When my stepfather passed away last summer, his son and I inherited his little house on the Plateau Mont-Royal, which I nicknamed “our Usher house”. The one that will take us, because we will live there until our death or because it will crush us under the troubles.
I told all that in this portrait.
Us, the eternal tenants, it made us freak to get this on your head. It was not intended that my boyfriend loses his mother and father in the space of two years, to sudden deaths. Djo and Mo, who we miss too much.
Yesterday we were afraid of being evicted from our apartment; today, we are co-owners.
Our first reaction, when we entered THEIR house, on tiptoe so as not to disturb them even though we knew we would never see them again, was one of rejection. We were overwhelmed with grief, discouraged by 50 years of objects and dust accumulated under this roof, and terrified by the responsibility of a construction more than a century old. We are real estate ignoramuses and we have our hands full of thumbs, in addition to having a heavy heart.
Take the money and go? Selling it would have brought us a nice sum. We could have settled our debts, stayed on rent or bought ourselves a small condo and paid for a nice trip. In a hurry to get it over with, we contacted agents. The best one was the one who told us, “Don’t make decisions on the spur of the moment. And contact me again if you want to sell. “We kept his number.
For four months, every weekend, we walked from our apartment with the dog and our backpacks to go clean and sort out the memories of this house. We slept there, without the internet and without a TV, which we unplugged to save money while waiting to make a choice. Quietly, we wanted to live there, even if it scares me. When the hot water heaters go off, it makes ka-klang in the walls, it looks like a boat casting off, I needed the explanations of two specialists for it to stop stressing me. My boyfriendaccustomed since childhood, loves this noise.
Why not try the adventure? Why give up and leave this house built in 1875 to the wealthy who risk tearing everything down to bring it up to date? Because we are pissos? Because we are complexed to inherit a roof that in any case we could not have bought? This house is paid for. You won’t find a two and a half in Montreal at that price – I’m talking about municipal taxes, which are a rent in itself in this neighborhood. And it seems that they will increase.
To keep such a house, you have to empty your pockets, the opposite of filling them by selling it. You have to want to live there for the right reasons.
“Your house is your bank,” said Uncle Michel, who convinced us to stay. He helps us a lot. He and his wife Claire find that we look like them when they were our age and they were a bit out of trouble. They too live in an old house that they have been constantly refurbishing for years. Claire dug the basement herself, almost with a teaspoon, like in the movie Shawshank Redemption.
But when I think about it, I have a sense of absurdity. My in-laws bought this house for $15,000 in the 1970s. There was never any question for them of investing, betting on its future value, all they wanted was to live there in peace and happy. This is our only ambition too. I could fix it up and sell it for twice as much. To buy what? Something at the same price more cheap ? In another neighborhood? Let’s say it’s not like we just inherited a house in the suburbs that we would have had to sell because we can’t drive. We can’t even complain about bike paths and snow removal, since we don’t have a car.
I have the impression that life sends me a challenge that I want to take up. I discover a lot of stuff late in the day, like appraisers, inspectors, school taxes, and old hot water heaters.
There was no question of me embarking on the adventure without knowing the truth. So I hired a building inspector recommended by a friend. “He’s scary, but he’s really good,” he told me, advising me not to panic, because a building inspector isn’t there to flatter you the way you want. He is there to point out the slightest flaw.
PHOTO PHILIPPE BOIVIN, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The moldings are here for good.
He walked everywhere, from the basement to the roof, with his tape recorder to take notes, he looked like an investigator at a crime scene. Yes, he was scary, but basically what he told us was that the gist of it was okay. My father-in-law didn’t invest much in cosmetics, but he took care of the most important things, and he redid the roof two years ago. I saw in the inspector this admiring glance in front of the copper pipes, in the time that we manufactured solid. But his report is a grocery list, and we’ll probably have to tap this house until we die.
I don’t think a lot of wealthy people would want to live there like we’re ready to. That is to say, by accepting his faults. We will never touch the mouldings, nor this light fixture from the 1930s which will remain on the ceiling, and this not quite square window does not bother us.
This imperfect home may be perfect for us who are deeply imperfect. I almost decided to live there to tell you about this adventure. Whether she fails or not.
Anyway, there will always be the possibility of selling if we are too foolish to live there.