We are trying to refinance and just got the appraisal back, which, given the collapsed local market, we've been very nervous about. Our house is worth more than we thought! We are still underwater, but if we accelerate the payments on our 50k second mortgage and pay it off in five or six years, our house should then be worth MORE than our primary mortgage and we'll actually have some equity.

They creep Pete out to no end, but I think they're kind of cute. Of course, I always want to do impromptue puppet shows with them.

I have definitely used them as puppets!

The street value of what I had in my house....damn.

Yeah, my MiL's house too. sigh. Sad memories.

That's good news, Scrappy. Good for you for pursuing all that.

Since I know virtually nothing about mortgages, I assumed (for some reason) you couldn't refinance if you were underwater. I guess this is not true?

Well, that fuckity, fuck, shit from yesterday. Add some extra explitives. We do have a minor infestation of bed bugs. There is a whole list of "to-do"s before pest control will spray. A large part of that list is washing things. Ummmm....gosh....I see a problem there. And I'm not going to ask my friends if I can bring possibly infested stuff into their house. I just DON'T WANNA deal.

Then the day of, I have to figure out what to do with the cats. Sure, I have cat boxes for each of them, but they aren't going to want to be boxed up and in the back of my car for the better part of a day.

At first I was descending into "I want my mommy, she will make it all better" but I wouldn't wish this mess on her. I just wish I had a plan. We are going to have to have a detailed family meeting tonight to come up with something. Maybe the kids will come up with some ideas cause I am all out. No spoons? I think I owe spoons to a spoon shark.

There are special federal programs that allow people who wouldn't otherwise qualify to refinance in the wake of the housing crisis. We weren't underwater, but our house appraised lower than we expected when we tried to refinance, and we wouldn't have been able to do it except for this federal program.

You have a msbelle, though, who can give you all kinds of advice and/or commiseration.

I'm listening to something about the Kingdom of Kush. I know it's about what is now Sudan but I keep thinking of it as the Kingdom of Weed. There's a Kushite King.

eta: Oh no, Suzi! I hope the family meeting yields a good plan.

you can maybe ask the pest company if they can recommend a place where you can drop off your linens, etc., to be cleaned?

msbelle might have more advice on this, if work doesn't kill her today.

When we had our house tented for termites, we found a local motel that takes pets so we could at least let the cats wander the motel room rather than cages/kennels/cat carriers. It wasn't a NICE motel, but that made the price more reasonable, and we thought it was less traumatizing to the cats to not be caged, and to be with us. Maybe you can find similar for the day of.