Girls Night Out

In January I like to indulge myself. I invited some girl friends to my house for cocktails and fun. I had been to a jewelry party a month early and agreed to host a spin off party. I was more interested in the gathering of friends than the jewelry party though. The jewelry was going to be our entertainment.

I made a dip and cracker platter, a vegetable platter, and Riley made a cake. I set out the wine glasses on a silver tray and opened some bottles. I decanted my cheap vodka into pretty cut glass, and put out the mixers.

My friends arrived and we played. We got to dress up in pretty jewelry and giggle and laugh. I over indulged again. I started out with good intentions, with just a cup of coffee, but that soon disintegrated into a real drink. I did try to be good by filling the glass with ice and juice first than putting in just a splash of vodka. The problem is the number of glasses. A splash still adds up when you have a few. Should have drunk some water between.

The men were playing poker at another house, which was a brilliant way to occupy Tom while I had my chick party. One of the other women drove us all over to the poker party. I sat down on her couch and the next thing I know someone is putting a warm blanket on me. Tom drove us home.

I woke this morning feeling a bit fragile.

My property manager called. I have great respect for this woman now. She evicted our aweful tenant in 21 days. She would have had her out months earlier if I hadn't interfered trying to work with the tenant. My property manager saw through her faster than I did, with all her dealings, trying to chase down the late rent each month. Turns out the tenant had not paid any of the utilities since she moved into our house. The tenant played us and others. Thank goodness for the large deposit we required. We were able to use it to salvage some of her debts and get the house cleaned and ready to re rent. The tenant left without cleaning.

Learned experience, bad credit is bad credit. If they have to borrow funds to move in to the house, than they can't afford the house. The now ex-tenant called and left an extremely hostile message when she found out she is not getting as much of her deposit back as she anticipated. Personally, I wouldn't give her a dime for what she is putting us through.

January is a hard time to find a new tenant. Few people move in January. The rent prices have fallen. I was forced to lower our price, which doesn't help a bit. I am learning about the rental business in a trial by fire. Please, lets have our next tenant be more reliable.

Sadly, I fear my property manager will have to deal a couple more times with the ex-tenant as she sends her the minimal funds left from the deposit, with the expense account on how the rest was used. The tenant is going to blow a gasket, but that is what you get when you try to live for free.

I told the tenant I couldn't do zero rent. I gave her every opportunity I could to make this work, but zero didn't work for me. Finding out she hadn't been paying her utility bills, and services were about to be cut, was a huge eye opener. I found out when I called to get service restored to us during the eviction process. The fact she hadn't been paying any of her bills and hadn't from the beginning, made me all the more grateful to my property manager for her efficiency in getting the tenant out of our house.

My property manager even had a sheriff be there for the lock out process just to make sure the tenant didn't get ugly. That was a good call as I hear the tenant was ready for a fight. The locks were changed in front of her so she would see that her keys were no longer good. My property manager crossed her "T's" and dotted her "i's" with this woman.

Now we just have to get someone good into the house and soon. A few nibbles, but no bites so far. Many respond that they don't want to move in until March. That is two months without a tenant. On the other hand, we have been lucky that we did get a renter in quickly the first time so we really have been able to break even on the mortgage up until now. Its those property taxes that hurt big time. I can't wait to do our taxes and see if having a rental is really worth the supposed write offs.