When my husband found out we were being transferred to San Diego from Baltimore we decided to sell our beloved little three bedroom house that we'd lived in for eight years. We love that house, a beautiful little 1929 Dutch Colonial (you're probably thinking "what the hell is a Dutch Colonial home?" Well, it means there's a windmill in the backyard and you get a free pair of clogs with the house, I'll send you a brochure.)
It was a hard decision to come to since we'd put copious amounts of blood, sweat and tears into fixing up the joint, but, as my husband is in the military, we move around a lot so the best decision was to put it on the market.
Alas, twas not as easy as we thought. Turns out, after speaking to the real estate agent, we picked the absolutely worst time to sell. In addition to 2010 being a terrible year for sellers, nobody buys houses in July and August (which are the months we picked to start advertising since we had to be out by October.) I don't know what we were thinking, I guess I thought since we loved the house so much others would too.
But, we went full steam ahead as best we could, kept lowering the price, had more open houses (that no one came to, apparently people don't even LOOK at houses during those months. Perhaps we should have done some homework on this.) When we lowered it the last time we decided that if it didn't sell we would try the rental route, we just didn't feel comfortable with lowering the price and further, we wanted to make SOME money on the house, not just give it away after desperation.) My husband was actually thrilled with the idea, he's always loved the thought of owning multiple properties and renting them out. All I saw were headaches with that scenario (and dammit wasn't I right).
We advertised our delightful three bedroom, one and a half bath, two story house with yard and porch swing, pets allowed (in case anyone is interested????) on a website called "Military by Owner" which is a resource other military families use to find places to rent owned by other military people. You probably could have figured that out from the name. We found an Army couple who were being transferred from Texas to Baltimore for the next three years, they saw the pictures of the house, loved it, and wanted to move in right away. Perfect! We did the necessary background checks and letters of recommendations, and they moved in the same month we left. It could not have worked out better.
They were the DREAM tenants. Rent arrived on time or even early in most cases. They constantly told us how much they loved the house and the neighborhood, and would also volunteer to do little maintenance jobs around the house, sometimes they would actually REFUSE money to reimburse things they'd purchased. They'd just say, "This is our house too, we want to keep it looking nice and don't mind paying to do so." WOW. Amazing. Could there be any situation better than this? I doubt it. I was almost even considering telling my husband, "You were right, I was wrong, renting is the way to go." I said almost.
NOT SO FAST THERE, BUB. This past February we got the email we were dreading, the couple was getting divorced and were so apologetic but would be moving out of the house after having lived there for only 14 months. BAAAAAAAAAAAA. NOOOOO! Don't go! We love you! But, what were we to do. Shit happens.
Then the panic sets in. We're in San Diego. The house is in Baltimore. How are we going to find renters. Will we have to fly out there? How will we show people the house when they want to see it? How long will it stay vacant? WHY THE HELL DIDN'T WE JUST LOWER THE HOUSE PRICE AND GET RID OF IT. What was going to happen?
The current renters felt so bad about moving out after such a short time (and were sympathetic to our geographic limitations) they said they were going to do all they could to find renters for us. Yeah yeah yeah, sure sure sure. We were screwed.
BUT, not one week later the wife called and said she had some friends that were looking for a new place to live and needed to move by March 1st. What? We might actually not have a gap in the rent? We wouldn't have to fly there? We could avoid this nightmare? Ahhh, the angels were singing, this was the answer. Of course when I look back on it now I see where we went wrong. In our desperation to get the rent we didn't do all of the things that smart home owners looking for renters should do. We didn't do background checks, we didn't do credit checks. We thought, "Hey, they're friends of the dream renters, I'm sure they're great too." Boy how wrong we were.
It should have been a clue how fast this new couple wanted to send us the signed lease and first months rent. They probably wanted it to be a done deal so that by the time I found out they were complete dead beats it would be too late. It should have also probably been a clue when I talked to the wife on the phone and she said, "The only thing I don't like about your contract is that it's only a one year lease and then goes month to month after that. I hate hate hate moving (which means they probably do it a lot, which means they probably get evicted a lot, things I'm seeing in hindsight yes you don't have to tell me) and won't you consider changing that to a two or three year lease?" Thankfully I said no, but I told her if things went well for the first year I couldn't see any reason why they should have to move, we most likely would not be moving back to the house, and if we did it wouldn't be for another ten years or so after Doug retires from the Navy.
So, the first month went well, they said they loved the house, the only thing they wanted to do was paint one of the bedrooms for their 15 year old daughter (this was a second marriage, there was the 15 year and now a new baby.) Here comes the real test, the SECOND month.
April comes along, and hey! It's April 1st, let's check the mailbox, shall we? What's that? It's empty? Hmm, well, we're still working out the kinks, I'm sure it will show up tomorrow, they have until the 5th before it's considered late.
