Deborah Gibson Taking A Hit in the Hollywood Hills

SELLER: Deborah Gibson
LOCATION: Forest Knoll Drive, Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $995,000
SIZE: 1,733 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Fabulous designer home in Hollywood Hills above Sunset Strip. Beautiful chef's kitchen, stainless steel app, slate/tile baths, formal dining, den and wonderful backyard for pool. Very private. Offer subject to short sale.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Surely all the children who are older than 25 remember 1980s teen singing sensation Debbie Gibson and her radio friendly pop songs that had clean cut teenagers everywhere tapping their feet and snapping their little fingers. We do.

However, that sort of wholesome pop crap was never Your Mama's musical cup of tea. None the less, we do recognize that–for better or worse–the young Debbie Gibson paved the way for all the other teen aged gurls like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Christina Aguilera who were tarted up just this side of looking like a hooker and sent out on stage to wiggle and woo the dollars out of the wallets of the parents of tweenagers around the world.

Debbie Gibson the teen superstar singer grew up to become Deborah Gibson who trod the boards on Broadway (Beauty and the Beast, Les Miserables, Grease, Chicago) and exposed her boobs to the world in the March 2005 issue of Playboy. More recently she took a not so successful spin on the disturbing Skating With Celebrities reality show disaster, created a children's camp in Los Angeles for aspiring performers called, natch, Camp Electric Youth, worked the stage in Atlantic City where she sang her 1980s hits mixed with Broadway standards and became an icon for a certain sort of homosexual.

She also set up house in the Hollywood Hills where property records show in February of 2005 Miss Gibson paid $1,275,000 for a modest house just off curvy, swervy and dangerous to drive Sunset Plaza Drive. Records show the Forest Knoll Drive house measures 1,733 square feet and listing information indicates there are two bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, one of which appears to have a stand up urinal installed, an apparatus we don't imagine Miss Gibson used much.

Listing information shows that Miss Gibson has recently listed her house for sale with an asking price of $995,000. A few flicks of the well worn beads on our bejeweled abacus reveals that figure to be a full $280,000 less than she paid for the house. Oh dear.

Miss Gibson's Hollywood Hills hideaway is well screened from the street offering the once blisteringly famous now just sorta famous woman all the privacy she wants and requires. Adjacent to the detached two car garage, a long, lung busting flight of stairs rises from street level to the front door. We're sure this is an excellent feature for helping Miss Gibson keep her pushing 40 booty tight, but frankly, Your Mama would rather have a fat ass than have to climb all those damn stairs every damn day just to get to the damn front door.

A small entrance hall opens to the living room which features wood floors, a wood burning fireplace and a large bay window looking out over that glute grinding flight of stairs. The children will note that in addition to Miss Gibson's depressing melange of furniture that all looks like it came from Grandma's house in Missouri, Miss Gibson has not very modestly hung a lot of her own showbiz memorabilia on the walls. The mirrored piano, which by our humble and meaningless estimation, is the only fabulous thing in this room and was once owned by flamboyant entertainer Liberace and makes a very strong and deliciously campy decorative statement at one end of the room.

Opposite the living room is a decent sized and wood floored dining room which has been painted that particular sort of blood red that many people think looks great in dining rooms. A large country-style breakfront holds all Miss Gibson's finer dinnerware and it appears that Miss Gibson has inexplicably hung a blanket over the window. Maybe it really is a shade or a curtain of some sort, but it looks like a damn blanket.

Listing information indicates the kitchen is suitable for a chef and perhaps it is. We can't get over the pot rack hanging over the work island to determine if a chef would want to be cooking up in there. Is there anything worse than cutting carrots and slicing celery while having to look at a bunch of dusty pots hanging from the ceiling? Ugh.

From the look of things, Miss Gibson's real estate agent showed up unannounced to take photos for the listing because there is no other legitimate way to explain the utter catastrophe that is the bedroom where the tee-vee has been left on, a vanity table looks a hot mess, a purse has been left on the bed and Miss Gibson's fuzzy slippers have not been placed in the closet or under the bed where they belong in a real estate listing photo. The main bathroom is no better. In fact, it's worse. An over-stuffed valise sits on a chair gaping open and the counter tops are littered with toiletries, make-up implements and a 7-Up soda can. A 7-Up can! Classy.

Seriously Miss Gibson, listen to Your Mama because we are sincerely trying to help you here. Not only is your house is being offered as a short sale, meaning you're likely going to have to beg your bank to accept a purchase price that is less than you owe, public records show a Notice of Default was filed on the property in early January which means that you gotta get rid of this place as soon as possible before you slip down the rabbit hole of foreclosure. Now hunny, we don't now if anyone has told you, but the real estate market in Los Angeles isn't as brisk as it was a few years ago and as a result it is extremely important to put your best real estate foot forward when trying to attract skittish and/or bottom feeding buyers. And that means, of course, that you need to clean up all your crap, call Your Mama so we can send our domineering house gurl Svetlana over to scrub the place down like it was a surgical suite and have your real estate agent come back over to snap new photographs that present your little crib in its the best possible light. Now is not the time to be leaving the house with bread crumbs on the kitchen counter or skid marks in your terlit.

Now then, one thing that may work in your favor is that the (slightly smaller) house next door sold in December of 2008 for $1,150,000 which makes your current asking price of $995,000 look at least in the ball park. Your Mama never likes to see anyone lose their house in a distress sale and just because we're mortified by the condition of your house in the listing photographs does not mean we don't feel for you or that we have any desire to dance on your real estate grave. We honestly wish you fortitude, dignity and a strong constitution during this ugly short sale process.