New to Town

During a mercifully brief bad marriage when I was in my 20's, I had lived for a few months in the Stamford of an earlier time (before there was even a mall!) and the West Coast of Pacific Time (I never could get used to NFL games starting at 10 a.m.).

Eventually my wife and I returned to New York, where we stayed in one place long enough to learn that we really didn’t like each other all that much.

So, in short, I had lived about 55 of my 57 years in the state of New York. However, now that my second, good wife and I had decided to purchase our first real house, it became imperative that we leave.

We didn’t know that at first. In fact, we actually began our search for a house in New York. But quickly discovered why the state has a declining population.

It had become really, really stupid to live there.

I still hearted New York, still liked my little town of Irvington (named after Washington Irving and home to a statue of Rip van Winkle lying down, so that it is, possibly, the world’s most altitude-impaired public work of art), but quite simply couldn’t afford to live there.

Oh, we could afford a house in New York all right. We just couldn’t afford the taxes on it.

To give you a quick idea: We had been paying over $12,000 a year on a 2,100 sq. ft. townhouse. The houses we were seeing in Stamford — which included actual property — carried taxes of under $10,000.

Plus income taxes were less. And, most important of all, we didn’t even have to pay sales tax on stuff we ordered online, which is pretty much everything!

And so we zeroed in on North Stamford as the place we wanted to move to. And we discovered one of the reasons the taxes were cheaper.

You don't get anything!

When we started looking at houses, our really patient real estate agent, Nancy, had to explain this to us. We'd have conversations like:

Me: So what does it mean when the listing says "well water."

Nancy (looking perplexed): It means, um, that the water comes from a well.

Me: You mean a well as in, "Lassie, is Timmy down the well?"

Nancy (eyes rolling): Well, yeah, I guess.

Me: You mean we have to, like, lower a bucket to get our water?

Nancy (laughing nervously):  

No, no. Nothing like that. It’s just where your water comes from. You’ll have indoor plumbing and everything.

I was flabbergasted. Here we were, moving to what I considered to be a fairly major city, and we had to supply our own water? I would nod pleasantly and we’d continue on, although I still carried the image of my wife Barbara and I wandering around our property with dowsing rods.

And after awhile, I’d blurt out something like, "Next thing you’ll tell us is Stamford doesn’t even pick up our garbage."

Anyway, we did end up moving here. and in this blog, you'll be able to follow our adventures as we discover Stamford and the joys of owning our first real home at age 57.  And for more, click here.