The Pennywise House

Oh our shenanigans in Florida! Let me give you a peek at my very own “Zombie House”.

I mentioned that part of our future is buying and selling property in Florida. We are always on the lookout for our “retirement” property. That is, unless they keep upping the retirement age, and we are screwed!

Last year we bought, cleaned up and sold 5 vacant properties. My hubby did all the work, we (myself and two partners) watched! Of course we reaped the rewards for all of HIS sweat equity! To be fair, I live in Michigan, so not much I can do. We no longer have partners either for a whole host of reasons! Not getting into those on this platform, BUT we finally learned our lesson and are keeping future investments in our own little family.

My husband and I both went in search of our newest investment/project. He always needs a project, wherever he is, so in order for him to retain his sanity, we knew it was imperative to find the next big thing! Well, not to disappoint, we did just that! We each searched and compared what we found and both of us had saved this sad little house with the overgrowth!

The Pennywise House is on .61 of an acre in the sleepy little town of Bushnell, Florida. A house built in 1926! Boy, I wish these walls or trees could talk!!

For those of you who are fans of house flipping reality shows, Zombie House Flippers is one of our favorites and BOY, did we pick the right candidate for their show! I may have to write to them for some guidance!

We made a low-ball offer, the pictures told a tall tale! I was pretty confident that we would never hear back from the property owners, but a week later, after we denied a counter-offer, we were being asked when we wanted to close! I guess it was meant to be! Wondering what they knew, and we didn’t,caused immediate buyer’s remorse.

Even worse, when I went to the bank to transfer the funds, the manager doing the closing was very concerned that we would be sleeping in the house. Umm, HELL no! The 2nd clerk made a comment about this looking like the house that “Pennywise” might live in. If you are unfamiliar, Pennywise is the sadistic clown in Stephen Kings novel and subsequent movies, “IT”. I believe he is a sewer dweller, but if he had a winter home in the south, this would be it! His calling card is a red balloon and I had made the decision, if I even see ONE floater on the property…I’M OUT!

If the shape of the property isn’t bad enough, the locals (who had NO idea a house or pole-barn was tucked into this overgrown patch of earth) warned us that the area is notorious for strange sights and sounds! Why? Glad you asked! Turns out, we are right across the street from the Dade Battlefield.

Mini History Lesson: In the 1800s, when the U.S. army was moving between forts, they came into this area heavily inhabited by the Seminole Indians. Of course, being Americans, we told them they had to leave! We were relocating these people to Oklahoma. Well, as you might expect, the Seminoles were none too happy being told they had to leave their homes. While a majority of the tribe did move on, a group stayed behind to defend their homeland. When the troops came thru this area, the Seminoles were lying in wait. They ambushed and killed Major Dade and 90+ US troops. It did not take long for the US Military to regroup and come back to take out the remaining tribe. So, the fighting and bloodshed were all within the confines and surrounding land of our new piece of property!

Goes without saying, there will be NO OUJIA boards allowed in or around a 10-mile radius of my new Florida hideaway!

Hence the strange sounds and sites in this area of Florida! We have also been advised that we may find a treasure trove of arrow heads and other artifacts as we take back and bring back to life this little chunk of earth! For the record, anything found on the property will be left where it is or returned to the Seminole council! We will not have bad JUJU on this property!

Wanted you to have a peak! This is a multi-year project, but I plan to journal all of our steps and progress so that I always have it documented!

Let me know what you think!