Looking for the Right New Home --Mobile homes

I thought I would blog about the experiences as I have them with buying a new home.

 

A look back however at some of the homes I've bought in the past.

 

We had purchased land before in Vermont, 11.4 acres and had a double wide put on it along with a detached 2 car garage.

 

We had decided to put the double wide atop the first hill on the property, about 1000 feet up. We had gone to one of those mobile sales parks where you can look inside all of them and pick out what you like and then go and order it. These are filled with all sorts of very creative ideas and I so enjoyed looking through all the different homes.

 

We found the land in the north western part of Vermont and went about getting it developed. It was scary at one point because they had to dig fairly deep to get the water for the well. The bad thing was for our neighbor, whose water pressure had dropped significantly because our well was up higher.

 

Warning there, if you buy a piece of land and it is lower than someone else, that may very well interfere with your own water pressure.

 

Also we had made the mistake of buying this in Vermont in the winter time and with a delivery date in Feb-March. This was at the height of the mud-season as the snow began to thaw and so it was very difficult to get the double wide up there, half by half as there were deep ruts in the mud on the drive that was cut.

 

Next mistake was in getting the double wide to begin with. Although aesthetically, it was gorgeous, structurally it was a nightmare. Cracker Jack walls were so thin! It was not put together well at all. Nothing solid about it and it was not long before we had leaks and mice. The leaks through the casement of the windows was so bad, I had gotten my son's marble-works toy and devised a set up for the water that was dripping so badly to be diverted down to the floor in a couple pots. This was from the ice backing up under the shingles and creating a dam. What would happen is that the sun would melt the snow, then at night it would freeze, becoming ice. More snow, or when it melted a bit more, it hit the dam and began to seep up under the shingles and then find its way through the window frames. This happened the very first winter. The mice came in as well looking to get warm, following the plumbing pipes and gnawing holes in the cardboard Cracker Jack walls. We had just gotten a kitten but he was only wanting to swat the mice to make them squeak and not kill them.

 

The one good thing was to have heating electrical tape that kept the pipes warm from freezing. This, however did not help the next owners that bought this place after us when Vermont had its coldest and most snowiest winters of all and the pipes froze and burst. 

 

But huge mistake was to have a double wide in Vermont at all for there is no pitch to the roof. So the 2 1/2 feet of wet snow remained on the roof and I was up there with either a shovel or paying someone with a snowblower to get it off due to the weight of the snow. This was a disaster waiting to happen.

The other bad thing was the long drive. It was not paved. Mistake. It was all mud and just a bit of rock but not enough. So when it snowed, there was pretty much no way we were going to get the car up the drive. So we would have to park at the bottom, walk up to the garage and get the sleds and bring them down and take out all the perishable grocery items and load the sleds up and drag them back up to the house.
The good thing about this was the ride back down and one that my kids loved to sled down the hill from the doorstep, 1000 feet down at top speed to catch the bus. They'd leave their sleds there in the morning and in the afternoon bring them back up. Bad thing was to make sure you didn't hit the spot that was mushy from the septic or the liquid manure that the farmer would deposit on the field there that we owned. We had let him do so as he was hay-baling that field to feed his cows and it saved us from having to mow it.

 

Luckily, we were able to sell the place, albeit at a loss and got out of there.

 

Even the shower rod ripped right out of the wall and anything heavy I tried to hang just fell down as there was nothing to secure it, not even anchors worked! It was all hollow.

 

Inside, it was gorgeous. Beautiful ivy wall paper in the kitchen and handwriting of poetry wall paper in the master bath and there was also a sky light over the garden tub. I kept waiting for that to leak but it didn't. The shower stall was very skinny. We had a faux stone fireplace that was just gorgeous in the living room, but I say faux for I couldn't believe it was real although it felt that way. The fireplace itself worked, wood burning. That was about it however. Had a laundry room very small but that was it. Pretty colors but that's all it was, dressing up a cardboard box with pretty paper. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths.

 

Now granted, it was quick, cheap and easy so we could land quickly after we retired from the Air Force, but it was a huge mistake. We should have gone with a log cabin kit instead. It would have been more durable.

 

The garage was sound, it was very nice. Tons of room and they even gave us extra power which was awesome, tho' at the time I wasn't utilizing it.

 

So if you want one of these mobile homes, double wides, it's best to keep them in the south where there is not a lot snow. And be sure you get them built more solid than what we did.

 

This was a big mistake and one I will not ever repeat.