babble mix

07/2005 - Horror House

Nino and I went to our first ever “ugly house” visit last July. With the investment strategy we were planning, we thought this might get us our first P1M. Woohoo! Exciting!

But before we started counted our chickens, we wanted to see if the eggs were worth counting to begin with – look at the house in person to estimate repairs exactly how we were taught in that million-dollar real estate boot camp. They said, the uglier the house (with some qualifiers on being UGLY), the better “rehab” candidate it is. We knew this was ugly from the pictures, so we were excited to see it, but we were not prepared for what we were about to see.

The house itself was not very ugly from outside, but because it was vacant with overgrown weeds engulfing its front yard and because of its unusual layout, it looked like a looming house straight from a horror movie, with its normalness being swallowed away slowly by the setting sun.

As we were walking towards the house, I knew Nino and I had the same thing going on in our head. We both just did not acknowledge that thought to ourselves and to each other. “Why did we think of going to a vacant, worn-down, ugly house at night?” But because we drove 1 1/2 hours just to get here, we lied to ourselves, pretended to be brave, took the key and weaseled our way through the lawn jungle towards the front door.

On my way to the front door, I looked up and noticed that the 2nd floor windows still had curtains – BIG MISTAKE. Now my imagination started to see a lady draw the curtains… Eeek! Get back! But no, we can’t turn back now. Don’t waste the gas, Mel. Shake it off. Breathe. Inhale, (ugh, smelled like old grass), exhale.

I tried the key on the front door. It won’t open. I asked Nino to try it. It still won’t. So we walked to the other door in sight, which I presumed was a kitchen door. Beside it were big windows with no curtains, showing only complete darkness inside. I tried hard not to look, else my imagination would get the best of me. But Nino peered into it holding the flashlight inside. I was screaming in my head, “Don’t look inside, baka may sumulpot!” because I knew that saying that aloud might trigger his imagination like mine, so I pretended I was not bothered at all.

The key still did not work. After calling the realtor, we learned that it was for the front door, so Nino and I walked back to it. Complete with creepy screen-door-creaking effect, the key finally worked.

It opened to a mold-scented house that seemed to have been built for Mahal and family if she married Dagul. It had ceilings below 7 feet and beyond the front door was a very small foyer. As it if was not enough trying to muster courage to open the front door, there was yet another door to open.

I went ahead and opened it, to reveal a dark, cramped space, supposedly for a “living room” that could not have been lived-in by someone even my size. Imagination just won’t leave me be, because it fed me images of what could have been this 50-year-old house’s history. The darkness inside was no help at all – there was no electricity and Nino’s flashlight added more to the creepy feel.

At this point, my heart began pumping louder, because I had to take a picture with a digital camera. I pointed the camera to the darkness, seeing nothing from the LCD display, until the flash worked to record the image in front of me. Suddenly, Sadako standing at the corner flashed on the LCD display, care of my imagination. Nino and I were already trying to laugh at the whole Amityville-ish/Blair-Witch-Project-ish scene in front of us, but no amount of laughter worked up our courage to proceed to the next dark room showing the foot of a staircase. NO WAY were we going in there.

We ended up going back the next bright, sunny morning.

My realizations:
1. I’m still not over Sadako.
2. Nino and I are not a good ghostbuster team – we will outrun each other away from the ghost.
3. Never go to a vacant, ugly house alone with an equally scared husband at night.
4. Never watch horror movies of haunted houses again.

posted by meL @ 3:00 PM