Article: A yard apart California transplants find hard work waiting at home bought online

Lesson 1: Don't buy a house sightunseen over the Internet.

Lesson 2: If you do, be prepared for what lies ahead.

Patti and Herbert Smith learned Lesson 2 a year ago when they moved to Colorado Springs to be closer to their family. They put their house in California on the market, and it sold so quickly that they ended up buying a house in the Springs online, with only a photo to go by.

The house was fine, but when they saw the yard, Patti says, "I screamed."

Accustomed to San Diego's lush landscape, her eyes were assaulted by three dying pine trees, a front lawn of unsightly weeds, rotting fencing, a sloping gulch in a backyard with no lawn, and clay so tough that her granddaughter ...

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