House hunting: Touching a bunch of strangers stuff.

  For the last few months, I've really been trying to find a house.  I won't bore you with the details of how completely aggravating the entire process is, and how it seems it will never end.  But, there is an aspect of it that I never really thought about until today: You more or less have a total window into how a complete stranger lives, and access to their things.

  I have looked at a lot of houses, and I can't tell you how many have been vacant, left to rot foreclosures.  It is a window into the last months of what I can only assume is a desperate home owner scrambling to get by, then just saying "FUCK IT", and start ripping out all of the cabinets.  There's generally holes in the walls, missing plumbing fixtures, animal fur all over the place, etc.  Now, there are homes taken care of by the bank and/or Realtor that are quite presentable.  But for everyone of those there are six total shit holes.  It's sad really.  At one point a family lived there, just like mine or yours.  At some point something went terribly wrong.  Maybe they were given a loan they shouldn't have been.  Maybe the breadwinner lost their job.  Whatever the case, they lost their house.  That has to be crushing.  But whatever, fuck 'em.  I'm getting a cheap house out of the deal so hooray for me.  

  What is even more strange, is looking at a house that is currently occupied.  A lot of the time they people clear out so you don't have to see them.  But even so, you're just traipsing around a total strangers house, with access to just about every aspect of their private lives.  If one was so inclined, you could basically have a dick party in a total strangers sock drawer.  If that's the sort of thing you're into.  There has to be people out there that get off on that sort of thing.  Their realtor is downstairs filling out paperwork.  Meanwhile, this guy is balls deep is some poor strangers loofah because he; "had to go check out the upstairs one last time".    Sort of a gross, but plausible thing to consider.

  One thing I did not consider, however, was how big of slobs some people selling their house would be.  I kind of assumed they wanted their houses to be as presentable as possible.  But there are some people that clearly do not give a shit.  Dirty dishes in the sink, laundry on the floor, general kitchen grossness.  You're trying to move a product you lazy asshole, make it look pretty for me.  It's just sort of shocking to me that people have that level of not giving a fuck in them.  

  A lot of the time the messiest houses have the owner on site while you look.  So you have to see the slob that is trying to make you buy their crumby house.  When the people are home, dirty house or not, looking at a house sucks.  You can't make remarks about how awful they have decorated, or really get into being a critical jagoff you need to be to look at a house.  It's really awkward.  

  Looking for a house stops being fun after about a week.  But, if you're bored and want to see how a bunch of strangers live, pretend you're in the market, and go hunting.  It's really the only legal way to dive into the deep end of a multitude of people's personal belongings.  Who knows, you might meet a cool person along the way (I haven't yet).  Or a person that you are totally convinced is a serial killer (I have).