We are under contract with the second people to view our home and everything is proceeding well. However, we were also under contract last year after just about the time you've been on the market. (Unfortunately the deal fell through due to an unforeseen problem which the inspection turned up.) Anyway, our experience last year as first-time sellers taught us a lot. There are definitely lulls. In fact, we're learning something even this time around. Last year, we had tons of traffic for about a week, but no offers. This was excellent traffic for our area. Then... NOTHING for 5 weeks. Zero showings. Then a decisive drop in price, and showing activity picked up, multiple offers. However, we were never sure that it was the new price which drove the increase in traffic. Showings dropped off at a point when apparently everything dropped off everywhere, and our price change coincided with a pick-up throughout the area. This year, we decided to go in closer to our lower price, but still about $10K above our final contract last year, even though the market is about the same around here this year. We got a full price very "clean" offer in about half a week (which is insanely fast for my area.) The agent took his time changing the status of the property, and we have heard that in that time, we got no requests for showings, despite the property appearing to still be completely available. School's about to end around here, or has ended in some places. This is a bit earlier than we went on the market last year, and I think this is yet another time of year when everything in the area drops off. If you are worried about people wondering what is "wrong" with your house - I would include an artfully worded statement in my public remarks, something to the effect of "Buyer financing fell through, back on market." I see this sometimes. It's better not to have something like that, if you can help it, but if need be it can help to off-set a negative impression. This post was edited by lizzie_nh on Mon, Jun 16, 14 at 15:46

Oh Kay, I'm so sorry. It's just never easy. I nearly fell over a lose board in our subfloor this weekend and my DH was making all kinds of racket with the power tools in our torn up kitchen late Sunday evening. Sigh. I "get" it. I know it would have been ever so nice to have a lovely new kitchen that FUNCTIONS for your aunt when she comes to visit. But what matters most is her time with your family and getting a good visit in with your Mom, huh? I agree with Dianalo; might be a welcome distraction to see what's going on with the construction. When you step back and think about this, family (yours for you, and your carpenter's for him) matters more than a construction schedule. Especially during the coming together and support around death and dying. I hope you're doing things to take care of yourself these days, while your Mom is on her final journey. While your Aunt is here, you can nuture each other in other ways even if you can't cook for her: pot of tea, looking over old photos, and just sitting together. Take care.

So they fixed the doors and to be honest, I can not see where the hole was repaired. And at first I thought, well I guess we'll just live with them and try to get some sort of written guarantee from the contractor. The contractor said it was done by a kitchen cabinet person, not just any sort of paint job. However, I looked at it again before leaving the house at night and this might be my imagination or the lighting, but it almost seems like the doors are a third of a shade darker than the cabinet frame. And then on one of the doors, higher than where the hole was it almost seems like a 2 inch swirl of a hair got stuck in the paint. However, it is not as thick as a hair (and I know I'm splitting hairs) pardon the pun and nothing is really stuck but its something that doesn't rub off. Who knows if it came like that. Another thing happened. I had my hood delivered on Friday and the head guy ask the workers to check it before I accepted delivery. I think the same guy who drilled the wrong hole checked it but then on Monday, he told me the hood was bent in the corner. I said if you checked it why didn't you see it? He said because they didn't take it out of the box when they checked and that part was way at the bottom. There was also a little bit of a scuff on that corner of the box on the outside. And I sort of understand how the delivery truck isn't going to wait 20 min+ for them to take the whole thing out and unwrap it (it was big and bulky). But now I'm not even sure what the hood distributor is going to do. I've been giving them info via email like serial # and a photo and they want some more detail on the damage. I've asked the contractor to ask that worker to pay more attention to detail. We already had the discussion of why the shipment wasn't refused. Also, I will now be exchanging the blower and incurring a 25% restocking fee and delivery charges or driving it an hour+ away. It's good and bad. Good that they figured out a place for the external vent that we hadn't thought of but bad that they didn't do it before we bought the inline blower. Overall, it will probably cost me less doing it externally than keeping the inline and installing it. So the question is where do I pick and choose my battles? And I certainly want to maintain good will. This whole project is very tricky and overall, I think they've done a very good job and the kitchen looks great. I would manage the future master bath project a little more closely, now that I know I need to understand how they are doing certain things. Are they going to think I am crazy if I mention that the color of the entire doors might be less than a shade different? The KD is supposed to give me a cost for the doors and she said she would do it at cost. She said if the doors have to be replaced after a year it would be much more costly because they would require a "color match" process On reading the manuals, I mentioned my concern about the Fisher Paykel to the plumber and about hand tightening the Rohls w/ disposer. He said he just hooks up but he doesn't read the manuals and he will just do it the way he's done it since he hadn't had a problem. Well at least he was honest! I asked how many of the farm sink/disposers he had installed and he said 6-7 this year so I didn't argue with him. :) It's probably true most people don't have a problem and they only post when there is a problem. At any rate, thanks for your help and for letting me vent This post was edited by CT_Newbie on Tue, Nov 5, 13 at 22:49

I do have experience with carpenter ants and I very much doubt that the Raid did much to resolve the problem. Carpenter ants typically have their nest outside the home and not in your house. They use the outside nest as a base of operations, and stream into the house like a little convoy, eat the soft parts of the wood in your house, and then leave to take this material back to the nest. To eradicate them you need to clear all vegetation that is touching your house and then spray the foundation all the way around with a specialty pesticide that will kill them when they track through it and bring it back to the nest. It's also wise to do at least one more application several weeks after the first one, or if there is a chance the rain was gotten to the pesticide. If you are not informed about the right protective gear to wear when applying the pesticide, get a professional to do this. In my case, I had three separate occurrences of this problem over a number of years at my previous house. Once you get your carpenter ant problem resolved, you will need to stay alert in future years for signs of their return, and to always keep the landscaping -- plants, bushes, and trees -- pruned back so none of it is touching the house and providing a pathway in and out.