Extreme Home Makeover - El Paso, Texas
The television show called Extreme Home Makeover on the ABC network in America finds worthy people and either rebuilds their house or starts over completely and makes them a new and really nice place to live.
They are in the process of building a house in El Paso, Texas for a very worthwhile family. The lady of the house has done a great deal of charity work for the orphans in Juarez, Mexico. I haven’t met her, but I certainly have heard and read a lot of good stuff.
So this morning on the way to the flea market I drove by there. There must have been 75 pickup trucks parked nearby, and the police had the streets blocked off so that gawkers like me couldn’t get too close. But the house they have built is visible from a distance. I have no idea when the show will air, but it looks like the house is almost finished.
It is a two story palace. My goodness, this house must have 4,000 square feet of living space. It is absolutely enormous!
I got to thinking about the property taxes on my modest little energy efficient house, as well as the cost of homeowner’s insurance, and the utilities like electricity, water, trash disposal, and natural gas. Without even having a mortgage payment, she will need to earn a pretty good income just to manage to keep that house.
But who knows, maybe there is some independent wealth there or another source of income that is not readily apparent. I hope so, or they have not done her any great favors by building this mansion for her.
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p.s. I was talking with some friends yesterday and they said that these guys tore down an almost perfectly good two story brick house to build this new stucco one. So I guess paying the utilities and property taxes isn't a big problem after all.
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I received the following email on 21 January from a lady who knows the people who had their home redone so I am adding her email to this post:
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Mr Garland
I was reading you review of the Ruiz home in El Paso, Tx. I know the family and I can tell you that their house may have looked fine on the outside, which if you had looked at it close up, it was falling down around them. In fact, the city inspectors said that they would have condemned the house because it Was in such bad shape inside. The Ruiz family had personally built this house with the assistance of their family over 12 years ago. They never finished the inside because they chose to use every bit of their money to help people in need - both in Juarez as well as in Socorro, Tx and the neighbors around her area.
It is so easy for people to speculate without knowing the family - I just wish I was even a fraction of a bit as giving as they have been. I was also a volunteer and spent the entire time working to help give them a house that would give them the tools to continue their ministry.
I just wanted to share this with you. If you would like to talk to me, please email me and I would love to have a further conversation with you.
Frances
LINK: http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/index?pn=index
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