Crib Chatter on Vacation for 4th of July Week

It’s time to go on vacation again!

I’m sure most of you will be enjoying some much needed time off this week as well.

I’ll be out of town on vacation all week so we’ll be on vacation schedule Monday through Wednesday. That means there will be just one post a day. (I know…it’s a drag.)

I’m taking a break on Fourth of July and on Friday, July 5th as well. There will be NO new posts on those days.

It’s still low inventory. I feel for those who are in the market to buy right now.

One administrative update: The new Crib Chatter site, with the forum page, is being worked on even as we speak. I’m excited about it and I know you long time Chatterers will LOVE it. It will be a big improvement over the current site.

There’s a lot to look forward to as we head into late summer and early fall.

As always, please be respectful of each other when commenting while I’m on vacation. I don’t want to have to leave the beach to intervene to break up a silly spat.

Happy Fourth of July and Happy Birthday America!

Sabrina

58 Responses to “Crib Chatter on Vacation for 4th of July Week”

  1. This 5 bedroom, 4.5 bath recently came on the market.

    It is a two story detached single family home.

    Built in 1973, and renovated thereafter, it has over 4,600 square feet on 2.06 acres!

    It has three fireplaces, a great room and a two stall horse barn.

    The property backs up to a 1,500 acre farm.

    Is $895,000 just over the Cook County border too much to pay and too far away from Greenzone for today’s sophisticated buyer?

    The schools and the neighborhood is desirable.

    Listing provided by Martin Murphy, Village Realty & Inv.

    Taxes are $18,087.22

    http://www.redfin.com/IL/Long-Grove/2811-Rfd-60047/home/17649593

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  2. Of note, you can check your new Cook County tax bill online at http://www.cookcountypropertyinfo.com

    My taxes went up 18% this year from last year. It’s like Jesus H. Christ, how long can this go on for until everyone is priced out of the county, or even Illinois?

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  3. HD: Where do you work if you live there? The commute to downtown is not desirable. The commute to, even, Schaumburg, the other big “jobs” center, isn’t that great.

    Do you foresee someone who is a local doctor buying this? (someone like that?)

    There are plenty of big houses on big pieces of land in the Long Grove, Kildeer, Barrington area. Schools are good. But not many are buying them. Lots of upkeep on a 2 acre lot. You have to buy a lot of things (like a riding mower) or hire out a gardening service.

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  4. I usually agree with you Sabrina, but this time I disagree. Long Grove is hot right now – on fire. The $500k to $700k range gives buyers a wide variety of options of large homes in an urban area. There’s plenty of jobs out there, including the variety of small business and other corporate jobs in lake zurich, mundeliein, libertyville, and the office towers in buffalo grove, and schaumburg is just a short drive down 53 in the morning. Get on a lake cook road and drive south.

    http://www.redfin.com/IL/Long-Grove/6212-Pine-Tree-Dr-60047/home/17646813

    OK enough about Long Grove for today too much work to do before the long weekend!

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  5. Is going down 53 (expressway south of Lake Cook) really that bad?

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  6. Is going down 53 (expressway south of Lake Cook) to Schaumburg really that bad?

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  7. “Is going down 53 (expressway south of Lake Cook) to Schaumburg really that bad?”

    Driving to Schaumburg isn’t that bad; but, driving north and exiting 53 at westbound Lake Cook totally sucks in rush hour. The genius who designed that exit didn’t realize that tens of thousands of cars use that interchange everyday, so it gets backed up pretty good. It can take 15 minutes just to get off the exit or more. The backup starts at like 3:00 in the afternoon and lasts all throughout rush hour.

    That area up there is surprisingly congested considering it’s the ‘suburbs’ and not really even cook county county. I grew up near that area. People seem to find jobs out there. Not many work downtown, but there are plenty of industrial parks and small businesses that have decent to high paying jobs. I know that Buffalo Grove and Wheeling both have industrial and commercial office parks, and I suppose that owning one of those companies or being a C-level exec is fairly high paying. One of my clients just got a job out in this area (a bit further north) for a ‘tech’ company and the company does pretty well.

