Bersiap menemui Thy Fluffer!

Saya menjual rumah saya dan tentang masa lalu sedikit minggu sudah belajar jauh terlalu banyak mengenai properti kediaman di pasar hingar-bingar.

Ketika saya menjadi seorang anak, orang-tua saya menjual tiga rumah. Sederhana. Mereka menelpon sedikit makelar barang-barang tak bergerak yang didaftar di buku telepon yang datang ke rumah, melihat-lihat dan putus penjualan berusaha. Sesuatu dipilih karena pemikiran ibu dan ayah dia atau dia akan mendapat paling tinggi harga – kesimpulan yang tidak berdasarkan bukti whatsoever, agak suka creationism. Tanda muncul di halaman rumput kami, orang asing datang lewat rumah semalam selama makan malam dan, akhirnya, kami berpindah karena seseorang membeli rumah tua.

Seperti bagian terbesar Fifties, menjual setelah punggung rumah lalu dengan sayu tidak bersalah dibandingkan sampai hari ini.

Ketika saya mengambil keputusan untuk menjual, saya singgah properti agen I’d diketahui sejak awal Nineties. Sebelum mengucapkan kata tentang harga atau rumah yang terbuka untuk umum, kata mereka saya perlu “fluffer. ” My mata membelalak sewaktu rahang saya turun karena saya mengetahui masa: fluffer adalah wanita di tempat video pornografi yang menangkap aktor pria, uhm, siap untuk pemandangan yang baru saja mau difilmkan. Mungkin ini akan lebih menyenangkan daripada saya berpikir.

“No, no,” mereka menjawab di memalukan yang dibuat bingung. Fluffer, mereka menerangkan, akan memeriksa rumah saya sebelum ditaruh di pasar dan “fluff” itu ke atas oleh sebab itu kelihatan lebih baik untuk pameran. “Everyone melakukan it,” I diberi tahu.

Sesudah sedikit hari, saya disiapkan untuk menjumpai saya fluffer.

Saya membuka pintu untuk menghadap tinggi, rel-tipis, non-omong kosong Nordic berambut pirang dinya terlambat twenties yang menjabat tangan saya secara kukuh dan memulai memeriksa tempat saya. Dia melangkah lewat rumah dengan ketetapan hati kuat seorang pelaut orang Viking ditentukan untuk menemukan Greenland, membuat catatan tentang perjalanan sewaktu dia pergi. Tetapi kalau dia membacanya ship’s batang kayu kepada saya, saya berpikir dia menggambarkan gubuk pertengahan, tak ada rumah saya.

“Buy karpet baru. Segalanya perlu xVPpassive. Rumah utuh memerlukan menyikat seksama. Oleh profesional! Kerjakan kembali dapur. Megatur kembali mebel kamar matahari. Kamar mandi ketinggalan jaman; mengerjakan kembali mereka, juga. Singkirkan anjing dan kucing, they’re tak sanitasi. Gambar itu anda di kantor anda yang bermain baseball harus pas dengan laci. Gantungkan tirai baru. Melemparkan bunga rampai – it’s barang mati saja dan jelek Feng Shui. Bubar menarik bagi magazines” – What adalah ini, ruang baca? – “around rumah oleh sebab itu anda nampak lebih terlibat. ” Involved di apa? Penipuan?

Sewaktu dia terus melagukan masalah mengerikan she’d terungkap, saya menjadi murung: Bagaimana saya sudah bisa hidup di kejorokan gerbang seperti itu untuk begitu panjang? Bagaimanapun juga, kota berpikir apa fluffer melihat sewaktu tempat pembuangan berharga ke dalam sol bagian atas enam harga yang berdasarkan penilai baru saya. Sampai fluffer tiba, saya sebetulnya suka rumah saya.

Tak dapat disangkal, rumah memerlukan pembersihan baik. Seorang wanita dulu biasa datang setiap minggu tetapi melakukan sangat sedikit dari apa saja nenek saya akan mengenali sebagai pembersihan oleh sebab itu saya memecatnya. Dan mungkin karpet bisa menggunakan berkukus; itu sudah sedikit tahun dan saya saling berbagi jabatan dengan dua ekor binatang. Tetapi karpet ialah hanya berumur tujuh tahun dan tidak memperlihatkan tanda tahan uji karena saya hidup umumnya sendiri; sekali-sekali, there’s seorang teman gadis di hidup saya yang sekitar pada akhir pekan tetapi tidak ada dilakukan kami di lantai mengauskan karpet. Sebagai untuk anjing, kucing dan foto saya memainkan baseball, mereka akan tinggal. Periode. Akhir diskusi.

