We had an agreement to buy a house at 108 Sawmill Road in Stamford (here it is on zillow, realtor.com, the agent’s site), but the deal blew up yesterday.  So we’re back in the market.

I feel very lucky, even though we lost 3 weeks of house searching and $1,300.  The place was a money pit just waiting to happen.  We loved some of the funky features of the place and the rocks and woods surrounding the house.  But there were a host of problems and the sellers were completely unreasonable about addressing them.

First, the garage/addition did not have a certificate of occupancy, likely because the septic tank was too small to accommodate the additional living space.  Or maybe it’s because the addition wasn’t built to code…so all the safety precautions around fire retardant materials were ignored.

Second, the water and air were infected with radon and bacteria, requiring expensive mitigation systems.

Third, the septic system needed an outlet baffle.  I have no idea what this means, but I know it costs $1,000 and the septic system doesn’t work without it.

108 Sawmill Road

We documented all of these findings, but the sellers refused to mitigate any of these issues.  So basically we would have purchased an unsafe home that required thousands of dollars of repairs…just so we could breathe the air, drink the water, and expunge our waste!

They claimed they had another superior offer.  In this market, I doubt it.  If it’s true, then let’s hope the new buyers do their homework!

click here for more pics.