There were some pretty bizarre sights last week, ranging from the floors, to the roof, and to the television set that couldn’t get up and walk away no matter how hard it tried!

Let’s start with my favourite…

I often tell my clients to “hide their valuables” during open houses, or at the very least, to not leave a stack of $20 bills on the table.

But one seller went to great lengths to protect her valuables.  To make sure that nobody took the TV off the wall, stuffed it up their shirt, and walked out with it, one particular seller did this:

I’ve always maintained that staging your house or condo is of the utmost importance, and I think that sellers are starting to get the picture.

As a result, there are hundreds of new “Home Staging” companies popping up, some good, some bad.

I went to a condo last week where the stager had not only placed the furniture in the strangest of areas, but the furniture itself looked like it had been picked up on a curbside!  She did, however, leave her business cards and some flyers.

Call her, if you want a couch that’s been worn out like this one:

You simply cannot go wrong with hardwood flooring, so long as you don’t think parquet is making a comeback.

Styles come and go, but some are really, really gone.

The checkerboard floor is one that I can’t quite figure out.  I don’t know when or where this ever looked good:

Amazingly, one home-owner liked checkerboard so much that he couldn’t decide on blue or black!

So, he used BOTH..

Of course, this presents a problem of where to have the two styles meet!

Do you use carpet in the room that lays in between the two different checkerboards?

Do you use blue checkerboard upstairs and black checkerboard downstairs?

Apparently not.  Apparently, it’s much easier to just have them meet like so:

Although “vacant possession” is described in the pre-printed text of the Agreement of Purchase & Sale, I always include a clause in Schedule B that states something to the effect of “Seller agrees to provide vacant possession upon closing,” as well as provide a copy of the eviction or termination of lease.

But sometimes, you show up and the tenants are still there!

My clients on King Street took possession of their condo last week and found some squatters.

They didn’t have the heart to get rid of the little guys, so they just let them stay and live on the balcony:

A friend of mine couldn’t decide which grass to grow in his backyard, nor was he convinced that grass would grow at all!

So he set out to find answers to both of these questions, and forego a summer of potentially lush lawn in the process.

He grew six different kinds of grass seeds, watered them equally, and then let his friends vote on which one they liked the most.

They all looked the same to me!  But I’m sure when you’re hitting your 9-iron out of that stuff, you’d probably wish it was astroturf:

And finally, kudos to the owner of this house who had a roof-full of these giant solar panels: