We actually closed on the house on Tuesday, the 17th. There was some mix-up with the sewer bill which was caused by the seller's agent and which had delayed the process for about a week.
I suppose it's fitting after all the stops and starts and delays and such that the purchase was consummated on a plastic table outside a coffee shop on the East Side, and it should probably not have surprised us that the seller's agent didn't show up. Neither should we have been surprised that we did not get any of the other keys to the house or the garage, other than the one we already had from the lock-box.
(The odd part about buying a foreclosure in Providence is that we only signed six sheets of paper. Then it was over. The whole process took about ten minutes. I purchased a condo way back when, and when that was over my hand was fatigued from inking a four-inch stack of legal ease.)
In any event, we own the place, and that's exciting! We still have the For Sale sign in our backyard, and the seller's agent has not come to claim his lock-box.
As a result of not having keys to the back...
and side door...
...our house is sort of a lock-box. One of the problems is that the locks on those doors are double-key locks, meaning you can only open them with a key, even from the inside. Without a key, the doors are basically windows to us.
We are going to reinstall these double-key locks, because Providence is ranked fifth in the country in city property crime, and if we don't, someone could gain entry by simply breaking one pane of glass then reaching inside to twist the deadbolt knob.
There are two other qualities of these locks that tripped us up this week. First off, there were no exposed screws. Check this close-up. Where screws would typically be, there is only a sheet of metal.
We've been working with a very nice locksmith over the phone named Greg. He's been trying to help us over the phone so he doesn't have to send a technician and charge us their visit fee.
At Greg's suggestion, we successfully drilled through the metal sheet. Unfortunately, behind the metal sheet, the heads of several of the screws that hold the locks in place are stripped. We were able to remove and replace the front door lock. But the side and back door locks have stymied us. This is how the back door lock looks now...
Needless to say, somebody from Greg's shop is going to come out here on Monday.
PS
The East Side is what people call the nice part of town in Providence with Brown and RISD in it. East Providence, on the other hand, is across the Narragansett Bay, and that's not such a nice part of town. I've gotten those two mixed up, and it's confused people, but apparently we live in the coveted East Side ZIP code, 02906. Enter 02906 here, and enter your own. It's pretty fun!
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