Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (8 page)

“
You
could change your name.” I s
uggested.

He looked at me hopefully.  “I don
’
t have the backing that Cassandra has.”

“Backing?”
 

“Yeah a couple of guys are bankrolling her.  I’ve seen them come and go while she was finishing up the
re-model
.  One was sort of droo
l
ing all over
her,
the other was upset
about
all the stuff in the gift store.  She can
get away with that
kind of thing.  I
can’t.”

“I see.”

A flat bed truck rolled by hauling more beige plastic bins filled with grapes.  The smell was sweet and pungent; fall.   

Fred’s eyes followed the truck.
  The truck ground to a hal
t
.  Fred abruptly
left for the back of the winery without saying good
-
bye, not that I expected
him
to
.

Before I could get lonely and feel sorry for myself,
Carrie rounded the corner, Cassandra hanging on her arm. Carrie is petite, Cassandra is willowy, I, apparently, am solid
. The
two of them together reminded me of how solid I was, and I didn’t really like the comparison.

“This should be perfect.  I just confirmed with the caterer.”  Carrie bounced.  “This will work out. I’m sure.” She smiled at Cassandra who was looking somewhere off into the middle distance.  “I’m glad,
”
s
he said absently.  “Can you excuse me?”

“I thought she’d be more excited.” Carrie’s face fell and I wanted to punch Cassandra for being so insensitive.  This was important
,
damn it!

“You know, she dated Peter O’Reilly, the Third.”
  I said as a verbal punch.

“
No.”
Carrie looked after Cassandra with considerably more interest. 
“
How did they know each other
?”

“Ben said Peter was in grad school and she was an undergrad, they met at Davis. I don’t know the gory details, but he broke her heart, Ben comforted her and the rest
,” I sighed “is
not really all past
history is
it?” 

Carrie shuffled the notes in her
monster planner
(
and I thought escrow created too much paper
)
. “
O’Reilly
must be
hanging around for a reason
, do you think he’s invested in this project as well
?
  He and Ben manage to tangle their women up pretty
thoroughly
don’t t
hey?  Are you sure you don’t secretly lust after Peter? That would make the circle complete.”

“Bite your tongue.” I rolled my eyes at the very thought.  Sure, I was feeling a little more generous towards Peter Klaussen O’Reilly the
T
hird
since
he helped spring Ben out
of
jail
(during a rather trying holiday season)
, but not enough to make a
real change in attitude.
No
,
I would not be dating him, or even double dating.  I wondered if he and Cassandra had reconciled.  Was he the drooler Fred mentioned?
Or was Ben?

Carrie dropped that subject and shifted the conversation back where it belonged: her.   “I’m a little concerned with that back room
commotion
, those barrels are
stacked
awfully high
and the wine cases don’t look stable at all.
One tremor and it’s over for anyone sitting below.”

“We’ll keep people in the front and out on the patio.” I said.   Th
e front
patio and tasting room
was the show place after all, and Cassandra admitted she spent most of the money on the tasting room and grounds.  The machinery was either second hand or rented.
Besides, one tremor this morning meant nothing.  Tremors and earthquakes were delightfully
random;
there is no earthquake watch, no earthquake season.
You just take the random acts of violence
in stride
and get on with the party.

Carrie squinted at the renovated building.  In stark contrast to the front presentation, the back of the building
was pockmarked and festooned with p
eeling paint.  Broken pallets littered the employee parking area
taking up more spaces than necessary
.  The old winery had been painted
blue,
traces of the colo
r still streaked the back walls
and
the
garage doors
that divided
the crush pad from the warehouse.
“I never appreciated how tidy Patrick keeps
his own plant, it’s so clean and organized. Now I can appreciate the effort.”

“Then this
was
a valuable comparison.
”
I said in my best
schoolteacher
voice.

She grinned.  “We’ll just string yellow caution tape around the
back
.”

“
Like that
ever kept anyone out.”

