Let’s see. My blood pressure went up this week over…missing cats and a client who fell down a flight of stairs while holding her toddler. In real estate, it’s the little stuff we sweat as it comes tumbling down some days, in one deal after another.
My sellers decided to put their home on the market while they were on vacation. Their cats like to slither out the door so I put notice in the MLS listing and a sign on the front door to caution agents against feline escape. Most real estate agents know cat behavior well. There often are more cats living in the houses we sell than people.
One of three tabby/white felines that I couldn’t tell apart in this rambling Victorian, Peanut had been just fine a few hours before, when I last showed the house. After hearing from the cat sitter, the owner called me from her woodsy outpost in Vermont, her voice trembling. The sitter then called me. She’d looked in every closet, in the dark basement, under beds. No Peanut. It was nearly 9 pm. My husband thought I might be home for good but I went out to join the search.
Nerves frayed, we trolled the house again, left food on the porch, called her name, shook a box of cat food. Silence. Then...was that Peanut on the landing? We counted 2 other cats under the dining room table, rolling about, oblivious. Peanut. Strolling down the stairs, all mystery and attitude.
Next day, my cute client from from the the other coast brought her parents to see the big house she and her husband thought might be the one. We strolled through its attractive, sizable rooms, surveyed the large property. Her small child played on the swing set. One last look on the second floor just as I’d walked down to the foyer. Above me, a thunderous bumpty-bump-bump-bump. Seven uncarpeted stairs. She clutched the baby and both slid with a giant thud onto the second-floor landing.
Silence. Baby screams. Mommy screams.
All was well. A big scare but no bones broken. No baby boo-boos.
This is a ready-for-anything business.
