Containment What will happen when Barb dies?

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General Juicer said:
Here's the thing about Chris getting a roommate:

  • The roommate would have to not take advantage of Chris. I think Chris is a reasonably bright enough cookie to know if he's being financially swindled, but I could see someone taking advantage of Chris by doing something like doing all of the cooking and cleaning (not to the extent of a housespouse who earns their keep, but just doing barely enough so that he'll miss it) or giving him the bare semblance of a social life or even just having the only car available after Chris finds himself unable to pony up the $1200 to repair SONCHU's A/C Compressor and electrical wiring.
  • The roommate has to be fairly stable and settled in. I've done the roommate deal several times before and I've never had anyone stick around longer than 18 months. Not because of disagreements or anything, but because people get jobs and families and get out of the service and shit. It's something you just learn to live with, but you know how Chris is.
  • Most importantly, they'd have to get along somehow. I really don't think that Chris or his roommate is capable of this unless they're a matron who's henpecking him mercilessly or they're in a vegetative state.

I think the best bet for Chris would be to get a studio apartment or one-bedroom unit after being forced to sell his stuff and then just coast off of the tugboat for the rest of his life. He's going to struggle with his finances, but assuming a monthly budget of $600-$800 dollar rent, $150 for utilities (electricity, water, garbage, Internet), $50 for clothes, $50 for gasoline, $200 for food (Doofus is going to have to cut down on convenience food whether he likes to or not), $50 for consumables like paper towels and shampoo, and $250 on minimum payments for his credit card, he could have just barely enough to splurge on a new toy every other week and cheap fast food as a twice a week thing. Of course, Chris is fucked if his car or computer breaks down or something.
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I really couldn't see a roommate working out well for Chris.

Firstly, he'd need to find that roommate. Chris is bizarre. He looks weird, he acts weird, in real life he's boring or weird. So he'd either have to normal himself up for the interview (not going to happen) or find someone who doesn't mind living with a weirdo (unlikely). Then there's the house itself. It's in the middle of nowhere and it's a health hazard. To make it remotely attractive, Chris would either have to clean it up (not likely) or charge absurdly low rent (no way - remember what he was asking for those piece-of-shit cars?). Only someone absolutely desperate would move in. We're talking registered sex offenders and meth heads here.

But Chris doesn't believe that beggars can't be choosers. He'd almost certainly insist on a female roommate, preferably a physically attractive one. And Chris just doesn't get the idea of being "just friends" with a woman, so things would almost certainly wind up going wrong when he takes her offer to make lunch as a come-on, or just when he feels comfortable enough to start showing her his cock-harness.

Thirdly, he's lazy as hell. He'd just let the roomie do all the housework while sitting around playing vidya. He might do the bare minimum if forced, whining all the time, but more likely he'd just claim to be workin' on it until the roommate gets pissed off and leaves. When things break down, he'd probably do nothing until they really started to inconvenience him personally.

TL;DR, a roommate probably wouldn't work.
 
Tragi-Chan said:
or charge absurdly low rent (no way - remember what he was asking for those piece-of-shit cars?)
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Actually it was Blarb that set the absurd prices on the cars and made Chris put them on Craigslist. I don't think Chris is quite as delusional as Barb when it comes to selling things and asking a fair price.

Does anyone know what actually happened to that white Cadillac? I almost guarantee no one paid $7000 for a beater Cadillac with a cracked engine block. Towed off to the junkyard perhaps?
 
General Juicer said:
I still want to know (in a detached, autistic sort of way) how much of the house actually got renovated from the insurance company. Did they just take the worst of the hoard out and repair the most obvious structural damage while slapping a bit of paint on it? Did the carpeting and floorboards get replaced? Did mold get introduced anywhere? Did they just retile one part of the roof or did they fix up the entire thing? What?

I estimated a few thousand dollars for repairs earlier because it was on the assumption that as part of the post-fire fixes stuff that would not have normally been renovated was done so and the fire ended up spreading to most of the house. I mean, once the family room has water and smoke damage, you may as well redo the entire flooring/carpeting along with getting a new fan, right? I've never had a property repaired after a disaster nor do I know what kind of insurance the Chandlers had so I don't know how extensive the repairs get.
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It's a reasonable guess that the house was in decent condition after the repairs. We don't have the details about exactly what was done, but we also don't have the details about exactly what was wrong with the place. The two lists probably approximately match.

But in the "What happens when Barb dies?" universe we are probably talking a few years down the road. Years of hoarding and neglect.

Overall, I tend to agree with the assesments that the house and property, in ideal condition, are worth a little north of $150K. And in the likely condition it will be, he is probably looking at around $100K. Or he could sink weeks of time and effort and tens of thousands of dollars into it to get it back to ideal condition.

Chris' instinct, if he decides to sell, will likely be to do minimal work and ask a lot. Which will lead to frustration on the part of both him and potential buyers. Hopefully there will be someone who can shepherd him through the process.
 
timtommy said:
But in the "What happens when Barb dies?" universe we are probably talking a few years down the road. Years of hoarding and neglect.
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Ha, you're right about that. Hell, it's not even assured that she'll die in the next few years. What if she lives into her 90s? The house would be even worse than it was pre-fire.
 
She takes terrible care of herself. Every photo of Blorb that we've had usually involves her stuffing fast food and :qsand: into her gaping maw. She seems to never get out of that house (tending to the Hoard is probably a full time job at this point) and I suspect that she's gotten really bad in the last few months.
 
That Guy said:
She seems to never get out of that house (tending to the Hoard is probably a full time job at this point) and I suspect that she's gotten really bad in the last few months.
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I could see the trauma of having to move out for a few months actually kicking her hoarding into overdrive once she got back. You'd think it would be the opposite and that actually burning your house down from hoarding would be a lesson, but that's not how hoarders think.
 
