B/c of my divorce, STBXDH and I are selling our house and I'm looking for another. I'm pretty constrained due to limited funds, but I've got a great realtor who found something that looked fantastic.
Well, you know what they say about things that look too good to be true? This may be the case here. On paper, the house seemed perfect, and when the realtor took me to see it, I nearly swooned. This isn't to say it's super-fancy or anything; it just fits my current needs so well, as though it was made for me.
The current owners are an older couple, and they went for a walk while we toured the house. When we went outside to look at the yard, my attention was caught by two children in the neighbor's yard. At first, I though they were playing or rough-housing, but one of the boys kept making this yelping noise, and the other boy seemed to be running around him and waving his hands and hollering. This kept going the entire time we were outside. We went back to the front in time to see the owners return, and they seemed really uncomfortable that we saw what was going on in the neighbor's yard.
A woman from that house came out and joined us on the sidewalk. I thought this was great, a way to find out more about the neighborhood, but the homeowners now looked VERY uncomfortable. The neighbor was very, very effusive, going on and on about how great the neighborhood was, how close everyone was, how wonderful it was that another single mom would be moving in... She mentioned several times how close she was to the homeowners: "Why, they're just like another set of grandparents to my kids!" And the homeowners did that forced half-smile and stayed silent.
I've since learned that the neighbor's children have Fragile X Syndrome and require constant care. She has help during the day, but she is known up and down the street for imposing. Not just imposing, but doing so a LOT and not being shy about it.
I am making no judgments about her situation: I'm certain that it's really tough and she's probably pretty lonely. But I do not want to move next-door to this. I work full-time and have a baby, and while ideally want a great, close relationship with my neighbors, this looks less and less like a friendship that would naturally develop and more and more like she'd just attempt to recruit me into her network of help. And while some people would say, "Oh, create boundaries, no one can take advantage of you if you don't let them" who could say no to her pleas for help when they know this situation?
All of this is to say I'm not going to buy the house. The homeowners came way down in their price, which makes me think they themselves are desperate to get away from this situation. I don't know why they are moving: my realtor certainly doesn't know, and they were really closed-mouthed about it. At any rate, a friend of mine thinks I'm not just rude, but "bigoted" because I don't want to live there. Am I? I've got a lot going on right now as well as just being really busy, and I just don't have a lot to give anyone besides those already closest to me. Is it wrong that I don't want to live next door to this?
