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Illustration by Kumé Pather
Less than one year ago, we bought a house before ever setting foot in it. It was not exactly the most financially sound decision we’ve ever made. This was compounded by the fact that less than two years ago, we had no intention of moving from our urban home.
It started innocently enough. Conversations with friends who had retired or were about to lit a fire in us that didn’t need much fuel to ignite our own plans. Soon I was receiving listings from real estate agents all over the lower mainland of British Columbia, Vancouver Island and B.C.’s Gulf Islands. Twice we came within days of buying a home without ever setting foot inside it. Luckily, saner heads prevailed. “Who does that?! Not us,” we said with a healthy dollop of smugness. Then, no less than two months later, we did exactly that – and bought a home based mostly on seeing listing photos. Needless to say, our decision raised a few eyebrows.
But to be fair to ourselves, we weren’t relying entirely on those photos. A good friend had told us, “For obvious reasons, real estate listing photos generally focus on just the house and not so much on the local surroundings. Is the house next to a maximum-security prison or the town landfill site?” They suggested using Google Earth to get a “birds’ eye” view of the property and its neighbours. After establishing that there weren’t any surprises, we gave ourselves the green light. We bought this new home in record time.
Our new home ticked all the right boxes. It’s nestled on the side of a steep hill with a stunning view of the Sechelt Inlet, and just two hours from Vancouver. It was love at first sight. It matched our search criteria perfectly, including its minimal use of stairs. Given that we’re both close to retirement age, we thought it was a wise and mature decision to look for a home with a minimum of ups and downs. Buying a house virtually? Piece of cake, we thought and felt pretty good about our purchase.
Our smugness would turn into a slap in the face.
We had heard many a cautionary tale in which the home buyers got caught up in the emotion of the purchase, which led to some shocking discoveries down the road: rodent infestations, leaky pipes or the empty lot across the street getting rezoned for a fast-food restaurant. Nope. That wasn’t going to happen to us, and it didn’t. But our “thorough” review of the sellers’ photos missed one tiny, but far-reaching fact about our new home. What appeared to be a slightly steep, short driveway turned out to be the exact opposite. At close to 100 feet long and angled like a rocket launcher, the G-force produced when ascending our driveway is noticeable. Regardless, we felt we could master this minor oversight in no time flat. The same cannot be said about delivery vans, starting with the moving company.
The mover didn’t arrive with a large tractor trailer – thank goodness – but the truck was still uncomfortably long. They first tackled the driveway head-on – four times in fact – but never reached a satisfactory unloading point. They tried backing up the incline three times; the last time two of the back wheels slipped off the side of the concrete. We were afraid our worldly possessions were about to pass before our eyes as we watched the truck list toward the forest that bordered our driveway. Luckily, a small correction avoided a catastrophe, and the truck was quickly emptied.
There were more attempted summits of our driveway, some successful, but at a price. Others were simply aborted. The day after we arrived, we heard a knock at our door. I opened it to find a middle-aged woman bent over, her arm leaning on the door jam too breathless to speak. There was a bouquet of flowers between her feet. I thanked her for the delivery and offered her a glass of water. The guys driving the truck delivering our closet organizer and media centre didn’t even attempt the driveway. They unloaded on the sidewalk and took three separate dolly trips that we needed to help push up the driveway. That took over 45 minutes.
We had our own harrowing experience on our driveway following a rare large dump of snow. After shovelling as much as we could while sliding downhill, we hopped in the car for a trip into town. By the time we reached the last third of the driveway, our car somehow turned 90 degrees and slid toward the street and the steep cliff nearby. Luckily, my Grade 10 driver training skills kicked in and we managed to straighten out in time.
We realized we were going to have make some changes after a few ill-advised trips down the driveway with the recycling bin. Fully loaded, this blue behemoth weighs more than I do. Navigating a driveway with a 45 per cent decline is just asking for trouble every two weeks.
So after much hemming and hawing, it was decided. Our beautiful home on the Sunshine Coast that has just three stairs needed the addition of 24 stairs carved out of the side of hill adjacent to our monster driveway. The irony was not lost on either of us.
To be honest, we quite like the stairs. But ask us how we feel about them when we’re in our 70s. We could have a different answer. For now, though, they provide a lovely, winding route through our little forest on a much softer, albeit bumpier route for taking out the bins.
While delivery drivers may give us the “stink eye” when they see our driveway, and friends may shake their heads at how we purchased our home, we know our decision was the right one for us.
Would we do it again? Absolutely. Every move is fraught with risk, but there’s also the promise of new adventures and exciting experiences. That’s what we chose to focus on.
Chris McDowall lives in Sechelt, B.C.
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