Selling house – ADVICE PLEASE :)

[Ali925]

So does anyone have any perspective … advice, anything on selling/showing your home with bunnies in the house?  We have a small ranch so our space is limited…  The actual move is a few months away, so I don’t have to worry about the bunnies with that just yet.  But we’re going to be putting our house on the market in the next few weeks and I have NO idea what to do with the bunnies and their current living situation.

Right now, they are right smack in the middle of our family room…taking up tons of space with their 2 separate pens and we know we can’t keep them there like that…  We have a few possibilities…

1)  Move them to my parents’ house and visit them on a daily basis (or live there but then I’d be away from my husband for who knows how long…and I don’t really want to live there…although my parents will let us do whatever)

2)  Keep them in their cages during the day and in a spare room, so if someone comes by to see the house, there is no mess.  I would obviously have to keep up on this to keep it clean, but you know what I mean.  Right now they have cages attached to pens…so lots of room and I know they like it that …

3)  Make our office into a “bunny room” and just neaten up the way their cage/pens look…and hope they don’t mind moving into there…  

Any opinions or experience with this??  This is so frustrating because I don’t want to upset them, but I know we can’t leave them as they are…and if I can only move them once from this house to our new house rather than my parents’ house in between I’m sure that would help the transition to be easier too…  And we don’t have jobs close to our home, so we have to leave it on a lockbox where people could come during the day when we’re gone…so I can’t run home and clean up the area either, so that’s out of the question.

 

Thanks guys, I know you always have answers!!!

 

[LoveChaCha]

I am in the same boat.

I am currently in my grandparents home and my dad and I in the process of almost being done selling the house.

Your agent will give you tips and such, but from what I know of – potential buyers do not want to see animals in the house. It is sad, and it made me pissed off til no end, but it is the truth animals can be a big deal breaker for clients.

My bunny was in the garage during the day, and when I came home at night, she would come in and would sleep in the living room until the next morning. We are nearly done, so my dad doesnt care – he just said to keep her in the living room lol.

I was very concerned with the moving so much, but my bunny took it well. I got bunny butt but I got over it. I made sure she got a treat for participating so well.

The strange thing is – the two people that were in the bidding war for the house that I live in – my bunny was in the living room kennel (now i keep it in the garage for last minute times people want to come over >< urgh) and they didnt seem to mind. sometimes real estate agents will send emails – comments about the house what to fix, etc.

I understand how you feel right now, I really do. >< I hope it goes well!! KEep us posted!!

[Elrohwen]

I would try to move them into a spare room of some sort and put them in cages/pens that look the neatest and take up the least amount of space. You really want people to be able to walk around and see each room for what it’s meant to be, so if it’s meant to be an office, you want them to see it as an office and not as a bunny room if you can help it. If you really have a spare, empty room, I would use that, since it’s not currently showing the potential buyers anything as it is (assuming there’s no bed in there or anything) so the bunnies won’t be in the way too much. Just try to keep their stuff clean and to the minimum – the bigger you can make the room look the better.

I don’t own my townhouse, but I’m planning to move next year and I imagine my landlord would like us to get the bunnies out of the dining room so potential renters can access the porch … it’s tricky! Especially when you don’t have a lot of space.

[Sarita]

I think you should move them to your parent’s home. It is a big deal breaker and in this housing market, you need to show your home to it’s fullest potential and be ready and every moment for a showing which means keeping the home spotless.

You need to be concerned about people with allergies too who might be interested in your home – that means allergies to hay, to animals to everything.

I understand where you are coming from that you don’t want to upset them but you need to show your home to it’s fullest potential and make that a top priority if you are trying to sell it.

[skibunny8503]

I recommend taking them to your parents house.  Your house will show better.  Plus you gotta consider if someone would be allergic to them, if they’re out of the house then that person would stay and look at the house longer.  Good luck selling your house!

[Ali925]

Thanks everyone…that’s what I was afraid to hear…the parents’ house. Although you’re all totally right. We have our realtor stopping by tonight for the first time so we were going to see what she recommends as well. But I never even thought about allergies… As far as the spare room, one is an office and one is a guest bedroom, so they wouldn’t appear to be extra rooms at all. So moving them there wouldn’t work either way.