That Guy said:
Does anyone know what actually happened to that white Cadillac? I almost guarantee no one paid $7000 for a beater Cadillac with a cracked engine block. Towed off to the junkyard perhaps?
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure they just junked it. Probably got a few hundred for it, tops.
 
Unhealthy and crazy she may be, Barbara is still the only thing that keeps Chris away from accidentally burning down the house (again) by reminding him of the stuff he has plugged or on the stove, etc.
With his short attention span and all troubles caused by his autism, I suppose Chris will die on a week or so after he starts living alone, either by a fire, food poisoning or suffocation from propane gas emanations.

It would be the same as leaving a seven year old kid unnatended for days.
 
Katolate said:
Unhealthy and crazy she may be, Barbara is still the only thing that keeps Chris away from accidentally burning down the house (again) by reminding him of the stuff he has plugged or on the stove, etc.
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Barb is more of a fire hazard than Chris.
 
Marvin said:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure they just junked it. Probably got a few hundred for it, tops.
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So they listed it for $5000, got no takers, and then went straight to junking it?

The intermediate option of listing it for a couple grand never occurred to them?

AnOminous said:
Barb is more of a fire hazard than Chris.
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Agreed. The main problem causing the first fire was the hoard. It provided lots of tinder.

And it's fair enough to attach some blame to Chris for running frayed wires out of the bathroom. But I am sure, if left on his own, Chris would put kettles and coffee makers in the kitchen. It's only because it got hoarded up that he had to poorly jury rig an alternative system.

Chris may increase the chance of fires, floods, or other things like that by being careless from time to time. But it is nothing compared to the giant safety hazard that is the hoard.
 
timtommy said:
So they listed it for $5000, got no takers, and then went straight to junking it?

The intermediate option of listing it for a couple grand never occurred to them?
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This is purely speculation, y'understand, but based on what we know of Barb, she thinks of herself as being smarter and just generally better than anyone else. For instance, her describing Catie as "common" when Barb herself is one step away from trailer trash, and her claims that she was too clever for the insurance people. A combination of encroaching senility and the fact that the only prolonged human contact she has is with Chris, who is actually really stupid, has probably reinforced this. So she put those cars up for sale for absurdly more than they were worth, confident that some sucker would pay up.

So, assuming that she did go straight from $5000 to junking, one theory I'd put forward is that, having failed to scam the rubes, she couldn't bring herself to eat humble pie and ask a decent price. That would be like admitting that she was outwitted.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong and she just figured that $5000 was a really good price and if it didn't go for that, it would never sell at all.

Or maybe she's just insane.
 
timtommy said:
So they listed it for $5000, got no takers, and then went straight to junking it?

The intermediate option of listing it for a couple grand never occurred to them?
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Oh, I thought he was talking about the car with the cracked engine block. I thought the consensus was that that car was worthless and should've just been junked anyway. But yeah, the worthless car was junked.
Tragi-Chan said:
This is purely speculation, y'understand, but based on what we know of Barb, she thinks of herself as being smarter and just generally better than anyone else. For instance, her describing Catie as "common" when Barb herself is one step away from trailer trash, and her claims that she was too clever for the insurance people. A combination of encroaching senility and the fact that the only prolonged human contact she has is with Chris, who is actually really stupid, has probably reinforced this. So she put those cars up for sale for absurdly more than they were worth, confident that some sucker would pay up.

So, assuming that she did go straight from $5000 to junking, one theory I'd put forward is that, having failed to scam the rubes, she couldn't bring herself to eat humble pie and ask a decent price. That would be like admitting that she was outwitted.

Or maybe I'm completely wrong and she just figured that $5000 was a really good price and if it didn't go for that, it would never sell at all.

Or maybe she's just insane.
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Oh, this was definitely an attempt on Barb's part to con someone. But yeah, if I'm thinking about the right car, I think it was mostly worthless and that junking it was the only option. Barb just thought she could find someone to scam for the blue book value (or something like it). And her plan collapsed pretty quickly. So she just went with plan B.
 
drtoboggan said:
Maybe someone said this, but here's my $0.02.
Facebook post about it, obit written by Chris, eventually forced to sell the house.
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Here's another possibility that could happen which may be more likely, Chris will more than likely lose the house either to acts of stupidity, it being condemned by the city or the unlikely, a natural disaster like a hurricane or flood. Afterward Chris will probably try camping at a hotel for a while and end up with no money and sleeping in his car before finally being placed in a state run facility by court order.
 
Could be that Chris traded in the Cadillac for the current iteration of SonChu. Dealers will often take junkers on trade and knock a couple hundred off the final selling price. The Cragislist listings went down right around the time Chris got his new wheels.
 
Napalmxxx2 said:
Here's another possibility that could happen which may be more likely, Chris will more than likely lose the house either to acts of stupidity, it being condemned by the city or the unlikely, a natural disaster like a hurricane or flood. Afterward Chris will probably try camping at a hotel for a while and end up with no money and sleeping in his car before finally being placed in a state run facility by court order.
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This is also likely, though I don't think hurricanes hit Virginia much.
 
Stress Sigh said:
I'm curious if and how will Chris mourn Barb's death it's something we never really seen from Chris (other than a couple of people) how hard did Chris take Bob dying.
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Bob's death messed Chris up for quite a while. Between his silence about it and his prolonged abscence from the internet, it's safe to say that Chris took it pretty hard. The fact that Death had promised Chris his dad wouldn't kick the bucket before 2015 didn't help.
 
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