Lakeside, AZ

Why do things always have to happen on the weekends? If something in your house is going to break, malfunction, or flood, it always happens on the weekend.

My latest disaster was a stool that didn't work properly and flooded my hall bath and part of the hallway. I didn't even know about it until my dog woke me from a sofa doze in front of the tube and wanted out. That is when I heard the water running. My first thought ws that my Mother, she is 93, had left water running in the sink. Oh no, the stool had been running over for at least an hour, and squish squish squish went the carpet as I went in to discover what the problem was. It is now 9:00 on a Saturday evening.

Fortunately I have quite a bit of experience with this type of thing having worked for several years for a Disaster Restoration Contractor. I had seen a lot of water damages and knew what to do, but gad, who feels like doing that at 9:00 on a Saturday night.

Oh well, first things first. I got the stool shut off and the water bailed out of it and after a little while with the drain opener and a plunger I got it to drain. Now to the carpet, what a mess! My first evil thought was perhaps I should just turn it back on and let it run all night. At least that way I'd have a big enough disaster to call someone to clean it up and then call my Insurance company about it. Believe me in the years I worked for the Restoration Contractor I know there are people who intentionally did that about every five years because they would get new furniture, new carpet and a paint job out of it. Oh yea, I've seen water damages that cost insurance companies upwards of 50K to repair. I'm just not that kind of person and I would never be able to live with myself if I tried something like that. Besides the anti-lie beacon on my forehead would start flashing "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" anyway.

So back to the carpet. The first step obviously was vacing up enought of the water so it wouldn't keep moving further in to the house. After about an hour of that process it was time to start pulling back carpet. Of course it was soaked so it was very heavy and the pad underneath I knew was toast. By now it's about 10 PM. At that point I said to heck with it for the night, I'd finish cleaning it up in the morning. I slept restlessly, dreaming of drowning in a sea of wet carpeting.

Morning. Okay, first things first, COFFEE! After that the fun would really begin. Cutting the seams at doorways, pulling the carpet out of the house and propping it up somewhere to dry. Removing the wet padding to dispose of it and drying out the floor underneath. More COFFEE! By 11 AM the carpet was outside draped over chairs to dry, the padding was removed and disposed of and I had fans and portable heaters on the floor drying out the floor and the cabinet bases etc. and I'm thoroughly wired from too much coffee.

After the floor dried out, I went out to the garage where we just happened to have about a half roll of carpet padding to replace what had been destroyed. I spent the next hour or so dragging that in, cutting it to fit the floor and tacking it down. That is such fun, heavy awkward stuff! Why didn't I call the pros again? Oh yea, I wanted to save the money.

Well, it is now about 2:30 Pm, my back aches, I have little cuts all over my fingers from the tack strip around the sides of the room, I finally had some lunch and the carpet is still flapping in the wind drying out. Maybe I'll get it put back in by 10 PM tonight. What next, cleaning it of course, but that will have to wait for another day. I'm getting too old for this. Remind me next time to Call the Pros!

Have a great Holiday everyone.

Sandie P.

Good Sunday Afternoon Everyone,

Today's writing has absolutely nothing to do with Real Estate. It is rather a reflection on where I was and what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001. I will never forget that day, it is burned in my memory like it was yesterday.

I was sitting in my living room in Sahuarita, Arizona having my morning coffee and watching the Today Show on NBC. I remember Katie Couric's face when the first plane hit the tower. Everyone thought it was an accident, a tragic accident but an accident none the less. The shock and awe on the faces of those on the show is engraved on my mind. There was horror and confusion, no one knew what to make of it other than something awful had happened.

A few minutes later when the second plane hit the realization came that it wasn't an accident but a deliberate act designed to kill many many people and send our Country in to a complete tailspin. Still, no one expected those towers to come down. We already knew there were many people dead in those upper stories but we never in our wildest dreams expected that the buildings themselves would come down. Sadly, a few hours later that is exactly what happened as we all know.

Too many lives lost just to serve the selfish means of some extremists who hate our country. They still hate us today and although they didn't succeed in destroying us in 2002, the fallout from that day is still affecting us and is slowing destroying our country from the inside out. There is a terrible apathy out in the world today. We accept what is handed us and expect more! We don't complain we just just go with the flow because it is easier than fighting. We must fight to keep our Country strong.

I read an outstanding article this week in our local newspaper about what has happened in the ten years since 9-11 and it was truly scary. I have included the link to the article below. Read it and weep, for if we do not change our attitudes the extremists of ten years ago will have won despite everything.

http://www.wmicentral.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/ten-years-after-have-we-become-the-enemy-of-freedom/article_f4d19760-da70-11e0-bc8c-001cc4c03286.html

It is time once again to stand up and defend our rights as Americans and if you will not fight then you will fail. It is time to change the world again and defend what has made this country great. Apathy is not accomplishing anything, action will.

Have a wonderful week and remember.....We The People!!!

Sandra J. Paulow

It was warmer in Alaska today than it was in Lakeside, Arizona. How can that be? We are in the deepest deep freeze I've seen since I moved to Arizona in 1972. Even in Phoenix it got down to the low 20's last night and we in the sunny State of Arizona just aren't used to this cold stuff. Maybe those midwesterners are okay with it, but we are freezing to death. Citrus and Fruit Trees are in danger, all those pretty winter flowers in Phoenix probably are black and ugly today. Enough already, it's time for the cold stuff to go back where it belongs, up North! The only ones happy about it are the Plumbing Contractors because they are very busy fixing busted pipes. It's time for this to GO AWAY!

For a while there I thought the Banks were figuring out that they were destroying their own markets by dumping properties on the market at ridiculously low prices because while the prices on those REO's were less than the market, they weren't so low as to totally destroy values.

Well, they are at it again. I've seen several Fannie/Freddie properties hit our market in the past week that are priced so low it almost makes me want to cry. They are so desperate to get rid of their inventory of REO's that they are just dumping them on the market at any price, no matter how low it is, just to get them sold quickly. They are dropping prices weekly now. One example is a home that should probably sell in the mid 100's even at an REO price and it started out in the high 70's last week and has already gone down another 5K.

I know we need to get this excess inventory out of the marketplace but do they really need to destroy everyone's value in the interest of selling quickly. It is truly a sad state of affairs. I wonder if Walmart needs any extra greeters?

Sandra Paulow, Associate Broker, GRI, SFR Pinetop, AZ.

As many of you know, I live and I work in Mesa, Arizona. I am minutes from two lakes, a short trip to mountains where cooler weather is available during the warm summer months - all within a two to three hour drive. Whether we drive east through Superior, Miami and Globe north, or north through Payson, or west and then north to Flagstaff, there's never a lack of places to see and spectacular views in Arizona! Being an "almost" native, there's very few places I haven't explored in our beautiful state.

Recently, on a trip north - two hours and 40 minutes from our home in Mesa - we happened upon Rainbow Lake near Show Low and Lakeside in the White Mountains. It's a fishing lake, and absolutely beautiful. I LOVE the clouds shadowing and reflecting in the water!