You know, the likelihood of getting stuck in a client’s home in the middle of the summer is probably pretty low, unless you’re wearing a new cashmere blazer and there’s a wet layer of fog lurking outside. Depending on where you work in Canada though, you might just find yourself stuck in someone else’s home in the middle of a blizzard.
I suppose there are a variety of ways that scenario may play out, some with surprising positives, others with considerable downsides. Let’s muse on a few of those possibilities while you are looking out your office window, and a few flakes are already starting to fall ahead of a showing:
You are previewing a home listed by another Realtor, and while the weather had been nasty on the way over, you’re sure you can get in and out before things get even worse. However, you have underestimated the sheer inconsiderate nature of Jack Frost, and the snow is now so bad you can’t open the front door after you’ve previewed the listing.
a) Relax. There’s food and drink, running water, and the owners can’t come home to surprise you as they are stranded elsewhere themselves.
b) You might be okay. The owner’s rottweiler has yet to discover how to chew through the bars in his kennel. That despite the unnerving realization that he has almost bent the bars outwards quite a way whilst angrily charging ever since you first arrived.
c) It might be time to panic. To pass the time, you used the fireplace bellows to pump up the warm glow of some lingering dimming embers, but all that did was propel ash into the air and all over the shag carpeting, which is considerably unforgiving in coming clean given that it was (non-ironically) snow white just a few minutes earlier.
You hadn’t expected to run into anyone while you were previewing this new listing, but one of the owners is indeed home. After a look-around, you both realize that the weather has taken a turn for the worse and there’s no way you can safely try to get back onto the road.
a) Relax! You hit it off while you were viewing the home, and this will allow you to get to know each other even better. It has been pretty slow on your eharmony page lately, after all…
b) You might be okay. While you’re single, the owner is clearly not, but that hasn’t prevented some pretty obvious flirting with you. And at least one comment about how you might feel about trying on some chaps and high heels to kill a little time during the storm.
c) Time to panic! The owner has confessed that he is a wannabe mime who needs to complete three more hours of trying to get out of an invisible box, and “it’s not like you can go anywhere anyhow, right?”
In the brief period of time since you left the office and arrived at this listing, there has been an avalanche from the adjacent mountainside that has covered the entry to the home right up to the roof line.
a) Relax. You’ve discovered the owner’s collection of fine wines and cheeses, and the extensive jazz collection on 180g vinyl ain’t so bad either.
b) You might be okay, although the increasing sagging and slight buckling sound in that roof line could be a concern.
c) Time to panic! You left your partner in the car while you ran in to take a quick look around, and he’s waving frantically at you from the inside of the new location of your car, inside the home’s front exterior wall!
Hey, it could happen! Happy winter selling!
Humour columnist and author Dan St. Yves was licensed with Royal LePage Kelowna for 11 years. Check out his website at danstyves.com.
