A previous wife and I bought a house and planned to spend time working on the place before moving in. We still lived in a duplex we owned. We had buyers for the duplex and were going to sell a few days after buying the house. The buyers agreed to let us live in the duplex another week or so after the sale.
My spouse called me at work and said the duplex was on fire. The duplex had a faulty fire alarm that sometimes rang for no apparent reason. When she finished her morning shower and heard the bell ringing, she thought it was another false alarm. She opened the bathroom door to an apartment full of smoke, got dressed, ran outside, called the fire department, and then called me.
I drove home as fast as I could. There were many firemen there, she’d called at a shift change, and both shifts arrived. A small crowd formed in our front yard, and eventually, I was surprised to see the duplex buyers there. They’d just been driving by, saw the smoke, and decided to stop. The conversation went something like this.
“What happened?”
“Fire.”
Pause.
“We’d like to wait to close until you’ve repaired the place.”
“I understand.”
Frankly, I expected them to back out completely.
The firemen put out the fire. The place was a disaster. The gas water heater somehow caught the laundry room on fire. Not everything burned, and we managed to take some things to the new house and moved in that night.
We had different attitudes that night. I was thrilled that she wasn’t injured; she was dark and withdrawn. I tried hard to cheer her up, to no avail. Finally, I did something I regret doing; I fired up the CD player and played the Talking Heads song, “Burning Down The House.” Hey, I get it now. I shouldn’t have done that. I think I’m funny, but I’m not.
Anyway, Allstate Insurance did a fantastic job helping us solve this disaster. About three months after the fire, the duplex was in much better shape than before. The buyers were getting a great deal; we didn’t raise the price. But during the closing, one of them complained about a vent, maybe not being up to code and refused to sign the papers. I said, “Why don’t we just cancel the whole thing,” which nearly gave their lawyer a heart attack. If they were going to be jerks, I was ready to re-list at a higher price. The lawyer advised his client to stop being an idiot (not the words he used). We closed the deal and moved on.
The duplex caught fire on our anniversary. I don’t usually believe in signs, but the marriage barely lasted a year afterward. Maybe some signs are real.