My husband is one of the kindest and caring individuals on the face of this planet but sometimes he drives me nuts. He has a new policy of not putting out our recycling bin on trash pick-up day until the 11th hour. I used to haul all of our containers down to the curb around 5 PM the day before the city picks up our trash. But between the time the recycling truck gets here and the time we drag out the containers for trash, garden waste and recycling, scavengers come around. They pick through our recycling and swipe our plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
I suppose some of these scavengers are homeless people and others are just guys who want to make a few bucks on the side. I asked my husband why he cares who gets the recycling as long as it's eventually recycled. But then I can be more pragmatic than he. Well, he objects to the way the scavengers toss other crap on the ground, leave the lids open, but primarily he objects to the fact that the city of Sacramento is not getting paid. And ultimately, he believes, that could cause our own utility rates to escalate. Therefore, he is absolutely, positively, NOT going to drag our recycling container down to the curb until he hears the truck coming.
And if he misses the truck, like he did the week before and maybe the week before that, and our recycling piles up in the back yard, well, that's the cost of helping out the city of Sacramento and keeping the City's coffers flush.
Me? I'd rather help out my short sale sellers. Sell that Sacramento short sale and help the sellers to move on to a different phase of their lives, to a place where they won't be underwater or pressured financially to make a mortgage payment they can no longer afford.
Here is a 4-bedroom, 2-bath home in Citrus Heights. It's located pretty close to Roseville because I turned on Auburn instead of Old Auburn from Antelope and ended up in Roseville in nothing flat. So don't make that navigational mistake if you're driving over there.
This home was built in 1978 -- the year the Ramones had "I Wanna Be Sedated" in the Top 40 (my official short sale song for 2010), along with Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London," another all-time favorite I never tire of. I think he wrote that song in something like 10 minutes. Before Zevon passed away, I caught him on a David Letterman show. Letterman asked Zevon if there is anything he was doing differently, knowing that he was about to die. If you want to know what that was, you'll have to click on the David Letterman link. However, back to my listing, this home is not dated like 1978 because some of it has been remodeled.
Oh, the layout is still the same. Back then it was very popular to have a raised entry with the rest of the home on a different level. The entry is tile. To the right is a step-down formal living room. That location is actually a satellite to the rest of the home. It's a good place to stash the kids to watch TV. To the left is a step-down to a great room concept. You've got an open kitchen that has been remodeled with ceramic counters and maple cabinets, an open dining room flanked by windows, and a nice sized family room with a floor-to-ceiling, wood-burning fireplace.
Straight ahead is a step-down into a hallway, which leads to the four bedrooms. The master is at the end and to the left, which means it overlooks the huge back yard. The back yard is about a 1/4 acre; it features an apricot tree and lemon tree, plus it has that all-important RV access with a concrete pad. There is also a stamped concrete patio in the back, plus a stamped concrete patio in the front. The home sits on a hill, so you could actually sit in your front yard and admire all that you own below you, including the towering redwood trees that shade part of your new home.
8087 McClung Drive, Citrus Heights, CA 95610, is offered exclusively by Lyon Real Estate as a short sale at $185,000. For more information, please call your Sacramento short sale agent, Elizabeth Weintraub, at 916 233 6759.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
---
Certified HAFA Specialist
My Sacramento Real Estate Listings
Elizabeth Weintraub is an author, home buying columnist for The New York Times-owned About.com, a Land Park resident, and a Land Park real estate agent who specializes in older, classic homes in Land Park, Curtis Park, Midtown and East Sacramento. Weintraub is also a Sacramento Short Sale agent who lists and successfully sells short sales throughout the four-county Sacramento area. Call Elizabeth Weintraub at 916.233.6759. Put 35 years of real estate experience to work for you. Broker-Associate at Lyon Real Estate. DRE License # 00697006.
The Short Sale Savior, by Elizabeth Weintraub, available at Amazon.com.
Lyon Real Estate is not associated with the government, and our service is not approved by the government or your lender. Even if you accept this offer and use our service, your lender may not agree to change your loan.
Photo: Unless otherwise noted in this blog, the photo is copyrighted by Big Stock Photo and used with permission.
The views expressed herein are Weintraub's personal views and do not reflect the views of Lyon Real Estate.
Disclaimer: If this post contains a listing, information is deemed reliable as of the date it was written. After that date, the listing may be sold, listed by another brokerage, canceled, pending or taken temporarily off the market, and the price could change without notice. It could blow up, explode or vanish. To find out the present status of any listing, please go to elizabethweintraub.com.
Elizabeth -
Way to nail two goblins within one post (or was that three or four ? :-)): you really skewered the scavengers and gave us a great tour of this Sacramento Short Sale listing....and shown us it's not haunted - even if it's Halloween Eve.
I recently relocated across Canada, and chose to liquidate most belongings rather than move them. One day, in the midst of sorting, boxing and lugging to GoodWill stores, I left 2 boxes beside the garage. 30 minutes later I came out to load my vehicle - and they were gone. This gave me an idea... I laid a 7ft. bookshelf sideways and proceeded to carry laundry baskets full of 'junk' to be placed on the makeshift table outside my yard... and over the next 4 days gave away 25 years of waffle irons, knick nacks, books, CD's, saucers and vases.
To people in my neighborhood who were in need, and would use or resell it. The best part - no gas, mielage, cleaning or packing to take the stuff to the donation centres!!
And BTW: I share your husband's last minute strategy (I prefer the more business-like phrase "just in time") for getting out the garbage.
I'd happily use that "city coffers" argument to bolster the wisdom of my strategy - if only it applied here (where we have competing private companies doing garbage service). But maybe I could amend it apply to making sure the smaller hauler we use gets all the recycling it can - better to compete with the large outfit we both hate.
Problem is: she'd only be impressed with the argument on the weeks I get it out there on time.
Hey Sharon: I do that as well. My policy is nothing new comes into the house if something old doesn't leave it.
Hi Jim: Well, I can see the logic of wanting the City of Sacramento to be paid for recycling. It's just a hassle.
Elizabeth - we've had that problem a few times as well. The scavengers are stealing from the company who picks up our recycling every week. Our rates a low because we are giving them our CA redemption plastic and aluminum and I don't want the rates to go up. I sympathize.
Elizabeth - Ok, seriously now. I can't tell you how many Monday mornings (our trash day) hubby has jumped out of bed and flown out of the house in time to get the trash bins out. No matter how many times I remind him on Sunday nights to take the trash out, he still forgets and come Monday, he scares the crap out of the fur babies and I (they sleep in our room at night) when he hears the trash trucks coming up the street.