File this one under "a" for awkward.

This morning Karl and I dipped our toes into the Regina housing market scene. We perused four places, all of which were significantly nicer that what we'd find in Victoria for the equivalent price range. Including the house that had a room entirely devoted to painting model action figures with a table covered in their little decapitated heads. I wish I'd gotten a picture.

The fourth and final house on our stop had a lot of potential. It was the kind of thing we would have killed for in Victoria, but was about $50,000 more than we'd be willing to spend on something that needed that amount of work and had no real backyard to speak of.

The big thing with Regina houses is the four level split. In our house hunting experience we'd had yet to encounter this phenomenon, so bear with me while I explain it for the sake of the ignorant masses. A four level split is a house with, believe it or not, four levels. There's the first level you walk into, which typically consists of the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Up a half dozen or so steps is the next level which consists of the bedrooms and bathroom. Below the main level, directly below the top level, is the level with a less formal living area or rec. room type area, a bathroom, and, depending on the house, possibly another bedroom. Below that is the basement, which I always forget about and feels like a bonus spot when exploring. The basement is directly below the main floor. It can be mostly unfinished basement space or be similar to the other lower level.

So this morning we were looking at our fourth and final house. We had an appointment to get to on the other side of town fast approaching and knew that it wasn't the place for us. We'd seen the bottom three levels and thought we'd take a quick boo through the upper level bedrooms before calling it a day. We were there, after all. 

Up the stairs we went, after about ten or fifteen minutes of checking out the rest of the place. All the doors in the hallway were closed so I reached for the closest door handle to see what the bedrooms were like. The thing was, the door didn't have a proper handle, just the sticky-outy bit that the knob should have been on.

I turned to Karl and the realtor as I opened the door, laughingly telling them that in a zombie movie you probably shouldn't open the door without a handle because there's clearly an undead on the other side of it.

I turned into the room and, to my great surprise, was greeted with a "hello" from a young woman sitting, freshly showered and in a bathrobe in the middle of the bed. 

DEAR ME.

She invited us to take a look at the attached bathroom which we half-heartedly did before making our excuses and practically running out of the house in a fit of awkward giggles, the realtor included.

So, FYI, if you see the broken door handle in the supposedly vacant house, I recommend knocking before entering even if you've made your presence in the home very clear beforehand. And maybe listen for sounds of wheezing or shuffling feet before entering.