A few days later, the fluffer’s estimate of what it would cost to bring my house up to something approaching what she probably regarded as 19th century standards arrived by e-mail. I opened the file and choked: The projects she laid out would set me back $27,000, not including GST and her fee. That brought the total cost of what she said needed to be done before selling the house to almost exactly my down payment when I bought the place originally.

In a cold sweat and with panic edging into my voice, I called my agents. They calmed me down and we negotiated a more realistic view of what I should do to make the house spiffier before the For Sale sign appeared in the front yard. Still, it cost me nearly ten grand and for the life of me I can barely notice the difference.

But the work was done – it did make the place look better, I’ll admit – and I was ready for legions of eager buyers to come through the house. I figured offers would roll in by nightfall.

Wrong. Fluffing was only the beginning.

I also needed flowers. Lots of them. “Makes the place cheerier!” I was assured. By the time of the first showing, there were so many flowers – including bamboo shoots the fluffer told me to put in the guest bathroom so it looked “Zen” rather than outdated – my place seemed not so much cheery as that I was mourning a revered and close relative. Even after a dash to a discount store to buy more, I ran out of vases and improvised with mason jars, water pitchers and an inherited silver coffee pot; if it was in the house, it was pressed into service.

Then my agents showed up and took photos for an eight page sales brochure that was intended as a convenient take-away reminder for anyone touring the house. It contained more pictures than I took on my last holiday. In glowing terms, the booklet listed all of my home’s many features and improvements. It included a report from a consulting engineer on the sturdy soundness of the 125-year old structure. There was even a floor plan. The closest to anything like this when my parents sold a house came when they hunted up a piece of scrap paper for someone who’d made an offer and wanted to sketch the room layout. In those days, websites and four-colour brochures with pages of photos and narrative weren’t used to sell homes; well, there was no web and printing a brochure meant paying an ink-stained wretch who set type, not a colour printer bought on sale for $99.

Finally, the day of my first open house arrived. Apparently, the nachtschleppers who spent two days cleaning under the fluffer’s steely eye was a starter kit. I had to spend the morning scouring the bathrooms and kitchen, dusting, vacuuming, changing the cat litter and spraying so much air freshener my house smelled like one of those over-perfumed women on the bus that no one will sit near. I even set the dining room table with crisp, new linens, hand painted Spanish dishes, crystal wine glasses and sterling silver flatware so anyone looking in the room would think that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee was dropping by for dinner the moment the open house ended – another fluffer dictate.

After I finished, I checked the house and that’s when it dawned on me.

Selling a home means making it look as if no one lives there – or ever did. I suddenly inhabited a bizarre-o world usually found only in movies, on television or in ads. Other than in a romantic comedy, who has $250 worth of flowers filling every room? Other than Marie Barone, the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond, who cleans their house every day? Other than in a commercial, who runs around spraying air freshener before someone visits? And I doubt that Buckingham Palace always keeps the dining room table set on the off-chance that Liz feels peckish and in the mood for a nosh.

But this is what my life has become.

Not that the effort has motivated – in real estate, I think motivated means “fooled” – someone into making a decent offer. Now, 22 days, four open houses and I’ve forgotten how many showing later, I’m wondering why I bothered. Yesterday, for example, there were two showings. The first was an arrogant, upper class twit in tweeds who walked through the house commenting disdainfully on everything he hated about the place. The second, a family resembling the Beverly Hillbillies, went room to room shucking in awe while their uncontrollable four year old daughter tried playing with anything she could reach when she wasn't chasing my poor cat.

I hate moving so when I bought the place in the mid-1990s, I declared that if I moved out, it would be feet first with an undertaker doing the heavy lifting. I’m not sure what made me change my mind but I’m thinking that perhaps my first instinct was correct. Maybe I should take the house off the market so that the next uninvited stranger touring my home actually will be from a funeral home.