Yeah, at least in my area, a 4 bedroom seems to be more desirable than a 3, but a 5 bedroom doesn't get much more than a 4 and they even seem to linger on the market longer.

Septic systems are sized to number of bedrooms. The closet doesn't matter, there are specific requirements for a bedroom (ventilation, exits, minimum size...) . There is bedroom count rule in Mass Title V that says if there are more than 8 rooms in the house, you have to divide the total rooms by 2 to get the bedroom count. So an 8 room house could have 3 bedrooms for septic purposes, but a 9 room house will 4, a 10 room house will have 5... Rather than denying a construction permit because an additional room will push the house over the size of the septic system, a town will often add a deed restriction stating the number of bedrooms and allow the construction.

Your town's health department should be able to help you figure out how it will work in your specific situation.

Yep, if you have a septic system that is an absolute constraint on how many bedrooms a house can be listed as having, nothing else will matter. I'm regularly surprised at how many listings I see that claim more bedrooms that the septic is sized for, that is a legal liability for the seller and the listing agent. My current house lives like it has 4 to 5 bedrooms and we've used it as a four bedroom but it can only be listed as a three bedroom without an extremely expensive septic upgrade, so it is a three bedroom house with a couple of "offices", "playrooms", "bonus rooms", whatever.

I think you live next to my old neighbor...and she is part of why we moved. I'm sorry, I know how awful it is and I'm not sure what to tell you as we never resolved it.

For maintenance meds like the Metformin and Eliquis, have you tried a mail order pharmacy? The CVS near us (outside of Lowell) is a pain in the butt, not so much filling prescriptions inaccurately, but long lines and constantly pissed off staff and customers. Anything I take regularly I get in the mail from ExpressScripts and have had no problems. They can auto ship so you don't forget/run out.

Thanks for that suggestion! What a trip down memory lane ;). My childhood home was furnished in 1950s through 1970s Ethan Allen. I still have some of it.

Who did you use to install your heat pump? I'm in Westford and have an ancient gas furnace/forced hot air, plus two small heat pumps serving two rooms without furnace ducting.

I like the two mini-splits, have had them for 7-8 years and there have maybe been handful of days where those rooms were uncomfortably cold because the heat pumps couldn't extract heat from below 0 outside air.

The rebates/tax incentives for whole house heat pumps are looking pretty attractive, especially since we don't have central air now.