The last few days....

In my continuing effort to keep those who have faith in me (ha-ha) from looking bad, here I am again. Although it's pretty bad that the only way to get me to post is psychological blackmail, so to speak...but hey, whatever it takes, I guess.

I have been riding a roller coaster stress-wise the past few days. as I said earlier, we have to move. We thought for minit yesterday that maybe we wouldn't have too, but speaking for myself, not really. My Hunny is a bit more of a trusting soul than I am, sweet man that he is. You see, we met with the folks that we are currently renting from, in an effort to come to an agreement we could all live with. A little background...

When we found this house we were very excited. It has the potential to be a very nice house. Mind you, I said potential...It is relatively new, built in the last ten years, I'd say. But it's has also been "rode hard and put away wet" if you know what I mean. Apparently the first owners were unable to keep it. Because they allowed themselves to get into a situation they were unable to maintain, they felt compelled to cause as much damage as possible before they left...The folks we got it from had done quite a bit of fix-it-up, but there's a whole bunch left to be done. Bad carpet. Damn near every interior door has a hole in it. A whole bunch of the shelving has been torn down - mind you, I didn't say taken down I said torn down as in there are big holes in many walls where shelves originally lived. There are also just holes in the walls for no apparent reason. One bedroom has had the window painted black with something that I can't seem to get off of it...well, here, look at a few pics...

  

This is the door to my closet. As you can see, the hole goes all the way through the door....

This is the door to my boy's bedroom...

The "painted" window. A side note here - my boy HATES this room. If the door is left even slightly ajar, he will pull it closed. Also the doorknob is "backwards," the lock is on the outside of the door. It's kinda creepy that not only was the window painted black, but the room was also set up to keep someone IN...

This is the floor around our water heater. We think it broke & flooded at some point, and the floor was left as it was. The kitchen light, directly below it was fixed, kinda...

I mean technically, it was fixed, but I'm not sure for how long....

 

And finally, our stained & "bubbled up" carpet - have you ever tried to vacuum carpet that isn't securely attached to the floor underneath it..? It's a bitch, lemme tell ya...

In addition to all this, we have had to repair the toilets - at our cost - three times, there is no water pressure in the downstairs of the home,

This is my kitchen faucet ON HIGH...

no screens on any of the windows, there isn't even a garage door opener installed...Now, understand, these things aren't in themselves our complaint. It was like this when we moved in, and we felt none of it made the house unlivable, and we were willing to deal with it for the reduced rent we were paying (although I really have trouble calling $800 a month reduced...). We were told if we made repairs, we could take it off the rent, as long as it wasn't a whole bunch all at once. Also good with that. Then it sold. The buyers assured us, sitting in our living room, while looking us in the eye, that they knew we wanted to stay here indefinitely - with purchase by us as the eventuality, they weren't going to raise the rent, we could make repairs & deduct from rent, and everything would stay the same. This is the delusion we've been living under...

When I took the rent check to their home, I included a letter requesting the lease renewal be done early so we didn't have to mess with it during the holidays, and requesting it be an extended lease, with our preference being a five year term. I my head, there should have been no problem, based on the conversation we had with them prior to this....Silly me.

Here's the response I got:  

i just wanted to let you know we recieved the payment and note from the mail box, Thank you.  We are in the process of working up a new lease, unfortunatly we cannot go into a 5 yr lease.  Also i need to put out there to you that the new monthly lease will be increasing from 800/mo to 925/mo.  While we appriciate you living there as the tenants and we can count on you to take care of the dwelling, we did buy this to be an investment property and we have checked around and rent is going for 300-400 more than what your paying now.  We were actually getting ready to contact you about the new lease info when we read your note.  We should have the new lease agreement typed up and ready for you to look over by this Sunday Nov 9, i can either drop it off or attach it to an email.  once you look it over, if you could just let us know what you decide by Nov 30.

(the spelling errors are theirs, I just copy/pasted it.)

Now, does that sound to you like someone who meant any of the statements made above...? Bearing in mind they haven't done anything to the house. Which is actually fine, I can live in it the way it is, but I'll be DAMNED if I'm paying MORE for it...What this email told me was:

a) Keeping us as tenants (never late on rent, making repairs at our own expense, etc.) wasn't even worth a phone call.
b) They are consummate liars, as we believed what they said
c) They really aren't concerned with keeping us as tenants at all, nor do they intend to sell us the house in the future as they had said they would, or why would there be a problem with an extended lease..?
d) We have to move, again. In December, again. No birthday party for my boy, again. Jacked up Christmas, again.

I stopped payment on the rent check. My self-preservation instincts are dominant in a situation like this...Apparently I need that money to move. And based on all the lies we had been told in the past, it was a safe bet we'd never get our deposit back (this has been since somewhat proven, as you'll see).

Yesterday, we contacted them to meet and see if we could come to terms. I had the money for the rent in my pocket, in cash. What it came to was they offered us $850 a month (I'm willing to do that). We asked for something in writing, (protecting us from him saying one thing & doing something else, again). He assured us he was going home to prepare the new lease. He would then email it to us, last night. We would sign it & I would bring a copy to them, along with the rent & the $10 fee their bank charged them for the stop payment. Good deal, we don't have to move! Silly me...

We hadn't been home half an hour when Hunny's phone rang. He couldn't get the agreement done as the Colts were coming on, and he didn't have time (?) But he'd have it done "sometime next week." Also, there was an NSF fee of $60 (again, huh?) that he wanted us to pay. Oh yeah, and we were supposed to either pay the rent then, without any form of surety, or we could pay $40 a day late fee until he completed the paperwork...

My Hunny had asked during that meeting if he was a man of his word, was his handshake good? and this man AGAIN looked us in the eye and lied to us. I told him I was willing to pay the rent, the $10 fee, and half of the NSF. I think that's fair. He was very adamant that they had no intention of making us feel that we were being forced to up the rent or get out. My opinion..? If that's true then you own equal responsibility for the fruits of your acts, and you can pay half your fee. I was willing to do that if he kept his word & provided us a new lease that evening. He called it blackmail, I called it keeping your word. Needless to say, it didn't go well. He proceeded to tell me he couldn't pay half the fee as he didn't have the $30 dollars....

Now that opens up a whole new world in my head...How come you didn't have the amount of a month's mortgage payment put back in that account, in case something happened..? Renters default on rent all the time. I sure as Hell would have - had the payment put back, not defaulted *grin*. And where's the money you're supposed to be returning to me as my deposit..? Shouldn't that be put in an untouched account, so it can be returned..? And once you found rent wasn't being paid you could use that to cover yourself if you didn't have the brains to have a payment at hand at all times...This is not the only rental property they have, and she works at a BANK  so they don't even have inexperience as an excuse for any of that.

And really, if I didn't have $30 dollars to pay half of an NSF fee, that I have to pay either way...and someone was offering me not only the other half of it, but another $810, why wouldn't someone with fully functioning brain cells accept it..? Hello..? You don't have $30, how are you going to make your house payment..? And if I choose to keep possession of the property until you evict me, how are you going to pay the next one, and the one after, not to mention pay for the eviction proceedings..?

Can I just say AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH !?!?!?!?

Anywho, ok, I've posted. LOL now I have to go get ready for work, going on very little sleep (I can't shut my brain down easily in normal conditions, the last few days, if the slightest thing wakes me in the night - and something always does - I'm awake for an hour with all this crap swirling around in my head...)

Ok gotta go,

See ya laterzzzzzzzzzzzz!