I know we have to worry about selling out house and the bunnies have to kind of come second, but that’s hard for me of course. So if I move them to my parents’ I won’t be able to spend much time with them, unless I move there with them, in which case it’s husband-less which I hate the idea of. I know he’ll come by to visit, but I can’t imagine not living with him….seems kind of ridiculous. So the alternative is to leave the bunnies there and visit, morning and night…so as not to burden my parents and also because I obviously want to see them!! But that is more difficult than it seems, because of my current commute length/work hours and living 30-40 min from my parents’ house (it’s on my way to work so I could stop by at night, but the mornings would be really hard…) I wake at 3 AM for my run, leave the house by 5:20 and start work at 6:30….so I don’t think I could fit in a morning visit to care for them… so that’s my next issue to sort out. I know this will all be worth it in the end, but it seems pretty crazy to think about all this … thanks guys, I appreciate the help. And only if I could bond these bunnies too, then things would be much easier!!

Lastly, I don’t know how much space/exercise they’ll get at my parents’ house. Is it bad to keep them in a basement (unfinished)?? I don’t want to but their basement could be easily used for them. My thought was an upstairs spare bedroom (although there’s carpet which I don’t like…) but then not sure when and how to let them have free roam time. I wonder if one bedroom would be enough running space if we cleared it out a little?? Sorry for the billions of questions…I just can’t seem to figure out what’s best. I don’t want them to be unhealthy because I can’t give them the proper running space. Ok. comments/suggestions? lol thanks again…

[Elrohwen]

I agree with the others that sending them to your parents’ house sounds like the best idea for now. It won’t be for long!

I don’t think you need to stop by in the morning – your parents will probably be more than happy to feed them breakfast. If it’s on your way home from work, it sounds like an evening visit would work out perfectly, then you could spend some extra time on the weekends. Are they bonded yet? This is the perfect situation to bond them in as well since it’s neutral territory for both and a new environment.

I’m not a huge fan of basements for bunnies unless they have natural light and aren’t humid. If you think the basement is too dark or musty, the spare bedroom would be fine, I’m sure. You can cover the carpet in their pens, so they can’t dig at it while they’re locked up, and while they’re out they can be supervised if they’re normally carpet chewers. Do yours normally go after carpet? Have they had access to it before? Many bunnies do just fine with it. A room is also plenty of space for them to run around.

[Ali925]

I hope it’s not for long…we don’t have that much time since my husband has a date to report to the new location…but we have our fingers crossed!

hmmm, you don’t know my parents..haha. But if they know how much easier it would make my life they would def do it. I just know I’ll miss seeing those excited faces in the morning!! No they are not bonded yet I made an attempt back in August and after having a scary scuffle I got too freaked out to try again I know I can’t wait forever, but then we got to the point where we had to start work on the house to get it ready to sell and there just wasn’t spare time for it. I was hoping that my parents’ house would be a good place to start again, but I still have trouble handling them so that always makes it so hard for me…they’re very difficult. I’ll give it a go, it will be important to have them bonded for our new house.

I don’t like the basement idea either. It has windows, but high up, not too much light…it’s fairly cool too, it’s all cement. I don’t want them to be so far away from everyone either. The problem with the carpet is we have NO carpet whatsoever, so I don’t know what they’d do. And blu particularly loves laying on the wood floor, I might have to find a spare piece or two for him to lay on LOL. The other thing is the spare room is upstairs…and since they’re not bonded yet, they’d need separate playtimes since I don’t have the same layout as my house. I guess I could let them out into the hallway (no carpet there) and just let them run for a bit…? Obviously the parents’ house isn’t bunny proofed downstairs…

[Elrohwen]

I imagine they will *adore* the carpet if they have never seen it. Mine have one room with an area rug, plus their pen with an area rug, but the few times they have seen wall-to-wall carpet they have gone nuts. Binkies everywhere! They’ll think they’ve died and gone to heaven. Just make sure to put down a mat or something so they can’t dig or chew at the carpet while you’re not around to supervise and they’ll probably leave it alone reasonably well while you’re there to watch them. I think think carpet will be an awesome thing for them – just wait and see!

For the bonding, I think bonding them there could be just what you need to get over the hump with them. If you do sessions at your parents’ house, you can do the final cementing in your new house which would be neutral territory yet again. You should definitely take advantage of it while you can!

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