It was kind of a gradual decision and a sad one. We have spent the weekend looking at trailers and after being told (and noticing) several times that anything under $8000 goes really really fast, we took the first thing we could afford. It was settling so much as being open minded. Its a 2005 Rockwood with an 8 food slide out, making the living space livable, and its in pretty good condition though needs regular (probably never been done maintenance). It’s about half the price of one in awesome condition because, now heres the catch, a tree branch fell on it and punched 3 holes in the roof. The repairs look really good though and there is no water damage inside, even after a very rainy storm on Saturday night. We looked at it on Sunday while the place was closed. A guy just left the gate open and said to go in and take a look. We spent our time poking around and called him back to arrange a time to meet and test out the appliances.

This morning we took our generator to the trailer, 75 miles away, to be able to turn things on and see how it goes. Of course the first thing I turn on, something goes wrong. I tried a switch on the wall that said pump and a splashing water sound came from somewhere. Ross went outside to see if water was going outside and sure enough there was water coming out – from an unknown source. Inside there was only once place the water sound came from, a cabinet that was screwed shut. We managed to unscrew it with our keys and see that luckily it was just a missing inline water filter, the water was just pouring out where the thing used to go. Hopefully that’s the only water issue, aside from a loose sewage pipe, probably hit while parking or driving. We then tested the speakers, sound like crap (they’re cheap of course), plugins, vacuum, space heater, fan, ac turns on, heat turns on though we’re not sure the thermostat works properly. The carpet was removed and replaces with linoleum, the shelf in the back bunk area was torn out to fit a TV – and I mean torn. the mattress in the bedroom is springy but we figured we might have to replace that anyway. The slide out works..although it was a huge pain in the ass to find that out. After we’d checked out most everything we were in the car trying to figure out how to close the slideout because when we hit the button it sounded like the damn wall was being cracked and ruined. While we were sitting there a man we spoke to on the way in, a very rude man, showed up and with another guy – to show the trailer to. We walked up to him and asked if we could pull in the slide to make sure it works – he had previously changed his attitude to crap when we said we wanted to test out the appliances- this attitude got worse when we further “doubted his honesty”. He really expected people to just take his word that the slideout worked – people who were making a significant purchase were just supposed to take a salesman word haha. I let him have it with that little fact and more about how unreasonable it was that he would say no. We were providing the power to the RV, imagine if we’d wanted to test things out on their power, 100 yards from a plugin. They would have flat our refused probably.
I don’t know what kind of idiot would buy a home without knowing if everything worked but this guy was sure it was unreasonable. The guy went to far as to tell Ross to leave, getting in his face like we just told him the house he built was a piece of shit. Somebody said something and Ross eventually said “then you wont mind if I just pull in the slideout then” and the guy finally agreed with a smug “I’ll prove you wrong” smirk. We never said it didn’t work, we said we’d never seen on e work and we didn’t want to break it by turning it on. Either way, the guy was a piece of crap. He finished giving the other guy a tour of the trailer, a very basic tour where the holes in the roof were neither mentioned or looked at, and they left.

While they were walking away I heard the guy who had also been “looking” say “well I’ll just call Wes in about 15 minutes then”. We called Wes right away. The original guy we spoke to on the phone, and arranged to meet him in a few minutes at the trailer. Wes was much friendlier but the other guy, Chris, had left a bad taste in our mouthes and if there were any other options we could afford, that were that large, we would have left. At least we did as much research as possible before hand and brought the generator to safeguard ourselves from scandalous salesmen but theres always things you just cant know. Like, whether or not it was a FEMA trailer. Chris said it was “they all are (there were 2)” while Wes said it belonged to a guy who worked there. Either way, theres no way to get honesty out of those people and we knew with the way things are down here, the thing would go fast to a hunter or construction worker (or anyone really with summer coming up). When Wes came, we put the slide back out and negotiated a price. From there it was an hour or 2 of dealing with the loan company and salesmen with rebel flags and dead deer on their wall.

We were glad to leave but didn’t leave excited unfortunately. It’ll be nice to just have it here and go on with our lives – try to forget dealing with that place.

No photos of the trailer yet, its not so special looking anyway since its a modern one but once I get the interior how I like it I’ll take more photos – especially of any upholstering or major decor changes. We will up the value on this thing big time.

I’m so sad to leave the Brougham but more space will make life so much easier…and less painful. I’ll be fixing up and cleaning up the Brougham while we wait to be able to get a truck but wont be able to imagine life without him for a while. I much prefer classic vehicles over modern ones any day. They’re sturdy, have personality and style while newer vehicles are stale and boring. I just hope the Brougham goes to a good home with someone who will use it and not let it rot like most RV’s do around here….