It was a foreclosed house and, at the time, we had just received the inheritance my grandmother left (she was a successful writer in Bangladesh, but her inheritance was tied up in her property and several people that were not her children were trying to take it).
It seemed like a good investment but so much shit went wrong.
1) Found out the guy who used to live there murdered his wife. Thankfully, not inside the house, but surprisingly this kind of guy doesn't sign title agreements correctly!
2) The first construction crew we brought in decided we were too demanding with our deadlines, so they decided to just not work until I fired them. They swore revenge, which is an awesome thing to have on your mind when you're living somewhere that people have keys to.
3) The second crew was extremely incompetent. It would take too long to list everything they did wrong, but probably the biggest issue is when the girlfriend and I were at work, they came in and sanded the atrium floor without closing any of the doors in the house. Everything I owned was covered, inside and out, with dust.
This does not even mention the time the pool motors died when I was on vacation and the pool/fountain became OVERRUN with frogs.
I was on TV a couple of times, and they'd put me in the newspaper for the littlest things (I believe that was more to promote English, though). But, in the end I don't think I looked exotic enough for them. Inevitably I'd always get asked by my elementary school kids on the first day, "Why aren't your eyes blue?"
