Letters to John

House Hunting                                                                                                  

Yesterday marked the beginning of our search for a new home in the coastal zone of northern San Diego County.  The day started early when I checked my email in the predawn hours and found twenty-five pages of material on houses for sale from our real estate agent, Daniel.  One caught my eye, a property on Tremont Street in Oceanside.  The home had been improved in all respects by the builder-owner who had obtained all needed permits and engineering.  “An elevated deck above the spa affords a terrific spot to dine viewing the lagoon and ocean.”  How inviting!  A converted garage, with its own bathroom, provided a spacious extra bedroom for guests.  “Peace, quiet, and private” read the description.  Only two blocks to the beach, “this property is most unique.”  All for the bargain price of $485,000. 

Excited, I awakened Karlan and we decided to go see the property that morning, for it surely wouldn’t last long.  Having arrived before Daniel, we inspected the neighborhood and beach access.  The homes were of 1950s vintage, jerry-rigged and built in a slap-dash manner.  No one seemed to take much pride in their property, which looked rundown.  Trash littered a nearby street.  In search of the beach, we walked several blocks to the north before finding a street running toward the ocean.  Hope rising, we encountered a solid row of houses, abutting each other without an inch of space left for beach access.  Retreating to Tremont Street, we then followed a kind of trail by the side of a reed-filled “lagoon” along a railroad right-of-way until an underpass allowed passage toward the ocean, only to find no trail and another lagoon blocking the way.  The beach remained elusive.

Time to see “our house.”  We met Daniel at the front door, gaining entry with permission of a disgruntled woman who never took her eyes off the television set.  If ever there were a more jumbled floor plan, we haven’t seen it.  A narrow hallway, looking like a door to a closet, opened on two gloomy bedrooms.  A third bedroom, once a single garage, lay open to the front door.  The converted double garage had a plastic sheet guarding the toilet, and the shower stood forlornly on a temporary metal base, also protected by the ubiquitous plastic.

So much for the house.  What about the terrific ocean view.  I could see nothing from the backyard patio, so climbed the dangerous narrow steps above the spa.  Still no ocean. Perhaps, on an absolutely clear day, there might have been a touch of blue on the horizon, but you couldn’t prove it by me.  So much for the ocean view.

What about the “peace and quiet”?  The coastal railway ran near the property, and each train could be heard as it passed by, rocking along the track.  Worse was the noise of a nearby busy street, with incessant traffic.

So ended our first day of house hunting.