There is a grubby little summer cabin around the corner from me, built in 1910 when our road along the river was being constructed, to house road workers, or at least that's the story. Someone I know from California emailed today that they want to buy it for year-round living. It doesn't have a legal bathroom or a water well. The only water source is the polluted river, and it only has about 8 inches of water underneath solid ice in the winter, so getting water into the house is a constant challenge.

A couple years ago a family tried making a go of it. I call them The Clampetts. Four adults and a 12 year-old boy were trying to live in a 400 square foot cabin heated with only a wood-burning stove, no hot water heater, no washer and dryer. They took up residence in September and fled in January. They left a brand-new boy's bike standing in the middle of the yard, and as a testament to the honesty of the hundreds of people driving by on the highway, it stayed there for six months until the yard was finally cleaned up.

I don't know what their down payment on the $139,000 (very over-priced) sales price was , but they had no visible means of support, and the people they bought it from (owner will carry) had to go through the full foreclosure process, which in this area costs $5,000 - $10,000 even though The Clampetts had disappeared.

So now this fool from California wants to buy that shack for the same $139,000 asking price, and I hope to heck she doesn't because we are acquainted and I don't want to hear about all the agony of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.