A Desert Road Trip Revisited...

 Sorry, I haven't posted much this week..been busy! Alot of jobs this week...all but one were "lock outs", evidently the banks are getting tired of carrying peoples loans and started to foreclose again..Alan is at one as I type this today....
Yesterday we had one in San Diego and then had to drive out to Borrego Springs for a third time for a foreclosure....this time it wasn't so pleasant as the house was in bad condition out on a desert road..isolated and a little creepy...originally, I think it had been nice, with large bedrooms, living room and a country kitchen but that had been long ago....the lot had many dead and drying trees...including a dead rabbit at the back door....many out buildings that were falling down from dry rot...lots of debris around, old sinks, trash,etc......not only that but it was really windy and hot, even though it was the late afternoon before we got there.....
Alan was able to pull the garage door up so we drove the car in  so he could work in the shade.....and we had to replace 6 deadbolts as they were the wrong type for a Fanny Mae property.

Fanny Mae requires a special code on all their properties with Quickset locks.....all the  locks on this house were Schlage ....normally we have enough but for whatever reason we didn't  so we had to go through all the locks we had and "frankenstein" enough for the house...which.took me about 40 minutes,,spreading all the locks on the floor of the garage, going through bags of parts...not too much fun...I started feeling very frustrated, hot, and got a little panicked. as I couldn't seem to find what was needed.....
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While I was working, Alan went through the house and took all the old locks off...there were so many as the house seemed to have endless doors....(we ended up with a very heavy bag of locks to take back).....there were 6 exterior doors..with two locks each...we just take any keyed locks off the interior doors.


When he got back to the garage and saw the state I was starting to get into.....got me a cold drink out of the cooler, told me to relax and he found the parts I needed within about a minute.....what a great guy! While he was doing the re key...I took a break and walked through the house....I could hear the wind whistling across the top of the roof....my frustration and panic subsided..and looking out the back windows, watched the dust and sand blowing across the desert floor.......wondered if anyone would buy this house..it had possibilities but would take alot of cash, sweat (literally!) equity.and as it was in the middle of nowhere, why? I also thanked the Lord for giving me such a great husband....feeling 100% better, I went back and installed our Frankenstein deadbolts with no problems......we also checked all the windows and made sure the house was secure....

One thing about Borrego Springs...I don't think they have much crime as all 3 houses we've re keyed...had no sign of anyone getting into them even though two of the three were open.....no vandalism!We both decided though it wouldn't be a place to retire, this last house wasn't a good example of the types of homes in Borrego Springs..there are much nicer ones, as I've posted about but its just a little too isolated for our needs. ..We were glad to get home...it was a 240 mile around trip!  have screwdriver, will travel.....

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