Worthy Witness

It was serendipity that Sue and I met in the town hall that morning.  She was searching a property for her appraisal business, and I was searching comparable sales for a pending listing.  We were both working at either end of a venerable oak table at the height of summer  in a room without air conditioning.  Huge overhead fans elicited a faint hum and huge grey books were surreptitiously slapped onto the table.  There were grunts as each of us pulled them from the floor to ceiling shelves.  A computer that would eventually simplify our business lives was a dream of the future, and we were beyond typewriters that had erasure techniques built-in; it was the era of word processors.

It was our discussion of word processors that connected us.   I told Sue that I had one and knew how to use it.  I also had an office with a secretary.  Sue was an established appraiser with several accounts, and wanted to expand her business to my market area, and  I wanted to include appraising on my resume.   This was to be a partnership made in heaven.

For three years Sue and I were the Frick and Frack of professional appraisers.  The homes we viewed were, for the most part:  haunted, infested with fleas, had animals that were not house broken and were, many of them, unoccupied.  It was the unoccupied homes that I hated most.  Many were without heat in the dead of winter; others had the electricity turned off, forcing us to go into dark, critter and spider infested basements with only our flashlights.   In fact, my last appraisal with Sue was a classic experience. The basement is a critical aspect to a home appraisal.  We had to look for water, sump pumps, rotted beams and other evidence of disrepair so that our reports would reflect items that impacted value.

It was winter, and the house for appraisal that day was a lakefront home, two stories, basement under half the house with crawl space.  The bank told us that there was no electricity, no water, and no heat, so we were prepared.  Dressed in three layers deep clothing and high boots, we carried flashlights and screwdrivers in a backpack.  The driveway had not been plowed, so we parked the car to the side of the road and walked or rather slid down the driveway to the front door.  As always we inspected the two floors together.  Opening the door to the basement, we realized the access could only be one at a time.  Since I had some childhood fears of basements, Sue agreed to go first, asking me to shine my light above hers.  We shed our lights on walls and ceiling before venturing down.  Convincing ourselves that there were no incumbrances, we ventured forward.  About three-quarters of the way down, we heard some animal chatter.  I flashed my light in its vicinity.  Four ringed eyes of two racoons were watching us.

As I turned to run back, Sue realized there was a problem and inadvertently knocking the flashlight out of my hand,  pushed me aside, taking the foremost position up the stairs.   We slammed the basement door, grabbed our paperwork and locked the door.  Our partnership ended that day.  Serendipity played a major role.