Okay, Realty Lady is telling the listing agent that he has a listing with no heat and no water, to see what he says. She is pretty sure they'll let us get a plumber in to evaluate the problem but she wants to be sure. Everyone except the lady at the selling bank seems to be aware that this is a house that should be sold for vastly less than what they originally listed it for, so maybe someone can knock some sense into her scarufulous head while I try to make the known unknown into a known known. And in the meantime, backup houses.

If it clarifies anything at all, the way the house is arranged there's the house, a sort of a utility room/bridge room to the garage where all this is taking place. The inspector heard water moving around in the utility room, but we could only get the exterior tap and the boy says one of the interior taps in that utility room to come on. No one heard water going in any of the bathrooms and, I think, the kitchen, or anywhere int he house proper. The utility room seems to be a maze of twisty pipes all alike. As far as I could tell it could be something as simple as a valve we're not valving, a leak or crack in one pipe close to the source, or as you say something nasty and broken under the house. Or possibly they have it rigged up to cut off at the boiler if the boiler isn't working and the two taps are just on the pipeline before that? I have no clue. And lots of disappointment, sad, and grumpy.

So, um. *sheepish* Haven't totally lost my mind? I just... I'd rather know moreo f what it is I'm walking away from than walk away from what could be Casper or Cthulhu clanking in the pipes.