This Flu Season is Nasty: Should You Cancel a Showing if You Are Sick?

Not only is the flu kicking our butts earlier this year, likely because we’ve had straight cold temps now since Christmas Day, but it’s straining the local pharmacy’s supply of  flu drugs, my husband (a physician) tells me. On Monday I heard that virtually every pharmacy in town was wiped out of Tamiflu. We all come back from holiday, we are indoors, exposed to sick people and run down from all the celebrating. So we get sick, and it’s not fun.

So do you cancel a showing if you are sick? Tell your agent you are on your deathbed, right? Or pop a few Tylenol, muffle sneezes and brave it? What if that buyer is in town for a day or two and this is their only chance to see your casa?

I recall showing a home when I was sick and had a fever –strept throat in fact (thank GOD that is not going around) and I hate shots. But oh, how I begged for a shot of penicillin: we had to show the house. I had to clean it up for the showing, I had babies. While that miracle med  circulated through my system, I shoved everything I could under the sofa, cushions, chairs including kleenex boxes, tea cups and toys. I was resting comfortably on the sofa when the prospective buyers came over, and we showed them the house. I think my temperature was down to 101 at that point.

Guess what — those people bought our house on Melissa Lane. Last I knew they were still living there, great house.

(I hope they never caught anything from me!)

So I don’t know, what do you do if you the home-owner are sick and do really not want to invite strangers to troop through your germy house, picking it apart for sale while they pick up a few of the viruses floating through the air.

Should you open the windows to encourage fresh air flow? Make everyone wash their hands?

And then, if you say “let’s reschedule”, do you risk losing a sale?

We need some advice here…