Two Things are Certain: Destruction and Taxes

Every eleven years or so, I find myself really grateful we had kids. And no, I’m not talking about that disaster of a holiday we call Mother’s Day. Don’t get me started on that. 

I’m talking about that rainy Tuesday morning I call “yesterday” when Tighe and I welcomed two local property tax assessment officers—I have no idea whether or not they’re actually “officers,” but for the purposes of this blog, I will often refer to them as such—into our home. 

You see, the county has assessed our home to be worth way more than we paid for it, and more importantly, way more than we think it’s worth. I mean, it’s a great house, we love it, and we love its location. But if—and this is a big if—we were to sell it, we’d have to spend a substantial amount of money to get it ready to list. So, last month, we filed an appeal with the county, and they agreed to dispatch two of their highly esteemed investigative officers to our house to get a better feel for the home’s worth.

And that’s where my gratitude for my kids comes in. 

The two civil servants, who would become our best friends for the next twenty minutes or so, were very nice. But there wasn’t much they needed to do to realize our home was in shambles. The kids had already seen to that. 

“We just need to take some pictures of the bathrooms, the kitchen, and any holes or damage to the house,” the female officer explained.

And that—”holes or damage”—is where we’ll shine.

Do we even have enough time to document all that? I thought to myself.

Tighe walked through the house with them, practically step for step, helping them identify every hole, every crack, every nail pop. All of which there are many.

I popped up every few minutes to point out any of the defects that Tighe forgot. Those glaring imperfections that I dream of repairing, but that we’ll probably procrastinate on until we’re ready for our pending renovation. That renovation will be a huge milestone for us and we’re very dedicated to it. And for that reason, it’s difficult to spend time, money, and effort fixing every little hole in the plaster when we know that our architect has already planned for certain walls to come down. You know, in a year. Or two. Or three. Whenever we get to it.

And for the twenty minutes or so we spent with these two county bureaucrats, we wanted all those defects to stand out. Show how imperfect our house is. How worthless it is. In other words, lower our property taxes!

Fortunately, as I’ve alluded to, our kids have been living in that house just as long as we have. Three of the kids anyway. And then Lou, the most destructive one of them all, has been in there for over three and a half years. He’s already done more than his fair share of damage. Well done, Lou.

As they meandered through the house, scanning for deformities, destruction, and deterioration, I could hear Tighe offering up factual explanations, almost apologetically. 

“Oh, was that a water leak or something?” one official asked, pointing to an egg-sized hole in the plaster above the large entryway in the living room.

“No, that was my son. Practicing free throws with his basketball.” 

Tighe sounded sheepish on that first one. I don’t know whether he was embarrassed about the hole, embarrassed about the lack of discipline in our house, or embarrassed that the bureaucrat might figure out that free throws are Nate’s weakness in basketball. He’s a scrappy defender and a pretty good ball handler, but send him to the free throw line and you’re pretty much guaranteed a turnover. 

“How about, uh, all these?” he said, gesturing towards the chips in the plaster in the dining room walls, right at chair level.

“Oh, the kids,” Tighe replied. “They lean back in their chairs a lot.”

I mean, we tell them not to, of course.

“Don’t forget this!” I said, moving toward the fire damage still branding the dining room wall just above the buffet. 

“Electrical fire?” the man asked, already making a notation on his tablet.

“No! A candle exploded. It ignited Sam’s art project. The wall caught on fire, there was smoke all along the ceiling.”

And despite all our scrubbing, there are still soot stains in one corner of the ceiling. We’ll have to repaint that when we renovate. 

“Wow,” he murmured to himself.

And that was the moment Tighe and I started to take pride in each and every foible in our house. Instead of feeling embarrassed, we started to own them. 

“And here?” he was pointing to a missing window pane in the french doors to the sunroom.

“Another basketball incident.”

“And the black marks on the baseboards and trim on the doorframes?”

Our trim throughout the house is white, so all the black scuff marks about four inches off the floor are very noticeable. 

“Oh, that’s where the kids hit the walls with the hoverboard.”

I think those tax assessment officers were starting to sense the theme.

Tighe took them to the basement and showed him the multiple holes and gashes in the drywall. All wrestling fatalities. Limbs and other projectiles being tossed around, crashing through the crisp, fresh paint.

Upstairs I overheard them notice the shredded carpet at the top of the steps, which was a canine calamity, somewhere for Wally to claw frantically when his thunderstorm anxiety overtook him.

Then another hole in the plaster on the landing. No one’s ever owned up to that one. I’ve always imagined that it was Rocket, tearing down the steps with a little too much puppy enthusiasm, taking the corner too fast, and blasting through the wall.

The boogers on the ceiling in the guest room? I can’t name names because I never saw the actual transgression occur, but I’m assuming it was one of the kids from the days we had a bunk bed in that room. What better place to wipe your boogers than on the white ceiling? I don’t even know how to get those off, I guess we’ll just paint over them some day. 

The wobbly pedestal sink in Tess’s and Lou’s bathroom? Is it not normal to try to climb up on top of the sink while you’re brushing your teeth?

What about the half dozen or so baseball-sized holes in the plaster on the staircase up to the third floor? Remember Sam? From the dining room fire incident? Those are his personal destruction projects, which seem rather ironic since the opposite of destruction, construction and aesthetics—at least Lego-building and art—are two of his passions.

As far as the exterior of the house is concerned, I can’t really blame the kids for the leaky roof that needs to be replaced, nor the hole in the trim just below the roofline, which is inhabited at the moment by a family of birds. But I can blame Nate for the blistering wooden fence planks in the northwest corner of the yard that get pelted by lacrosse balls every afternoon. 

Let’s just say that after they departed our house, probably grateful to be out of the dilapidated dump we call a home, Tighe seemed slightly ecstatic as he shut the front door. 

“Well, I think it’s safe to say our house is about to be devalued,” he said to me. He was smug. 

Thanks, kids. We’re so grateful you live here. 

EDIT: Tighe is arguing that Sam is actually the most destructive child. He’s not wrong. It’s a very close race.