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  8. For some reason I think that the traffic in the burbs sucks so much worse. I dunno if its because I have to go so much further or what but I can’t stand it. I’d rather sit bumper to bumper downtown than be shlepping around butterfield road in downers grove or wherever the hell yorktown mall is at

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  9. “Of note, you can check your new Cook County tax bill online…”

    Thanks for ruining my day, HD. I am in shock at how much mine increased.

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  10. ” sonies (July 1, 2013, 9:50 am)

    For some reason I think that the traffic in the burbs sucks so much worse. I dunno if its because I have to go so much further or what but I can’t stand it. I’d rather sit bumper to bumper downtown than be shlepping around butterfield road in downers grove or wherever the hell yorktown mall is at”

    Traffic is equally as bad. Try spending a sunday afternoon on fullerton ave between ashland and halsted. It’s one mile – 8 blocks. Took me 20 minutes. That’s 3 mph in a car. I can walk faster than that.

    Suburban traffic is just congestion; like getting stopped at every light and waitint for left turn arrows, etc.

    The suburban traffic is different because the major arteries are the only roads. There’s no ‘side routes’ that mirror Lake Cook road. That’s your only choice to head east off teh 53 exit ramp

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  11. My combined tax bill (condo+parking space) went up 8.64%. My condo board successfully appealed this year, so that may have something to do with it. I’ll have to check the amount saved by the appeal when I get home to see what it would have been.

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  12. My bill went down.

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  13. My bill is down a couple hundred bucks.

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  14. Mine’s up about 2.8%. Could have been much worse but I’m still annoyed.

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  15. It turns out my large increase was due to a HO exemption error…gotta get that fixed

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  16. “Long Grove is hot right now – on fire. The $500k to $700k range gives buyers a wide variety of options of large homes in an urban area. ”

    This is really the exurbs, barely even the suburbs and definitely not urban under any definition.

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  17. “My bill is down a couple hundred bucks.”

    Down ~6%; almost the same as they were 3 years ago. Still 20%+ higher than 6 years ago.

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  18. “This is really the exurbs, barely even the suburbs and definitely not urban under any definition.”

    No it’s a wonderful country estate type of feeling yet, you’re still close to the a highly suburbanized spawl with lots of amenities. You’re out of your mind if you call this the ‘exurbs’. The exurbs like huntley are 25 miles due west or Mchenry is 20 northwest.

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  19. Mine went down again this time 13.66% on combined

    We must have a good tax lawyer for our association

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  20. Question: The home owner exemption form states:

    “As owner of the above property, I hereby apply for the Homeowner Exemption. I affirm by signature that this property was occupied by its current or previous owner as a principal residence as of January 1, 2012. I understand that it is against the law to provide false information on this Homeowner Exemption application.”

    The property was vacant when it was listed in 2011 and it was vacant on January 1, 2012, until my purchase until some point in the middle of 2012. Because it was vacant on January 1, 2012, I don’t get the homeowner exemption for 2012? Is this correct? This sucks.

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  21. “Enjoy a wide open floor plan in [Long Grove #1]”

    not very ‘wide-open’ to my eyes.

    Why is MBR the largest room in the house?

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  22. HD – that sounds logical. HO exemption is for someone’s primary residence. If it was vacant it wasn’t a primary residence. Don’t get me wrong, that totally sucks for you and I would pissed if it happened to me, but it sounds right. Its the unknown unknowns that’ll get ya every time.

    Thanks for taking one for the team on this one. It is something I will certainly make a point to check for during my next purchase!

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  23. “This is really the exurbs, barely even the suburbs and definitely not urban under any definition.”

    Not really the exburbs imo either. Two friends live there. The first one works downtown at the CBOT and has commuted for 20 years via auto which must suck on many days. At least he leaves really early. The other travels extensively via O’Hare each week making it tolerable.

    “exiting 53 at westbound Lake Cook totally sucks in rush hour.”

    I always heard that it was the residents of Long Grove that stopped the extension of Rt. 53 past Lake Cook. Is that true? Is that even possible? Seems like that should have been extended long long ago.

    BTW I love the hibachi grill on the porch. Very Ron of Japanish. HD you buy the place and I will come over on the 4th and cook shrimp with that crazy yellow sauce.