Hey, what's the date today? Well, funny you should ask, it's the 6th and there's no rent check anywhere to be seen and no communication whatsoever from the renters. So, Doug sends Tammy (the wife) a text that says, "Have you sent the rent?" We then get then "Oh crap, it isn't there yet? I sent it overnight two days ago, I paid $20 to do so, it should be there!" Riiight. Why not just drop it in the mail on the 29th, which will only cost you 45 cents instead of sending it on the 4th when it will cost you $20. This is not starting out well.
Then she apologizes for the lateness and says she wants to set up a direct deposit thing so that she doesn't have to worry about it being late because she's such a space case.....uh huh. Great, we can do that, here's the check routing #, just call your bank and they can set it up. Except for some reason her bank CAN'T set it up, weird huh? Oh brother, these were all just gigantic warning signs that of course are clear to me NOW, but not then. Or maybe I just didn't want to see it. I was still holding out hope that these were just initial kinks and that things really would straighten out.
Say, hey, what month is it now? Why, it's May, you and know what else? It's May 7th and we've received no money. But you know what we did receive? We received a phone call from Tammy crying, saying they don't have any money to pay the rent this month because her husband lost his job. Oh sweet bajeezus. Okay, I'm thinking, "We are in deep doo doo here, although I feel for their situation, we need to get a handle on this before they get too behind with the payments." The money we receive from them goes right to our mortgage, it's not like we're making cash off of this. So now we've got the mortgage to pay on the Baltimore house AND the rent for the house we're living in San Diego, awesome!
Doug decides to call them while were sitting down to dinner one night and this is his end of the conversation that I hear , "Uh huh. Oh, yeah. Uh huh. But, well yeah I get that. No, I understand. Okay. Yeah, sure, okay. Uh huh, yeah that's tough. Sure. Okay we will. Yes. Uh huh." Totally steamrolled.
When he got off the phone I said, "Well, what was that all about? What did she say?" Doug, just completely exasperated with this whole situation, said that she sounded earnest and that the husband is in training for a new job, should see a paycheck within the next couple of weeks, and could we please just hang out for a little bit they promise to pay but if we want to evict they would totally understand but they hope we won't and they will pay they just can't do it right now and please understand they aren't irresponsible people they've just hit some hard times and you understand and it's raining and don't kick us out oh brother. They eventually did pay up by the end of the month but it all trickles in various ways. We've received money from them via regular check, Money Gram, Paypal, straight up cash in an envelope, and Western Union. Next up I'm expecting a carrier pigeon with some yen tied to his leg.
Again, I don't mean to sound harsh, but really, why rent a house that you can't afford? I can understand you have money problems, but live somewhere that fits your budget, or better yet, maybe stay with your family or friends until you are back on your feet. You can't expect your landlord to cover your money problems for you. Every email I receive from her starts with, "Now I know this is not your problem, but here's the thing...." Okay so I guess it IS my problem, right? Month after month it's some huge dramatic reason as to why they can't pay the rent.
Here are some of the other excuses we've heard:
-There are big storms, the power went out, everything in the fridge spoiled so we spent the rent money on food.
-Gas has really gone up here, and we need to buy baby formula, no rent yet.
-It's raining really hard, can't get to bank.
-I let the insurance lapse on my vehicle, then I crashed my car and totaled it, so I can't get to my job and we have no money.
-The baby has a rash, I need to take her to the doctor, sorry no rent.
-Husband spent the rent money on a new GPS without telling me, sorry money's not coming yet.
-Husband's grandma died, husband needed to spend rent money to buy a suit for the funeral. Maybe we can pay next week.
OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. It was the funeral/new suit one that really did me in.
If you can't pay your rent you don't head over to the Men's Warehouse to buy some new duds for grandma's funeral, I don't think she'll mind if you show up in slacks and a sweater.
The decisions these people make with their money is just ridiculous. I know times are hard, I understand this, but it's difficult for me to know if they're telling the truth, if they really are just in a bad situation, or if they're compulsive liars. I've never met them face to face, I have no idea of their credit (although I'm getting a good picture of it if their history with us is any indication.) Maybe they're alcoholics, maybe they're con artists, maybe they are just incredibly bad with money, maybe they just have really really bad karma, I have no idea. The only thing I do know is DO NOT EVER LET ANYONE MOVE INTO YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT FIRST GETTING A BACKGROUND/CREDIT CHECK ON THEM. NEVER EVER. NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER.......
Today is September 17th and I've yet to see a dime for this month, I've also not heard from them (that's another thing that kills me. Why do we always have to hunt them down for rent? I should not have to be emailing, calling, texting, smoke signalling to get you to send us what you promised to pay.)
We've tried giving them the benefit of the doubt but now I just feel taken advantage of. Last week we decided to hire a property manager take over the responsibility of all this, it's just too damn hard to deal with it 3000 miles away. I'm tired of waking up at 3am staring at the ceiling and wondering if we'll see any money this month. My patience with this has run out. Hopefully the property manager will be able to get something out of them, unless, of course, it's raining and, you know, they would go over there, but.......to be continued...........
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