Cranky or Humor

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Let things wash away with a laugh or you will give yourself a heart attack with the frustration. One of the reasons Tom and I made the big move was to de-stress Tom's life. Well, last night was a doozy for me.

We are refinancing the old house for a lower interest rate, which will allow us to include the cost of the taxes and rental insurance in the cost of rent we charge. The notary will come to our house for the signing.

The notary was supposed to arrive at 7:00 pm. We were home waiting. A little after seven the phone rings. The notary is at our old house, the one we are refinancing, where surprisingly the new future renters opened the door.

Two things were wrong with this picture. One was the notary had gone to the wrong house in the wrong state. The other issue was the renters were living in the house a week early. I just rolled my eyes as both issues were so predictably mismanaged. Surprises that had to be dealt with and quickly. Silver lining was we caught the renters, moved in early. We might never have known otherwise.

The notary was not licensed for the state we now live in and definitely wasn't up to the drive this late at night already, hours away. He said someone would call in the morning to reschedule. Meanwhile, I had to call the renter to find out what was up. Why was he moved in a week early with out prorating or fulfilling the deposit requirements. He said he would have all the funds on the first and thought I understood he wanted to move in early. HHMMM.

My next call was to the property manager to follow up on the early move in date. It would have been fine if he had followed protocol. Pro rated rent would have been more appropriate and definitely distressed me finding out this way. He said he was not finished painting yet, which I would have absolved him of the one weeks rent as a thank you.

I understand his thoughts though. He has a large portion of the deposit made already but the rest he is coming up with on the first. He probably didn't have the full amount. I was adamant about everything up front after our last renter experience. He had the key I had given him for painting before he moved in. He had turned on the utilities to his name. He had someone moving into his house and needed to be out. He pushed the envelope. I get it even if I can't condone it. If I hadn't been burned by our last renter, which cost us two more months mortgage until this family moved in, I might have been a little more accommodating. It is a matter of trust and again I may have trusted a bit too much.

The painting of the upstairs walls is done, he tells me. He has not done the ceilings, of which I paid for the paint at his request. Nor is the downstairs done yet. He said he needed a longer extension ladder for the two story entry. The world is not a perfect place. When you get good renters you try to accommodate. I don't yet know though if these are good renters. They do have more than half the deposit down, but they haven't paid the rent yet. At least I don't think they have. My property manager will be following up today. I warned him she would be calling.


I went up to the man cave to tell Tom the news. He asked where the notary was when I reached the top of the stairs. I smiled and laughed and said "Guess what happened". He smiled back at me with that "of course" look he gets when disasters strike that he is absolutely not going to lose his temper over. He reached out his arms to me to invite me to crawl into his lap where we can hug each other for endurance against the mad world outside. Not much we could do that night, but wait until morning.

Next time I guess I will just have to have the property manager run over and unlock the house each time work is being done. But my hope is that this is the last renter we will need. That this family will buy the house in a year or two. You can't beat the size for the price. The renter said he wants it.

The refi means we will owe more on the house as the costs roll into the new loan, and back to 30 whole years, but we should break even in a year with the lower mortgage. I just want to close my eyes and pretend it's not there to deal with. Every moment has been such an upheaval. I had heard that rentals are a pain. The income is not as passive as you think. Good renters are few and far between and worth accommodating to keep them happy. I am juggling between wanting to get pissed off and melting with gratitude that they did move in, and are fixing my bad paint job.

Hopefully, this is water under the bridge and we will move on to better communication and long term rewards on both sides. I did warn my renter that my property manager would be calling and she would be cranky. I do pay her to do the nasty stuff.

If he finishes the paint job I will over look the sneaking in early. I remember our need to be out of our house last summer and the unsuccessful attempt to be allowed to move into our new home early with the frustrations that entailed. I had given up the key. It was a temptation he couldn't resist with his own need to be moved. I just would have been happier if the money was in the bank first. So I am waiting two more days before I freak out and say "Not Again!!!". With any luck Tom and I will be celebrating over cocktails at the club Friday night, that we have new renters we can count on to pay our mortgage for the indefinite future, deposit in the bank. Celebrating life and financial stability, and our talent to move through potential disaster with equanimity.

I hadn't heard anything by 9:30 am so I sent off an email then a second one to the contact I had. He finally called me at 11:00am appologizing for the mix up. We are rescheduled. That problem resolved. I trust that our other problem with the renter will also be resolved in a couple of days. I will let my propertty manager do her business and after the first of the month we will know one way or another whether we made a bad choice again or not. At least this problem will not be as drawn out as the loan, which took two and a half months to hear if we qualified.