Bats in the Attic

I love looking at properties online. Always looking for what’s on the market and getting ideas for my own home in Denver. There is a website in Italy called Idealista.it and it is the equivalent of Realtor.com in the US. It shows properties for sale all over Italy. I was smitten with Bagnone (and jealous of my friend!). While I was visiting her, I scoured the website for available houses in Bagnone. Many houses in the smaller villages in Italy are much more affordable than the US but, what they don’t tell you is how much money it is going to take to upgrade the electrical, heating, plumbing, etc.

A person who can estimate that cost for you in Italy is a “geometra.” It’s imperative to find a good, honest geometra, and I had the good fortune to meet one through a friend of my friend. A geometra oversees your project for you. He evaluates the condition of the property, recommends what needs to be done and estimates the costs for you. Then he brings in subcontractors to do the work.  My geometra, Maurizio Veroni, grew up in Bagnone and knows it well. He knew all of the available properties and, in some cases, the people who own them (which comes in handy for
negotiating!). Maurizio would also be able to show me available properties and act as my representative in the purchase of a property, if I chose to work with him.

We toured a couple of flats in the village center, but the layouts were very confusing. As I said, the properties are very old, constructed almost entirely out of stone and are laid out with small rooms and small steps connected in a way that is not very functional. Sometimes the kitchen is alone on the lower floor and the living area is upstairs, and that cannot easily be changed. He suggested that he show me a house just above the village that had been for sale for a couple of years. We drove up on a road that had hairpin turns, narrow (one car) bridges and curves that you could not see around.

Finally we arrived at the property and parked. A good-sized house, but very sad looking and in desperate need of a renovation. Dream house? I think not! Largely overgrown vegetation
surrounded it on all sides. I followed him up to the front door. He turned the key and opened the door. It was pitch dark inside. All of the exterior shutters were closed up tight so no natural light was entering the house. As I tried to take it in, I thought I saw a moving shadow. Maurizio went into one of the rooms off the entry to open the window. While I waited where I was, a bat flew right by my head! Aaaahhhhh! I screeched and ran into the room where he was and closed the door behind me! He chuckled. I, however, did not think it was the least bit funny! He went out of the room, and I closed the door behind him and waited there until he promised me that he had chased two bats out of the house, and the coast was clear. Then he came back into the room, crossed over to the window and threw the shutters open. I gasped.