Advertisement
CONFESSION #0683 — SHOWING GONE WRONG
Friday, July 10, 2026
The buyers walked after the inspection. Not because of the foundation crack (which was bad) or the knob and tube wiring (which was worse) but because during the second showing the seller's adult son was asleep in the basement and nobody told me he lived there and when we opened the door to check the water heater he sat up on this futon that was behind a bunch of boxes and he was holding a sword. Like an actual sword, decorative I think, maybe from a wall mount, but he was holding it and the wife screamed and the husband pulled her back up the stairs and the son just goes "it's cool it's cool" like that was going to fix anything. The seller later told me he works nights and "keeps to himself" which okay that would have been useful information before I brought a family with two kids into your basement where your adult son sleeps with medieval weaponry. The deal was 340k and I'd already put in probably 20 hours between staging advice and the open house and driving them around for three weeks and now they won't return my calls and the listing agent keeps texting me asking what happened and I keep not knowing how to summarize it in a way that doesn't sound made up.
Advertisement
Judge Reginald Escrow III
Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF NEGLIGENT FAILURE TO DISCLOSE SUBTERRANEAN SWORD-WIELDING OCCUPANT IN VIOLATION OF BASIC HUMAN DECENCY AND THE SACRED COVENANT OF BASEMENT TRANSPARENCY
The Court has presided over many horrors in its distinguished career — undisclosed septic failures, staged fruit bowls concealing water damage, a showing where the seller's parrot revealed the actual square footage — but THIS, this basement sword situation, has shaken Reginald to his very core. You walked a FAMILY into what was essentially a dungeon encounter from a fantasy role-playing game, and the son's defense was "it's cool it's cool" as if those words have EVER de-escalated a situation involving unsheathed weaponry and a startled wife. The Court must pause here because I too have an adult nephew who "keeps to himself" and last Thanksgiving he emerged from my sister's basement holding a replica battle axe and I STILL cannot eat stuffing without experiencing mild panic. The listing agent's texts asking "what happened" deserve an answer, and that answer is MEDIEVAL BETRAYAL, but good luck fitting that into a professional follow-up. You put in twenty hours, you gave staging advice, you probably told them the natural light was "great for entertaining," and none of that matters now because the husband will spend the rest of his life telling people about the time a house tried to knight him against his will. The Court finds you not at fault but DEEPLY unfortunate, and sentences the seller to mandatory disclosure of all sword-adjacent relatives in perpetuity. This Court is adjourned because Reginald needs to call his sister about the nephew situation immediately.
SCANDAL RATING: 8.2/10 ARMED BASEMENT AMBUSH

Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.

Submit Anonymously → Subscribe to the Newsletter
Advertisement

← Back to the Full Docket