Chapter
  4

I take it back, I did have clients, but they were buyers, and buyers
are
difficult
.
Unless they wanted to buy my house.
The
Garcias
did not want my house.  They
wanted a distressed property
that could be had for a song.  My house did not make their list since it was in
perfect condition
.
And to that end, I had a list
of seven REOs to review on their behalf
.  They didn’t need to see all of
them;
I knew what they were searching for; a complete, perfect house with the toilet still attached
, yet in foreclosure, yet not too bad
ly damaged
, yet
completely
abandoned
.  The challenge with
a
bargain REO, bank owned property, is that
a
bargain always comes at a price.  

Compared to selling my own house and dealing with the subcontractors for
the
M
ain
S
treet
property
in Claim Jump, an afternoon
with bank-repossessed
homes was practically
uplifting
.

There is little to see in a bank owned home. The defaulted owners have long abandoned the property, and banks do not spend money on even the basics like a flyer, let alone
paying for
staging
or even air conditioning
in a desultory effort
to increase the appeal of the property.  Often the front lawns are left to seed
.

To a one, the
houses
I reviewed
were closed and stifling hot.  I
quickly escaped
and made all my notes outside,
moving
along as
efficiently
as I could.   Mr. Garcia will like the house on Heron,
his wife will like the
house on Gull, and the
y both may like the
house on Sand.  I make notes on my MLS print out.  I drove to the fifth house, on Beach
S
treet, one of the many Christopher, God Is Our Partner listings
, and
marched up to the door, reading the specs as I went. The sun was still high enough to be hot and it beat down on my bare head.  I pulled off my sunglasses and pulled out my phone. It wasn’t until I was on top of the door that I realized there was no lock box.

I stepped off the front stoop into the
recently
mowed grass to see if the lock box was attached to the lawn spigot. Nope. I
peeked in the
mailbox
and
moved aside the stack of flyers and envelopes but there was no key on the bottom. I
double-checked
the address. I
returned
to
the lawn
,
cupped my hands around my eyes and peered into the front window. What I expected to
see
was
an
empty room with a few cable ends protruding from blank walls.   What I found was a room decorated with an old plaid couch,
a scarred
early
A
merican style end
table and five pizza boxes stacked neatly in the front foyer. 

I rattled the front door knob again. 
The house
was locked up tight, but not because Bank of America wanted things safe and sound.  I chewed my lip and glanced back into the
mailbox
.  The mail was new
:
a recent edition of Parent’s magazine, the PG
&
E bill
and
flyers from the local pizza restaurant
. 
The bills and magazine
were addressed to the same name.  I squinted at the information
on my listing
print-out
,
not the same name as the defaulted former mortgage holder.

Well, what do you know?

I called the Christopher’s office.

“Hi, this is Allison L
i
ttle with New Century, I am at Beach Street, one of your REO’s. Did you know the lock box is missing?”

“No it’s not.  All our bank owned properties have lock boxes.”  The secretary or administrative assistant assured me haughtily as
i
f I accused her of nefarious
activity or
even
negligence
.

“I’m sure they do, but this one is missing
,
you may want to check.”  I suggested evenly.

She sighed elaborately.  “I’m sure you’re wrong.”  She hung up.

I was not impressed with the
ir
customer service.

I fumed about my treatment all the way back to the office, about a
five-minute
drive.
I didn’t mean to broadcast my discovery, but
I may have mentioned the listing and my treatment to
Rosemary
as
soon as
I walked into the office.

“Really?  A squatter in one of their REO
s
?”  Rosemary twisted her copper and magnet bracelets happily. 

“Really?  A squatter?
”
Katherine rounded the corner and joined happy Rosemary in the lobby.  “Do you know if they’re
paying rent, you know that makes a
difference.
 
And to whom?
Do you know how much they’re paying?”

“I would assume they pay rent to the bank
, month to
month while the house is being sold.” It was a big assumption. We
all heard the rumors
:
there
were too
many re-possessed
, foreclosed, abandon homes to
keep track
of, assuming you
cared
to keep track.  And the banks did not care all that much
. Some
homes
were deserted like unwanted pets.
And
some
homes were managed by
hired companies like
Christopher and Christopher to manage and sell REO
s
(Real Estate Owned, it’s a bank term).
It did not
take much imagination or
even
effort for an enterprising middle
person
to claim
full
ownership
of a property and rent out a house
they
didn’
t own to
an
unsuspecting and desperate renter. But I was trying to take the high road
.
It was a fruitless effort
;
I like
short cuts
too much
.  

