Columnist Susan Snyder: New home has friend boxed in

Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2000 | 9:39 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesday, Sundays and Fridays in Accent. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

There is some twisted humor in watching co-workers who have just purchased their first home.

You can pretty much count on a year's worth of entertainment hearing competent, college-educated professionals grovel and snivel to painters, lawn-care workers and washing-machine repairmen.

Even the move itself is sport. In the flurry of facing "home ownership" they assume moving across town takes less organization than moving across the country. Stuff isn't packed at all or is packed in old boxes that are still labeled from the last move.

"Bathroom stuff" means shoes. "Linens" means cookbooks. And linens actually are strewn throughout several boxes labeled anything from "dishes" to "summer clothes."

My co-worker said the first morning in their new home her husband asked where his razor was packed. She just laughed maniacally.

Three days later she trudged into the office seething about her hair (the gel was not in the "books" box containing bathroom stuff). She slapped a pile of papers and cards on the corner of my desk.

"Know what that is?" she said, her voice a liiiittle too shrill. "That's one day's mail for a new homeowner."

The bonus round! I totally forgot about new-homeowner mail.

Sprint couldn't get her telephone number switched over with two weeks notice of the move. But strangers filled her box with reams of tripe by the time she had the key in hand.

"Our hostess is trying to reach you -- 2nd and final notice!" one reads. The offer was "a gift valued at $200." Could be $200 worth of doorknobs, for all the information given. And she hadn't lived in the place 24 hours. When did the first notice arrive?

There were buy-one-get-one-free ads for ceiling fans, specials on draperies, blinds and roasted chickens. A free round of miniature golf and free movie tickets for suffering through a recliner demonstration.

Many mailers tried to deter the inevitable with exclamation points and "last-time offer" claims. Another technique was disguising the deal as something official from Clark County.

One company offered to prepare a homestead declaration application for $20. It looked official. A harried homeowner trying to find tomorrow's socks likely would fill it out, cut the check and send it.

Not so fast, a Clark County recorder's office clerk said. Homestead declarations, which protect property against certain types of legal claims, are voluntary. Recording one costs $7, and people may fill out the applications themselves, she said.

"It's more of a typing service than anything else," she said of such offers. "But (homeowners) get intimidated by something that looks official."

The service's return address should have a street rather than a U.S. Postal Service box, she said. And the application must be returned so you can sign it in front of a notary public before filing it with the county.

By the time we hit the bottom of the pile, she'd forgotten about her hair and we were gasping with giggles.

A packet in an official-looking envelope from Clark County New Resident Services put us over the edge. One ad showed a sinister, masked thief.

Was it really a pitch for burglar alarms?

Or was it an absentee voting ballot?