Living next door to a house full of unsupervised teenagers became unbearable.

I began scouring the local paper for rentals in Pacific Grove, a little Hamlet of a town we’d been in love with for many years.
One ad jumped out at me but sounded WAY too good to be true; 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 2 story 6 year old Victorian, walk to Ocean and town, $1500 a month, NO PETS.
I read it again and then one more time very slowly making sure I didn’t miss a word.
Impossible. The average Pacific Grove rent at that time was $3,000.
But there it was.
Something must be wrong. Something had to be missing in that ad.
I called the listed number.
The woman who answered explained it was her house and she lived in Southern California and sorry but, the house had already been rented.
Bummer.
Still, I was curious to see what $1500 would get us in Pacific Grove so asked if I could at least just see the house.
She was gonna be in town in 2 days and she’d be glad to show me the inside.
We made a date.

I had the address and ten minutes later I was parked in front of the Victorian house on Willow Street and shaking my head in disbelief.
Couldn’t be true.
THAT house was NOT $1500!
No way.
Had to be a mistake.
Maybe she said $3500.

It was a perfect two-story Victorian; painted a soft blue with with pale cream trim and shuttered windows. There was a patio on the second floor which was probably the master bedroom. The roofline had two front gables with gingerbread trim.

Wide cement steps curved up from the sidewalk to the old fashioned front porch.
My large pots of orange California Poppies would look perfect on those steps.

The porch would be great for my outside wicker furniture; white wicker, maybe natural? a couple chairs? maybe a swing? big poofy colorful cushions?
OK, so I didn’t really HAVE any wicker furniture but that could be remedied with one clean-sweep shopping trip.

Two mornings later, I stood on that porch and rang the doorbell at our agreed upon time.
The door opened and I met the woman that COULD have been my new landlady…..if someone hadn’t read the paper and called the number just a bit before me.
We extened our hands with a smile, and a hello.
I could feel her good vibrations.
We did our first impressions which my husband calls a ten-second-evaluation.
She was petite with sparkly, smiling eyes and lovely dark hair that kinda just fell on her shoulders.
Age has always been tough for me to guess but probably sixty something.

We talked for a while and she gave me a tour and I fell in love.

The living room was to the right just inside the front door.
It was small, my furniture would have fit perfect and my two dogs would have loved sitting up on the back of our sofa, looking out the windows-on-the-world and bark bravely at passers-by.

The living room blended into the dining room through a huge arched entry.

The dining room was long and big enough to have been two rooms.
I visualized half of it as a perfect spot for our two desks and the other half for a dining room table, which we didn’t have….it was in a furniture store somewhere waiting for us to shop for it.

A food pantry in one corner of the room was big enough to keep half a grocery store stocked on the shelves.

A double-sided fireplace was the only thing that separated the dining room from the living room.

There were double french doors leading to a large covered outside patio, more like an outside room than a patio.
Again more patio furniture would look great out there….the patio furniture was in the furniture store with the dining room table.

The kitchen was bright with white-washed, light-wood cupboards.
The window over the sink looked out at big Monterey Pine trees and beautiful landscaping and if there hadn’t been a street with houses behind it, we would have been looking at Pebble Beach.

The stairs up were just inside the front door to the left of the little living room.

There was a small bathroom built under the stairs.

Three bedrooms, a bathroom and a laundry closet all extended off an open area in the middle if the upstairs.

The bedrooms were large and each had french doors that opened to private patios.

The bathroom had an old-fashioned deep, claw-foot bathtub and was between two of the bedrooms.

The master bedroom was huge.
The tub was a Jacuzzi built for two.

There were two sets of french doors leading out to patios across the room from each other.
The doors from the front faced the Monterey Bay.
Landlady said the barking seal lions could be heard from that patio and…..the blow of foghorns at nighttime from the other patio which was facing the Pacific Ocean.

My brain was trying to grasp that one.
We could lie in bed each night and decide which we wanted to hear, the sea lions or the fog horns?

I told her I was in love with her house.

She explained, almost apologizing she’d rented it to a local school teacher and his mother.

Just as a second thought, I wrote my number down and handed it to her.
I asked her to please give us an opportunity to apply if something happened and for some reason it didn’t work out for the school teacher and his mom…..like maybe they vanished in thin air overnight and showed up later in the day in New England.

