Let’s not get into the particulars of how and why I came to be alone in an uninhabited house on a Tuesday morning. Suffice it to say that my recent interest in home-ownership has led me to resume a nasty old habit… breaking and entering. Hey, I like to look before I buy. Don’t judge me!
Anyway, I’m almost totally reformed! My current guilty pleasure now consists solely of leading myself on a solo tour of any empty house I find with a “For Sale” sign in the yard. If I find one I really like, I check on it more than once. On this particular Tuesday, I was visiting my current sweetheart, a 3br/2ba brick ranch with a huge back yard and its original hardwood floors. I had visited this home 4 or 5 times in the last couple of weeks, and I drove by it every other day.
You have to understand. She was beautiful. Real oak molding, marble countertops, so-sexy-you-don’t-want-to-spit-in-them Moen sinks… I couldn’t stay away. Luckily, the contractor had left the side door unlocked and didn’t seem to come by often, so I soon forgot all about the questionable legality of my hobby and began courting her outright.
That is, until Tuesday. As soon as I stepped onto the kitchen’s stone tiles, I knew the air had changed. There was a distinct and pungent aroma of human waste. I was only marginally concerned at the time. It could have been an outdoor breeze blown in through an open window. It could have been an unfortunate smudge tracked in on a contractor’s boot. No big deal.
Then I looked into the sink.
Now, I should note that the sink basin had not yet been installed, so it was actually just a hole in the marble with pipes. There was little light, so as I peered down into the three-foot cavern, I could only make out what could have been a bundle of rags or a clump of sheetrock mud. I shrugged.
Then I looked into the bathroom.
There was no escaping this one. Sunlight streamed through the window and seemed to spotlight the beveled glass bowl that served as the sink’s basin. Yup. That was definitely a turd. I stepped back into the hallway and stood there, holding my breath for several minutes before shaking my head and, incredulously, returning to the kitchen to peer into that sink again. As it so often happens in moments of trauma, the shock had me trapped in a loop of repetitive behavior. I peered into the kitchen sink, then paced back to the bathroom, then back to the kitchen again, all the while shaking my head. Who the FUCK would shit in a SINK??
You must understand, I was utterely crestfallen. I know the house wasn’t mine. I understand that I might never have even bid on it. I am nowhere near ready to buy. Yet, it was enough for me to just stand in the master bedroom and dream. People need to dream sometimes. I drove away in silence, crushed.
But once the initial disappointment wore off, the whole thing became hilarious. Who the fuck WOULD shit in a sink? It’s not like it’s a natural inclination to just climb up on a countertop and cop a squat when there is a toilet available. And, really… BOTH sinks?? Nobody carries that level of shit with them on a casual outing. This had to be a conscious act of vandalism, and our culprit had an accomplice.
Frankly, it’s genius. You could spray paint the walls or smash the windows, but nothing demoralizes a homeowner like being forced to scoop some random stranger’s dung out of what would have been the home’s two finest selling points. It’s pretty much bioterrorism at this point. I mean, you’ve got to prepare your food and brush your teeth in these places. What potential buyer will ever be able to get past that?
Of course, the seller can quickly clean up the mess, but, even if he gets away with the cover-up, he will forever be haunted by the fact that up to this point he had skipped through life, blissfully unaware that such pure, unadulterated evil could touch him. Even in his own house, as he lifts a palm full of tap water to his lips to wash away the toothpaste, he will shudder, and his mouth won’t taste so minty anymore.
Yes, my friend, you’ve been sinkshat.
It didn’t take me long to imagine the ramifications of this event. The already-low asking price would most certainly go down. Either the disheartened seller would think the empty home too much of a liability and hurry to unload it, or an unwitting realtor would let a potential buyer in, giving them the ammunition to haggle the price down. Come to think of it, I might be able to use this tragedy for my own benefit. If everyone knew about the sinkshitting, the house might not sell until I was ready to buy it. By then, the owner might be virtually giving it away! I envisioned myself parked beside the driveway in a lawn chair with a lapel button that reads, “Ask me about the Shit-Sink House”. No, ma’am. That’s not a German name. However, I suspect that sauerkraut was involved.
But I couldn’t do that. After all, maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me something. I remember all of those times my friends and I skipped school and broke into empty houses to hang out. Yeah, I’m ashamed to say it now, but we did quite a bit of damage in our day. We put holes in walls. We screwed up the plumbing. We even built a camp fire on a bedroom floor once, just because we were cold. We were assholes. And now, some young punks have broken into my dream house and befouled my imaginary future water supply. Maybe I kind of deserve it. Maybe karma requires that I buy the shit-sink house as an act of atonement.
Eh. Nah.
I can’t see me taking the discounted sale price in exchange from the utter forfeiture of dignity it would take to say to the seller, “Sure, I’ll buy your house, poop and all.” I also have to think about the certain embarrassment of moving into a house when the neighbors might know the conditions under which you came to procure such a bargain.
No, I suppose I’ll pass. Chances are, though, whatever house I do buy, I’m bringing bleach.
