Why are we emotionally attached to the buildings we live in?

I’m buying a house and it surprised me how quickly I became sentimental about saying goodbye to the one I’ve been in for the last four years, even though it’s a rental.

It turns out, many people have a deep attachment to the building they live in.

Karmen Frisvold, who works for KTTH, and her husband are in the process of selling their home. Karmen’s father built the home when she was in the fifth grade. She’s lived in it ever since.

“I remember moving in and it wasn’t even clean yet. It still had contractor dust everywhere and as a family, going through and vacuuming and cleaning the whole house,” Karmen said. “I have memories of going through and putting the carpet down. It’s home.”

But it’s actually too big for Karmen and her husband and their toddler. Karmen says she feels like they’re paying for a house they’re not using, so the time has come.

“I don’t know why the walls have such value. I mean I touch them, I run my hands down them when I’m going down the stairs,” Karmen said. “That’s the staircase I walked down my first prom – the pretty dress, just like the movies! And here we are, we’re going to sell it.”

Dan Restione, our Managing Editor at KIRO Radio, had to say goodbye to his childhood home when he was about 19 years old. He didn’t want his family’s history to be packed up in a box and forgotten, so he found a way to make sure the new owners understood the history of his old house.

“I thought, ‘they just don’t know.’ They don’t know what went on in here,” Dan said. “And it was my whole life! So I went around and I unscrewed the little plates that surround light switches. I wrote up all these notes on family history and I stuck them in and then I screwed the light plates back, figuring that somewhere down the line, somebody is going to replace a light switch or something and they’ll find this little bit.

“This house was so much more than a house to me,” Dan said. “I just thought they would really dig learning some of the stuff that went on in those four walls.”

I was curious about the Seattle couple we’re buying a house from and I imagined they had a similar story. They had to be excited to live in a place with a good elementary school nearby, just like us.

“Why can’t I just call them up?” I started thinking. What if we can have a sweet hand-off of the house, instead of just the tension and stress that comes with negotiating?

My realtor was hesitant at first &#8212 this is highly unusual &#8212 but I asked her and she reached out to the owners.

Turns out, one of them was a reporter for 17 years, got what I wanted to do, and said he loved the idea.

John Gardner explained that his wife has a big opportunity in Oregon.

“She has a great new job lined up, so it’s something we kind of had to do,” he said. “But, yes, it’s very emotional, letting the house go. It’s been a very big part of our lives for the past seven years.”

John and Tammy have a 6-year-old son and we have a toddler. I asked if he and his wife think about the fact that the house is going to another couple with another young kid.

“I think that’s a very good thing,” he said. “Truthfully, it was part of the selling point. We wanted to get another family in here, especially the way this neighborhood is. It’s so friendly and people are willing to take care of your kid and things like that, so we were hoping that someone like you would get in there and keep loving the house the way we did and loving the property.”

I told him that was good to hear, because I’m sad to leave my neighborhood, a solid community with fellow moms and dads around who are willing to trade babysitting.

“Yeah,” he told me. “I bet you’ll find something similar to that around here. It’s a really cool neighborhood.”

Gardner said he’s ready to go to Oregon, but still, he said something so sweet before we hung up: “I might give the house a big hug when we leave.”