I promised her that if we were her renters we’d treat her home as if it were ours.

I pulled away slowly, stared at the house and dreamed.

I drove a block down to the Ocean and parked in front of Lover’s Point.

I walked to my favorite bench on a cliff that overlooked a beautiful part of the Pacific.

The waves exploded against the boulders and I stared out at the horizon and searched for someone who’s spirit was out there and I needed to feel.

I always knew when he was near.
There was a warmth hard for me to describe, like an aura around me and I could feel him.
That may be strange stuff for you to believe but that’s OK.
It was strange for me too until it happened.
I sat on the bench and talked to him, not with words from my mouth but with a strong intensity of thought vibrations.
I told him about the house.
I promised I wouldn’t bug him and be askin’ for stuff all the time but this one time…I wanted that house real bad.
I needed his help. I figured there was SOMETHING he could do.
I felt him with me for a long while and I also felt when he floated away back into that dimension where my eyes can’t see.

I wanted that house REAL bad.

I was waiting in the driveway when my husband pulled up that evening and I hopped in the car before he had a chance to turn off the motor.

My excitement level was pretty high. “You gotta see this.”
This was one of those times my husband knew not to question, just drive!

I read him the destination address and explained how I’d come across that particular house and in a few short minutes, we were parked in front, staring.

He was quiet. He does that when he needs a moment to run it through his processor brain.

“Somethin’s not right.”

“WHAT?”

“The rent on this house is probably twice what she told you, somethin’s goofy here.”

He was right…something WAS goofy…..him!

His cynical side, which appeared from time to time was telling me there was a con-job going on.
I guess we could have debated that one but it didn’t matter, it was already rented.

We sat for a few minutes and thought how cool it’d be to live there, so close to the water.

I carried that house around in my brain for the rest of the night and when I fell asleep, I dreamt about it.

OK, another believe it or not.
Call it a coincidence, call it whatever but I KNOW it all happened because of the time and talk on my bench the day before. ……………………………………………….

It was a Friday morning.
The phone rang at 9 a.m.
It was the owner of the house.
Something had happened and the house was up for rent again and were were still interested?

He did it…..New England!

The owner said she wanted to get back to L.A. so asked that we met with her as soon as possible and bring a deposit.

“YES we could…..YES we would!”

I frantically pushed the buttons to page my husband, something I rarely did when he was working.
He responded within minutes.
“Lobo…..I don’t care WHERE you are or WHAT you’re doin’…..you gotta come home right now. We can rent that house.”

“WHAT?”

“The house, we can have the house to rent. Hurry up she’s waiting for us. Bring money.”

He was in Salinas and could be home in about 30 minutes.

Less than an hour later we were standing in the living room of the house on Willow Street talking to the owner and writing her a deposit check.

It was ours!

Then I remembered…..the dogs. Crap, it said NO DOGS.

I asked her if she’d come out to our car and meet our 2 dogs and consider allowing them.

There they were, sitting in the backseat looking like the two very well-behaved Schnauzers that they were.
How could she say NO?
She didn’t! They were in.

Later that evening we drove back to OUR house on Willow and parked.

He was quiet again…thinking.

“It’s a scam.” That’s what he said to me…..“It’s a scam.”

“WHAT?”

“That wasn’t the owner? No way! That was a slick woman who just got our check.”

“WHAT?? How’d she get in?”

“I don’t know.”

The cyinic and I moved into that Victorian house on Willow Street and lived there for 7 awesome years.

The location was perfect.

Lover’s Point was one long block, straight down our street.

Daily we walked the path along the water and on week-ends we followed it all the way to Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf.

We never got tired of being tourists.

We were also only 2 blocks from Downtown Pacific Grove.

We walked to our grocery store, our bank, the book store, the boutiques, the movie theater, the coffee shop, the restaurants and on late nights when we just wanted to be out, we walked to Pier One Imports, they seemed to never close, and they had a bathroom.

And everynight the last thing we decided as we climbed up the stairs for bed was, what would lull us to sleep that night…..the sea lions or the fog horns?

The miserable kids and the things that went on in the house next door before Pacific Grove was our half empty glass.

But we also had a half-full glass that overflowed with happy during those 14 months..

Every once in a while for the seven years we lived in Pacific Grove, we’d turn right and drive down past the house with The Norman Bates Motel in the backyard where our Ocean story began.
TO BE CONTINUED