“We must see.” Rosemary
ducked back in her office and retrieved her late model Coach purse.
“I
t matters to whom they pay the rent
,
does it not?”

“Yes, we must do due diligence.”  Katherine
grabbed her computer and tucked it under her arm
. “What’s the address?”

I reluctantly gave it to them,
it was pointless to hold back,
Patricia
could look it up in a second.  And I realized
i
t would be churlish not to give in.
Not when they were both so pleased.

Katherine scribbled the address on a sticky note, smacked it onto the screen of her phone and the two of them disappeared.

“Where are those two going?”
Inez
clacked into the lobby, her high heels hard on the wood floor.  

“Checking on a house.” I said honestly.

“Together?”

I glanced at Patricia, who was uncharacteristically silent. 

“Yes.”  I
confirmed.

“Good, it’s about time they found a project together.”  Inez said.

As she left, I glanced
again
at Patricia who was frowning at her email.

We were three days out from the
wintery opening party.  Ben was
deeply
embroiled with
his second
project
(the first being our new home and I hoped
,
still number one)
and I was reduced to calling him and leaving
messages, which
, eventually he
return
ed
,
but only when I was behind my noisy vacuum or carrying out yet another
armload
of books that my stager
,
Stacey
,
deemed unsightly
.  For some unfathomable reason
she was
dead
certain that
the sight of shelves and shelves of
used, crumbly
paperbacks
would
not help
sell the house. 

I
also emptied all the
closets and align
ed
the hangers
so they were two inches apart
, just in case anyone looked.

Ben came over Friday night after over
-
seeing the preparations for the
winery
opening.

“Now I know
for certain.
I don’t want a huge massive wedding.”  He sank
into my favorite leather chair,
flung his head back and closed his eyes.

I studied him.  He was fully capable of acting
overbearing
and bombastic.  But he was really a softie.  He was kind
and
solicitous
to
anything that seemed lost: small children, dogs, deer and
miss Cassandra Caughnaught. 

“You look disturbed
.
”
H
e did not open his eyes.

I glanced down at my
stance;
I had unconsciously placed my hands on my hips a
s
if gearing up for a confrontation
when
I wasn’t really gearing up for anything but a lovely night together.

“Wine?”

He groaned.  “No wine, I may never drink again,
G
od, the wine, the cleaning, the hysteria.  She kept nattering on about how she had
a
complete
handle on the situation
, and everything was fine
and under control.
You should see the o
ffice, it’s packed with half entered forms
, the
report of wine premises operations isn’t
even finished and we need that
signed and submitted in order to do anything at all.
She hasn’t returned her forms to the TTB.
Her wine
came in
from the Hunter Valley
,
fills half the warehouse, we had to stack it too high, but she said it would be all right.  I don’t even know if we can pour it tomorrow, it may still be in bottle shock.
  And we can’t sell a single damn bottle yet.
”

He rolled forward and rested his head in his hands.  “God.  Don’t take up wine making.”

“I thought of something more pleasant
and lady-like:
lion taming
, big
game hunting.”

“Good
,
that works for me.”  He
rolled his head in his hands massaging his neck muscles.

“How’s the red?” 

“She said it was
mostly in
barrel, nothing is ready to taste.  Remind me not to invest in another winery.”

“D
on’t invest in another winery.”
I replied helpfully.  “Come on, we’ll go to
Giostra for
dinner.”

“You’re not cooking?”

“I
’m keeping
the kitchen clean for the open house.” I replied sanctimoniously.

He snorted, at least
in his role
as a wine investor he
had
not
end
ed
his day c
overed
in
dust, splinters or Gorilla glue, but he looked a little done in none the less.  

Ben’s moratorium on wine lasted until we entered the restaurant.  Over
b
ruschetta and my favorite Alfredo dish he caught me up.