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  24. “Because it was vacant on January 1, 2012, I don’t get the homeowner exemption for 2012? Is this correct?”

    That’s how I read that. Probably worth a call to the assessor’s office to confirm–they purposely make the language unclear.

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  25. “The property was vacant when it was listed in 2011 and it was vacant on January 1, 2012, until my purchase until some point in the middle of 2012. Because it was vacant on January 1, 2012, I don’t get the homeowner exemption for 2012? Is this correct? This sucks.”

    You spent all of 2012 telling us how you quietly purchased the year before so this is probably a tax on your inability to keep your obsufication straight.

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  26. “obsufication”

    I believe that should be ‘obsufiction’.

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  27. obfuscation – is the word you are searching for.

    Can you die by obsufication?

    Is obsufiction found next to science fiction in the library?

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  28. “I believe that should be ‘obsufiction’.

    iPad autocomplete disagrees with you.

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  29. You are correct, HD… I had to pay the previous non-ho taxes for a year since the taxes are paid a year in arrears, it sure is nice when they finally go down though

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  30. Thanks Sonies.

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  31. Gary explains your taxes and what to expect rather well here

    http://www.chicagonow.com/getting-real/2013/07/cook-county-chicago-property-taxes-2012/

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  32. “obsufiction”

    Love it, all the corrections make it even funnier to me.

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  33. Regarding property taxes…my conclusion in my post that Icarus linked to above is that Chicago property taxes should have only gone up about 1.8% ON AVERAGE. Of course, individual results may vary. I got mine reduced by about $700 but I really had to work at it.

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  34. mine went down too.by about 8%

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  35. “Not really the exburbs imo either. Two friends live there. The first one works downtown at the CBOT and has commuted for 20 years via auto which must suck on many days. At least he leaves really early. The other travels extensively via O’Hare each week making it tolerable.”

    “exiting 53 at westbound Lake Cook totally sucks in rush hour.”

    If your friend commutes to the CBOT from this location every day for 20 years he must really not like his spouse and family. That is NUTS. That would take you 2 hours on a bad weather day just to go one way. It takes me an hour sometimes on the weekends to get to Lincoln Park (not even “downtown”) from Barrington. That’s with little traffic.

    It all depends on where you are located in “Long Grove” to know your commute. Are you closer to Route 12? Then that can be a 20 minute to 30 minute nightmare just to get to Lake Cook Road.

    Most of the people who live in, say, Barrington, take the train downtown. But this area is horse country for a reason. It was never meant to be the primary residence for people working in Chicago. Schaumburg is closer but still a nightmare depending on how close to the highway you are. Those side roads were never built with the idea of having that many people driving down them all going to one destination (the highway.)

    That’s why I’m asking if HD meant doctors or something like that. If you work at the local hospital- then it is fine. If you work at a company in the North Shore (Walgreens/Allstate etc.) then it’s probably not too bad. But downtown? That is nuts. 20-somethings don’t want to do that every day.

    HD I haven’t seen the $500,000 to $700,000 houses selling all that great in the Long Grove/Kildeer area. Maybe you are looking at something I am not.

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  36. “This is really the exurbs, barely even the suburbs and definitely not urban under any definition.”

    Yeah- I agree with JJJ. It is NOT an urban area. Until just recently they had strip clubs on the corner. Sure- they put in that new mall with the movie theater. A new Whole Foods just opened but it’s still a lot of older, big homes on big lots. It’s closer to Wisconsin than Chicago, I think. People still drive down Route 12 to get to Lake Geneva, for goodness sakes. They used to have signs saying “Lake Geneva 43 miles” or whatever when you got off the highway.

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  37. Back in the day my Long Grove co-worker used to BE downtown well before 6am. He would work out and take his am shower at the health club then be on the trading floor by 7am. Something tells me traffic was bearable but not great at that time of the day. The bond pit closed at 2pm and he was ot the door ASAP. Not a drink after work kinda guy.

    Have not seen him in years wonder if he still lives out there. Know that he loved that place.

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  38. Jp3- that was also before most of the development. So it’s possible the traffic was a lot more manageable back then. Don’t know how he got down there at 6 am though. Left at 5 am? That’s possible.

