Well, it happened again. We had a real estate showing of our house, and a young couple came with 3 little kids. One was a baby, one was about 4 and the other was 5. The baby was the most well-behaved of the three. The father carried her the entire time and she was dead silent. The 4 year old and the 5 year old, however, were completely out of control, running all over the house, chasing the cats, climbing on the furniture, rolling around on our floors, grabbing our exercise equipment and anything else they could get their hands on. The mother and father were wrestling with them the entire time, pulling them off our furniture, trying to get them to behave.What amazes me about these situations is not that the kids are acting the way they are - they are kids, afterall. I don't fault them for being excited. It's that the parents bring their kids with them to a real estate showing. What are they thinking? Can't they get a babysitter for an hour? I mean, they come for a showing and spend the entire 40 minutes wrestling their kids off the cats and furniture. Their attention is not on the showing. They can barely focus on what they are seeing. It's irritating for us because we're trying to give them a tour and tell them about the various features of the house, and we can barely get through one room or one sentence before all hell is breaking loose.
I hope we sell our house soon because I don't know how many more of these showings I can stomach.
10 comments:
I would think that people wouldn't be allowed to bring their kids along. After all, the person trying to sell the house shouldn't have to risk getting sued by parents of kids who race around and could seriously hurt themselves.
Maybe try squirting them with water or using an airhorn every time one of them misbehaves. LOL! Ok, that wouldn't be a good idea because it would inadvertently scare the cats, but the image of doing either of those two is rather funny. :D Can you imagine the look on the parents faces?! Hee hee!
Hell yeah. A squirt bottle! That would be so hilarious. You need to take video of that and post it here.
You guys are funny! Yeah, I am just see all the offers rolling in from people whose kids I have hosed down at the showing! heheheheheh (it would be fun, though!)
We have six cats now so these posts are giving me nightmares. When we bought our house the woman who was selling it had three cats and she had posted signs on all the doors, "Please Do Not Let the Cats Out!"
The whole thing was handled through real estate agents so she was not there (that's one thing that really bugged me about househunting, the owners were always shooed away and we couldn't talk to them) and one of her cats was 20 and very decrepit.
I honestly don't know which would be worse -- leaving our cats (who are not used to visitors, let alone children), or dealing with parents and grabby kids.
firefly,
I usually don't worry too much about the cats - they're pretty skilled at getting away from whoever is pestering them. It's more annoying to me dealing with people who waste our time and cannot really be present when we're giving a showing.
I don't know... My niece and nephew are 6 and 3 respectively and not all that well behaved... and these kids sound a LOT worse than them. I think most parents do a *really* crappy job of "training" (yes, I do mean "training" - like a dog or any other mammal you want to keep in your home) their kids.
My wife and I are happily childfree, but I do try to understand what it must be like to raise kids.
How can parents "train" their kids when their own minds and lives are chaotic? I think many parents feel guilty about their inability to manage their own lives, so they try to make it up to their kids by making "friends" with them - probably the worst thing they could do.
I think this kidiocracy is cultural, not just personal.
I enjoy your blog. Thanks for sharing.
Ken
http:/childfreemarriage.com
And what if those out-of-control-kids break something in your house during their rampage? Parents must be damage reliable, surley!
...umm - that second last word in my comment should've of course been "liable"...
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