Oh, good grief, Green Acres was on and Mr. Douglas had troubles with the tax assessors. I'd forgotten how irritating and stupid that show was. One of her diamond earrings could have fixed up that hovel of a house to livable standards, for cripes sake. And I've had shot Mr. Haney and buried his body under the compost pile.
We've been here for ten years. When we moved here, this place was part of an estate and was an overgrown jungle with no outbuildings. Bedroom carpets were nasty. Every faucet leaked, the well tank connection leaked, the porch roof leaked. Well, the porch roof still leaks because some local idiot who shall remain nameless put a roof on the wraparound deck then put shingles on a basically flat roof, probably a rise of 2 in 12 at the most. Of course, it leaked. There's more to the porch roof story, but suffice it to say that two sides need to be ripped off and rebuilt with new decking when we re-roof the house, whenever we can do that, so we can do it all at one time. The house roof itself may be original but it's in great shape for its age.
We've built three outbuildings, made a raised bed garden, strawberry patch, planted orchard trees that are bearing now, trimmed and encouraged the blueberries that were here and added to them, made a beautiful year round view, fenced and will soon cross-fence the next lot section, etc. We've replaced the entire well system, water heater, washer/dryer, oven, installed a wonderful Hearthstone soapstone woodstove. For a small house, it has fabulous storage and is very well-insulated. We have privacy since a road surrounds the entire 5+ acres and no boundary issues with anyone are even possible. The worst of the storms seem to skirt around us. We really, really don't relish the thought of starting over from scratch somewhere else after sweating and pushing to make something of this place.
There is just that not-so-little issue of those ridiculously high taxes they are trying to attach to small acreage. I'd love to own about 10 acres, but I sure won't do it here and I would be afraid to acquire it anywhere else for fear of the same thing happening again with reassessment. If we lived in TN or NC where they don't tax DH's military pension, then that would put back over $300 in our pockets that GA snatches out of ours every year and that would help pay taxes there. But, this feels more like home than any house and property we've ever had. I'd cry to turn it over to someone else.
DH wrote a letter to the editor of the Fannin News Observer about this tax issue which my neighbor says was published. Will have to get a copy of that-they don't put the entire paper online and that letter isn't in Friday's online version of it.
We've been here for ten years. When we moved here, this place was part of an estate and was an overgrown jungle with no outbuildings. Bedroom carpets were nasty. Every faucet leaked, the well tank connection leaked, the porch roof leaked. Well, the porch roof still leaks because some local idiot who shall remain nameless put a roof on the wraparound deck then put shingles on a basically flat roof, probably a rise of 2 in 12 at the most. Of course, it leaked. There's more to the porch roof story, but suffice it to say that two sides need to be ripped off and rebuilt with new decking when we re-roof the house, whenever we can do that, so we can do it all at one time. The house roof itself may be original but it's in great shape for its age.
We've built three outbuildings, made a raised bed garden, strawberry patch, planted orchard trees that are bearing now, trimmed and encouraged the blueberries that were here and added to them, made a beautiful year round view, fenced and will soon cross-fence the next lot section, etc. We've replaced the entire well system, water heater, washer/dryer, oven, installed a wonderful Hearthstone soapstone woodstove. For a small house, it has fabulous storage and is very well-insulated. We have privacy since a road surrounds the entire 5+ acres and no boundary issues with anyone are even possible. The worst of the storms seem to skirt around us. We really, really don't relish the thought of starting over from scratch somewhere else after sweating and pushing to make something of this place.
There is just that not-so-little issue of those ridiculously high taxes they are trying to attach to small acreage. I'd love to own about 10 acres, but I sure won't do it here and I would be afraid to acquire it anywhere else for fear of the same thing happening again with reassessment. If we lived in TN or NC where they don't tax DH's military pension, then that would put back over $300 in our pockets that GA snatches out of ours every year and that would help pay taxes there. But, this feels more like home than any house and property we've ever had. I'd cry to turn it over to someone else.
DH wrote a letter to the editor of the Fannin News Observer about this tax issue which my neighbor says was published. Will have to get a copy of that-they don't put the entire paper online and that letter isn't in Friday's online version of it.