    The Deerfield Centre, the Whole Foods, the Best Buy and all of that stuff is recent vintage- all in the last 10 years.

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  39. gringozecarioca on July 2nd, 2013 at 6:16 am

    “If your friend commutes to the CBOT from this location every day for 20 years he must really not like his spouse and family. That is NUTS. That would take you 2 hours on a bad weather day just to go one way.”

    I remember working in NYC with 2 guys that used to commute up every day from Princeton and be in the office by 6 or 7am… Yes, totally nuts but makes me think of a very well off older guy I once knew.. I asked him why he still works, and he told me he needed a reason to get out of the house every day to get away from the wife and kids…

    my opinion is that anyone who works on the CBOT for 20 years can’t be all there anyway.

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  40. Y’all just haters.

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  41. “NOT an urban area…strip clubs on the corner…new Whole Foods”

    Just like YWF. So “lincoln park” is not an urban area?

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  42. Strip clubs on the corner of rand and lake-cook?

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  43. Good comments but I think that you are all a bit off. He was indeed a family man and I think that he or his wife had grown up in that area. They decided that was what they wanted for their own family and he figured out how to make it work. The closing bell rang at 2pm and I’d bet that many days he was home before his kids got out of school. He also took lots of time off in the typically slow summer months.

    Back then I think that he was making really good money. He ran a group of three or four floor traders, four arp clerks, and five trade checkers. It appeared to be a very successful business. Could not replicate that income everywhere. I saw one of his assistants last summer who told me that the guy was still down on the floor. Must be a bit crazy. By now his kids are all grown up so perhaps they moved.

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  44. gringozecarioca on July 2nd, 2013 at 11:56 am

    “He ran a group of three or four floor traders, four arp clerks, and five trade checkers. It appeared to be a very successful business.”

    Would be funny if that’s who HD worked for…

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  45. “Would be funny if that’s who HD worked for…”

    I was never on the floor, I was more of a back office guy over there for a few years.

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  46. The nature of the ‘trader’ has changed. The trader of old, the younger or middle aged brute, former linebacker who trashed talked all day on the board of the floor is gone…

    and it’s replaced with my early 30’s single buddy who HFT’s in his underwear from his 2/2 condo in the GZ. His ‘boss’ in Spain and his ‘co-workers’ are also in their underwear in various locations around the corn trading corn futures, and other various agri commodity futures.

    The former traders – many of whom made $500,000 – in a BAD YEAR – are broke and now selling used cars. A lot of them squandered their wealth, thinking the good times would never end. But for most people, they inevitably do.

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  47. gringozecarioca on July 2nd, 2013 at 2:19 pm

    “and it’s replaced with my early 30?s single buddy who HFT’s in his underwear from his 2/2 condo in the GZ.”

    I think it was JJJ who once said.. gotta respect a man who can make a living in his underwear (personal note: not certain if he was being sarcastic)

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  48. gringozecarioca on July 2nd, 2013 at 2:19 pm

    “and it’s replaced with my early 30?s single buddy who HFT’s in his underwear from his 2/2 condo in the GZ.”

    I think it was JJJ who once said.. gotta respect a man who can make a living in his underwear (personal note: not certain if he was being sarcastic)

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  49. “The former traders – many of whom made $500,000 – in a BAD YEAR – are broke and now selling used cars. A lot of them squandered their wealth, thinking the good times would never end. But for most people, they inevitably do.”

    So true so true… I was there in the early 90’s right after the FBI sting happened. I was right out of school and could see clearly that the end was inevitable. Shocked that it took so long as those old linebacker type floor traders and seat holding members resisted technology at every turn. The smart ones figured it out early. The loud brainless big bodies indeed crashed hard. Know quite a few of those stories. Glad I did not stay around as it was just was not my natural fit.

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  50. gringozecarioca on July 2nd, 2013 at 4:40 pm

    “The loud brainless big bodies indeed crashed hard.”

