3.4 Stephanie Staber Writing 2

Purchasing a home is exciting, especially for a first time homeowner. On May 4, 2016, with the help of my dad and bonus mom, I closed on my first home. The house was an estate and needed work. Over the next few days, we spent time doing some work so I can at least comfortably live in the house. I also spent time joking around that the previous owner, who lived in the house for nearly 70 years, was still somehow a special part of the house.  

I was excited about moving out of my apartment and moving into a home. I became the third owner of the house and the previous owners made little to no changes to the place. I felt like there a unique history behind the house, and I thought it was cool.

The Saturday after closing on my house was the first night I got to sleep in my house. After I ate dinner with my dad, bonus mom, and sister, I headed home (I’d like to point out that they live in the backyard…a whole other story how that happened) to spend my first night in my house. I was getting ready for bed and was about to turn off the lights for the night. Then a wired thing happened: the lights upstairs went out before I even touched the light switch. I started to panic and grabbed my phone to call my dad. He didn’t answer, so I called my sister and told her what happened. “We know, we saw you turned off the lights,” she replied

“I didn’t turn the lights off,” I said in a panic, “It turned off on its own. Tell dad to come over.”

This was moment I felt like I was crazy and was making this was up. I was feeling nervous about what was going on. It doesn’t help that I am a jumpy person and the lights was mysteriously going off.

My sister told my dad what happened, and I could hear my dad getting out of the hot tub. I noticed my sister was using her phone for a light and was walking through the backyard. I greeted her at the backdoor, brought her inside, and showed her that the lights downstairs worked, but not the lights upstairs. Our dad came over and started looking things over: the wiring, the breaker downstairs and still couldn’t figure out why the lights aren’t working. My sister went back home, and my dad continued to investigate the lights upstairs. My dad then left because he had to get something. I sat on the chair, feeling nervous about what was going on. “Is the pervious owner somehow messing with me?” I asked myself. My bonus mom called to tell me that my dad had to run to his work to get what he needed.

When my dad came back, I was laying on my bed while my dad continued to investigate the light situation. He still couldn’t figure out what happened. I was starting to dose off and told my dad, “If you want to come back in the morning, I’m starting to fall asleep.”  My dad went home for the night. Meanwhile, my bonus mom and sister were back at their house eating ice cream from DQ, laughing about the whole thing, and making bets if I would come running to their house. The good news is, I made it through the night. The strange thing is the lights came back on the next morning.

I’m proud of myself for this! I feel like I faced a fear and made it through the night in my own home.

A week later the same thing happened, and my dad came over and looked over everything. He managed to figure out what was wrong with the lights. Since then, no problems with the lights upstairs.

I am lucky I had my dad around to help me out. I was relieved that it got fixed.