The vibe has definitely changed since I started following, collecting, restoring and blogging about this house in 2009. It used to be that I (or anyone) could easily snag a 'pre-renovated' house for $25-$65 plus shipping (generally $25-$40). Of course they were disassembled, seller packing ranged from no packing material (or care) whatsoever to each and ever piece being labelled and wrapped in styrofoam wrapping (not cheap). Nowadays (6 years later) I noticed more and more, number one: you definitely cannot obtain a house for less than $100 total, regardless of completeness or condition, secondly: people are throwing away (or 'I'll try to look for them') the post covers due to their condition (which I have blogged several times about how to restore brown, shattered ones) and three: sellers are too lazy to disassemble these for the prices they expect (not to mention their poor grammar and syntax). It seems that they often are not Barbie collectors, are ignorant of keeping all the parts together (and just how much is missing) and perhaps picked these up at yard sales or thrift shops for $20-$30 and are trying to make a quick buck. Sometimes they hose them off (which rusts the screws) and that does not properly remove 35 years of dust and bug crust. Its a very unfortunate situation; if I was wealthy I would purchase some of these and restore, but often they are thousands of miles away and there's just no way to get them since even if I got them to agree to ship, I would not trust a complete stranger to actually send a house if I sent them a check, and have them pack it in a way to prevent damage in shipping. Today there are SEVEN houses, all unrestored and incomplete and the owners refuse to ship them!! Sigh..............
