outer-jessie's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- if it ain't one thing, it's a felony Riddle me this, my DiaryLand fellows. Do you buy the perfect house in the perfect town, knowing that you're handing over a huge wad of money to a convicted sexual offender...or do you NOT do that? I really do want to hear your heartfelt thoughts on this issue. I just got home today from my visit to the new job (<3) in the new part of the country, for me (<3 <3) and loved everything about it, as you can see. As I think I was mentioning earlier, it sounds progressive, there are lots of ideas floating around, everyone wants to make improvements, and there is just limitless potential for professional growth. I am in love. I was also surprised to find that the area is absolutely lovely, not at all flat, and supremely green. I went on a housathon with my pre-selected realtor, saving the coup de grace, the icing on the beautiful-house-flavored cinnamon bun, for last. This house was one we had found online prior to my visit, with lots of beautiful pictures of the character just oozing out of this hundred-year-old home. Seeing it in real life was even better than the pictures (even though I *distinctly* told myself not to get my hopes up) and I was sold as soon as I felt myself gasp upon entering one of the gorgeous upstairs bedrooms. I'm not saying it's anything fancy; I'm just saying it's perfect and it will be mine. BUT. Leave it to my father to be thorough in his vetting of the area. He looked up the registered sex offenders in the town (5 for the 2000-large population, whatever) and found that one of them is living IN MY HOUSE. That is to say, we'd be buying it FROM him. Obviously you've already reached this conclusion because I gave it away in my opener, but try to imagine my dream cloud turning into moldy cream cheese before drying out and crumbling into my hair. Because you know G will never go for forking over more money than we've ever had in our lives, to a person that we KNOW has abused a child. And I'm not too keen on it either. BUT. Having a conviction, even a class 3 felony conviction, reveals very little about the nature of the crime. As I was telling G, it could be that he committed an atrocious and violent act against a child...or it could be that he had an affair with the teenaged babysitter. You can't tell based on the type of conviction alone, and I can find fuck-all else about the guy besides this. I can't find anything. And I paid an embarrassing amount of money for a background check, so it's not for lack of trying. Part of me is saying, fuck him; buying this house gets him out of the neighborhood and reduces the offender count by 20%. The money doesn't go to him, it goes to the bank, and what we've offered (and now will refuse to budge from) yields the sellers no profit (my father and I checked to see what he and his wife(?) had paid for the house two years ago). And I wouldn't give a shit about ANYthing to do with the sellers, if it wasn't for the fact that this one almost completely useless piece of information is publicly available online. It's actually less than useless, because it raises some very serious red flags for us that we quite honestly have no need for (assuming he's leaving) and can't even determine the nature of. BUT. On the other hand, here he goes after not even two years of owning this house, which according to what I've been reading is typical pedophile behavior, going from place to place to stay under the radar. I don't think buying a house would be the typical m.o. in these situations, but who knows. Granted, the conviction took place almost 20 years ago, so maybe it was a one-time thing, like the babysitter seduction scenario. But on the other hand, maybe it was just a one-time REPERCUSSION, despite on-going violations. These things could still be going on, and he takes off every couple of years to beat the heat. We have no reason to believe that anything horrific was going on in OUR house...but what if? I am loathe to even mention this issue with the realtor, because as I was again telling G, I don't want to hear some pathetic spiel about what great people they are, AND I also don't want the real/feigned shock and for him to then tell the sellers about our hesitations. I don't want the sellers to suspect a THING about us. They are still living in OUR house, after all. So given that my background checking detective work was a big fat disappointment, I pulled my ace, or at least what I hope is my ace. I looked up the phone numbers for all the neighbors I could find and I'm going to call them and ask them what they think about "the house" and the fact that we might be moving in. For one, it'll give me a sense of their gag reflexes when they find out we're a lesbian couple. And for two, it might give me an inkling of what people have thought of the current residents, or at least if any concerns have been raised. I doubt it, but maybe. It's not that I want to snoop on the sellers. They are entitled to move on with their lives, assuming they are law-abiding lives. I just don't want to have a shadow cast over this lovely house if we get it. A shadow of our haunting doubts. You know what I mean? So please, tell me what you think and what you'd do in my sitch. 4:46 p.m. - 2011-06-23 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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