House #11: We wanted a ruin

A week ago, rather than return to the relatively disappointing Lodeve Saturday market, we headed up into the hills, to the town of St. Affrique. We'd heard that the market was much better there. Which it was, although it still left a lot to be desired.

And being the realty-window whores that we are, we could barely keep from drooling on the glass. Property up here, just a hour or so north of Lodeve, is cheap. We saw one listing for a big chunk of land and some old ruined buildings including a mill, for 9000 euros. Now that's a bargain.

And so we took down some info, and we made an appointment, and today, we drove back up there again to see what we could see.

We met Christine, who seemed very friendly, if a bit neurotic and strange. Turns out that the 9000 euro property is so ludicrously cheap because there's no vehicular access anywhere near the place. No way to get to it. No way to work on it. And no water or electric either. Alas. But she did have a number of other interesting places in her book. And, since our original idea in coming to France was to buy a ruin and fix it up, she obliged us by showing us a few.

Yup. That's a ruin.

Very much so.

It looked like there had been a fire here sometime in the last century or so, and the place was left to fall apart. In fact, this was actually two properties for separate sale, bizarrely enough, considering the fact that it was hard to make out what was what amid all the rubble.

The combined asking price was, in light of what the place was, a very high 88,000 euros. Especially when the otherwise magnificent view:

is terrifyingly obstructed by this beauty not 20 meters from the house, and the sturdiest bit of structure in the near vicinity:

"Don't worry about the pylon. It's not the kind that makes a buzzing noise. Those are the dangerous ones." Not very reassuring, Christine.

That was not the only disturbing thing Christine told us regarding this house. She also said that to get good workers in, even to get them to start, could take a year on a waiting list. They're apparently in short supply. D'oh. This simple fact might skew our entire search. But right now and still sanguine, we have another ruin to go see...