    I remember in ’96, it was the first time I went to see the floor in Chicago, and the one memory that remains with me was how overwhelmed I was by the size of most of the guys down there. My wife was with me and we walked out simultaneous to the closing bell. I am an even 6 foot and was wearing boots. I remember my wife just turns to me and said that walking out, next to everyone else, I looked like a child.

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  51. I went to visit the floor in 1984 (showing my age) and they had a gallery high up in a windowed room. They used to give tours there. I asked the tour guide why they needed all those people. Couldn’t computers just do it all? She gave me a dirty look and said some nonsense about open outcry being the best way and that computers could never replace humans.

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  52. Late to this discussion but the area is wonderful if you want a quiet area but very inconvenient. Getting anywhere from here sucks. Forget about downtown everyday, you would go crazy. Just yesterday I was trying to take 83 North to go to a restaurant and the traffic on 83 around 22 between 3 and 6 PM is some of the worst I have seen in the Chicago area. At least they put a new Sunset foods in on 83 or it would take you forever just to go to the grocery store.

    By the way HD, Lake County banned all strip joints, so the one you speak of is long gone and now another “Cash for Gold”. Also, like all East/West up north (Willow, 22, 120, 137) Lake Cook rush hour traffic is brutal. I have relatives who complain about it all the time.

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  53. Great documentary about the demise of the floor traders in Chicago “Floored”. Can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCcxr-fyF4Q
    On a side note, I can honestly say that buying my first home over the last year, and specifically the last 8 months has been the worst experience of my entire life. The majority of people I have dealt with makes the used car business and trading community look like the boy scouts. From pulling properties off the market the day after I made an offer or suddenly changing the price to sticking me with the worst mortgage rate lock available in the last 2 years. I could go on and on.

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  54. “and specifically the last 8 months has been the worst experience of my entire life.”

    1) I had the seller’s realtor and attorney calling MY mortgage broker trying to kill the deal; they were asking questions about my finances. Fortunately my broker told them “you will not find a more qualified buyer for this property.”

    2) Two weeks after I signed the contract and I was trying to get my clear to close, a ‘phantom’ ‘all cash deal’ mysteriously appeared on the table (despite the property being listed for 3 months with no offers) and the seller’s realtor kept trying to kill my contract so he could take the ‘cash’ deal for less money but close two weeks earlier.

    3) The douchebag seller’s realtor couldn’t be bothered to show up to closing to pick up his check – or even tender the keys at closing. I had to call his office after 3 phone calls explaining it was an emergency, they finally put him on the phone. I said “now that I’ve paid your client hundreds of thousands of dollars, why didn’t you show up to closing with the keys?” This DB has the audacity to say “I didn’t know the closing was today”. Then to get the keys, I had to drive to his office and pick the keys to my house at the front desk. He also tried pulling a fast one of my realtor by cutting her out of realtor’s fee at the closing by submitting instructions to pay him in full and he would separately pay the my realtor. my realtor was like “no way jose”. I bitched that MF out on the phone and told him that he was the most unprofessional loser I’ve ever dealt with, and that we went out of his way to sabotage his own contract. Well this DB realtor has a scathing review floating around about him on the internet. Two can play at this game I told him.

    My previous contract on a different house fell through because the seller’s realtor decided it was in his best interest to get a larger commission by doing a dual agency, so he iced my offer out of the deal.

    These realtors are nothing but scumbags. There are a few good ones out there, but its like they go out of their way to make a mess of things. Amazing how something so simple can be mucked up by morons

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  55. “Amazing how something so simple can be mucked up by morons”

    Replace “morons” with greed and it is no longer amazing.

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  56. Wow, homedelete, that is a whole lot of awelfullness. So I guess that is the next set of shenanagens I will have to go through. I’m already at the point where I want to get all the way up to the close, and tell them all to go F themselves individually, and sacrifice my earnest money, home inspection cost, and appraisal fees. Might be the best $1,800 I ever spent.

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  57. “homedelete, that is a whole lot of awelfullness”

    Not sure if that is better or worse than his having all that crap sediment in the basement. I guess better, bc at least you don’t have crap sediment in your house. Unless you do.

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  58. the insurance company is paying to clean up all the crap sentiment. and the $12k indoor lift station will solve the flooding problems. and the ins co is paying for a new basement too

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