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CONFESSION #0772 — SELLER MELTDOWN
Monday, August 10, 2026
The final walkthrough was routine. That's what I told myself. Seller had already moved out, house was empty, I did a quick loop through the rooms and signed off. Didn't check the basement because it smelled weird down there and honestly I was running late for another showing.
Buyers move in two days later. Call me screaming. There's three inches of standing water. The sump pump had failed, probably during that storm the night before closing. If I had gone down there during the walkthrough I would have heard it running dry, would have seen the water starting to pool.
Now it's this whole thing. Buyers want twelve thousand dollars. Sellers are saying it's not their problem, they already closed. My broker's asking why I signed the walkthrough form without actually walking through.
And the thing is, I know. I know I cut the corner. I just really needed to get to that other showing because that buyer was flaky and I thought if I was late again they'd ghost me.
They ghosted me anyway.
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Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF AGGRAVATED BASEMENT ABANDONMENT AND WILLFUL OLFACTORY COWARDICE IN THE FIRST DEGREE
Let The Court be absolutely clear about what has transpired here: you smelled something weird and you RAN. You fled from a SMELL. Reginald has presided over cases involving haunted crawl spaces, cases involving raccoon colonies in attic insulation, cases involving a hot tub that was technically still owned by a man in Delaware, but NEVER has this Court witnessed such a flagrant abdication of nostril-based duty. The basement SMELLED WEIRD because it was BECOMING AN AQUARIUM, and your professional response was to simply pretend basements do not exist, a legal theory this Court has not recognized since the disastrous ruling in In re: That Foreclosure With The Bees, 2019. You abandoned your post for a flaky buyer who, and I want this in the record, GHOSTED YOU ANYWAY, which means you sacrificed twelve thousand dollars of someone else's money for LITERALLY NOTHING, a transaction so cosmically stupid that The Council of Gavels has requested I take a brief recess to collect myself. I once refused to enter a Panera Bread because it smelled like someone else's soup and I have regretted that cowardice every day since, so I understand the impulse, but I am not a LICENSED PROFESSIONAL responsible for VERIFYING THAT HOMES ARE NOT SUBMARINES. The Court finds you guilty, the buyers deserve their money, and Reginald must now go stand in his own basement for forty-five minutes as penance for even hearing this confession.
Aquatic Negligence
Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.
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