one of the others told him we were planning on blocking his right-of-way to the main road (that we would be using as well) with our house.
Things have calmed somewhat, over the years, but we still have some weird issues (Hi. Please turn off your connection to our well. Thanks.).
Posted by: Ranson | March 19, 2009 11:09 AM
Oh, that's so creepy! And yet, hysterical! Maybe you'll luck out soon (if you choose to move again), and the former owners will be required to DRIVE to get to your house and bother you. Have you considered putting up a fence, or setting up booby traps?
I moved when I was younger, and my parents never quite got over what the new owners did to their old house. At least they never stopped by to bother the new residents....I think. :)
Posted by: Katie 2.0 | March 19, 2009 12:22 PM
that is just some fucked up shit.
Posted by: ScientistMother | March 19, 2009 12:41 PM
Both creepy and funny all at the same time and for quite a few paragraphs... the perfect lead-in to a Twilight Zone episode. Well told, Mr. Isis, and I loved, "harshing my mellow".
Posted by: scribbler50 | March 19, 2009 12:50 PM
I'm not a homeowner, but I might be someday. If something like that happens, I might have to wire a Tesla coil to the doorbell. Or give the lawn gnomes mechanical spider legs and laser eyes!
This is not unreasonable, because if I had a house, I assure you, Toaster would tinker and actually have the space for cool tools (arc welding!) that could only get me in trouble.
Posted by: Toaster | March 19, 2009 3:16 PM
The previous owner of our house was moving overseas so we thought we were pretty safe. Until we turned up on the Saturday to move in and discovered he hadn't got round to moving out. We spent most of the day dragging his stuff around (nice guy, just super disorganised. No idea if he ever caught his plane).
Still, it could have been worse, my PhD supervisor bought her house from a fellow academic (a single male near- retirement scientist) who sold her the house but then stayed for several years as a "flatmate" until she eventually managed to persuade him he really did need a new one.
Posted by: anon | March 19, 2009 4:21 PM
You ought to let that Mr. Isis guy post more often, he's hi-larious!
Posted by: BikeMonkey | March 20, 2009 2:39 AM
I enjoyed your story.
We bought our home from the builder. He lived in it for 4 years. One day the Police stopped by and we were served with an order to appear in court over some union issue. Somehow our name became attached to his business. We had to prove that we were not the owners of the business. Very inconvenient and not as funny.
Posted by: Alice | March 20, 2009 8:09 AM
hello Dr. Isis love your story. My name is really isis.. in your writing I was not sure if you were a male...? MR. Isis right? that means yes? or typeo? anyhoo I believe Jesus laughs at us all the time and wants us to find the humor... i came across this page i googled Isis guy.. you came up. i have my own show called IsisNFriends you can view a few of my shows on youtube.com search for IsisNFriends or Peach Tree productons please check it out and email me give me your honest... I'd love to here what Mr.Isis has to say.. That Picture of Jesus is super cool i started laughing when I seen it. love it!
Posted by: Isis Princess Nix | June 8, 2009 1:37 AM