I experienced a hilarious real estate moment that I would like to share. I drove up to an appointment the other day and parked in front of a vacant lot in a neighborhood on the edge of the city. There in a deep ditch in front of the lot I spotted a shop vac. The shop vac was one of those medium size kind that works well in the garage or for cleaning out your car. Well, there it was laying in the ditch free for the taking. I popped off the top and looked inside and didn’t see anything amiss, just a bunch of trash, a pen, a dryer sheet, a plastic fork and the usual hair and dust and grass. I put the top cover back on and opened the back hatch of the Lexus, slid it in on top of my collection of real estate signs and proceeded up the street on foot to my appointment at a nearby home.
After my appointment, about 30 minutes later as I approached my car I met a neighboring property owner named Wendy (a generic name –not my wife or sister though). Wendy was slightly agitated and ask me “have you seen a shop vac?” I replied “sure – I found one in the ditch and I put in the back of my Lexus”. To that Wendy cried “get it out – get it out now! It’s full of snakes!” I reach in the back and pulled out the shop vac and once again popped it open. At first I did not see anything but then in the sunlight I spied a little movement. That little shop vac was full of baby garter snakes. Kathy proclaimed “I had snakes in my garden and I did not know how to get rid of them so I sucked them up and threw the shop vac in the ditch”. The ditch where I found the shop vac was over 250’ away from Kathy’s house. By this time I was laughing really hard. I said “you mean to tell me you sucked up all those little snakes and brought that vac clear down here and just abandon it?” “Yes – yesterday” she replied. I thought I was going to die laughing. At that point I took the shop vac into the nearby woods and set the little creatures inside free. They looked a little dehydrated but I’m sure they’ll survive the ordeal. It was a bittersweet moment for me. I relinquished my treasured shop vac find but saved several little lives in the process. As I drove up the road I had to wonder if any of those little guys had crawled out the vacuum tube while the shop vac was squirreled way in my car. I began to itch and then to laugh. –Just another day in real estate.
Hi Keith:
That was a funny story… Thanks for sharing.. How often does something like that every happen? Did you get a reward for your efforts besides a really good laugh?
Have a great week!
Mary Lynn