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A house moving horror story:

There are life lessons that are not easily learned, for example: "Don't ever ask, what next?" I was reminded of this when we purchased a new home and moved in.

We had been house-hunting for almost a year, and intensely, every spare moment, for two months. We anticipated our home would soon sell and we didn't want to have to scramble to find something. One evening, driving through a neighborhood we liked, we spotted a "For Sale By Owner" sign. We decided to knock on the door. Perhaps the owner would be willing to show his house on the spur of the moment.

He did and we liked it. I mentioned to him that our home sounded like what he wanted and he came the next day to see it. After several exchanges of visits, we decided to buy each others' houses. While house-swapping sounds like the perfect solution to coordinating buying and selling, it can be a logistics challenge. First, we had to coordinate financing so that closing on both mortgages could occur the same day. Our financing package came together without a glitch, but his mortgage broker was on vacation, then, had more difficulty with his plan. We weren't certain until two days before closing if it would all come together.

Moving presented a big obstacle. Since closing would be on a Thursday afternoon, we contracted movers for Friday. The other party rented several moving trucks and enlisted a group of friends. Thursday evening, we planned to remove the carpeting in our new house, and begin moving a few boxes over. The other family moved out the front door with furniture and boxes as we came in the back. Miraculously none of our boxes were diverted to their trucks.

The carpet padding didn't come up as easily as we hoped. We resorted to scraping the floor with a hoe, time-consuming and difficult work. Tiny islands of stained foam pock-marked the concrete floor as a mound of old, smelly carpet scraps grew on the screened porch.

June in Florida is not the best time of year to move. The temperature soared close to 100 degrees outside, and with the doors open and a/c off, well over that in the house as the movers wrapped everything in plastic and pads and loaded the van. The new owners of our old house pulled up with their trucks, just as the last piece of our furniture was loaded. Two miles away, an empty home awaited us. Could it be the dream would finally be coming true?

Before the day was over, we discovered we needed a plumber and electrician. Both washer lines were bent and needed to

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