What Do We Do With The House? |
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My parents want to move in with me
Jack Owens knew he had to do something when his widowed 93-year-old mother told him, "I don't want to die alone." So he hired a contractor to do some remodeling of the house in Long Beach, California, where he grew up.
Jack and his wife moved in to his boyhood home after the entire kitchen was rebuilt and granite-top counters were installed. Instead of air conditioning, Jack had the builder mount an old-fashioned whole-house fan in the attic, which keeps the place cool by sucking air up through the house and out the attic windows. The remodeling was done more for the sake of Jack and his wife than for his still-spry mother. Total cost of the renovations: $85,000.
But it was worth every penny to Jack, a 67-year-old retired driller of natural gas wells, who saw it as a familial duty. "It's something you have to do--you have no choice," he says. Jack and his wife maintain a safety valve in the form of a weekend condominium in nearby San Clemente--a place he calls "the last of the old-time beach towns." It gives 93-year-old Frieda Garver the freedom to host bridge parties and have the house to herself now and then.
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