Adventures in Moving with Bob and Kathy
Part III: The Adventure Continues
March 31, 1999
Hello Again Everyone,
You are still tuned into the epic continuing saga of the Rude Ranch move.
A few things have happened since our last update:
We attempted to find renters for the condo that we are currently living in. Anyone whose ever tried to rent out any type of residence can tell you what a parade of characters can show up claiming to be decent, law abiding and more importantly on time bill paying people. Our latest odyssey into the landlord realm was no exception.
To begin with, we got lucky on the timing of our rental availability, which is May 1. A lot of people are graduating from college or high school and looking for a "starter" rental unit in May. We also got lucky in that the real estate rental market is really booming right now. With these facts on our side, we placed our ad to run on a Friday Saturday and Sunday and waited to see what happened.
We were pleasantly surprised when we got our first call for an appointment at 11 am that Friday. By the time Bob and I had to head out to work at the restaurant that night, we had 3 more appointments. In all over 30 people called about the condo. Now we had to start showing it This is where it got interesting.
The reason why we moved out of the house we were selling is because Bob and I are to messy and clutter oriented to be living in a house that is being shown to prospective buyers. Additionally, 9 or 10 animals laying around don't help either. Showing a condo to potential renters almost falls under the same category.
The first potential renters to come through were a prime example: The house had been scrubbed. Everthing thing that could be packed into a box was packed under the guise of we're moving. Litter boxes were cleaned and hidden in closets, the cats swore they wouldn't use the litter box while people were there. The first potential renters show up. It's a couple with a 4 year old son. Ok, a family, they should be fairly responsible. They look at the house, so far they like it, then it happens: Boomer emerges, (remember, Boomer is a 9 pound dog) The lady shrieks in terror. Turns out she is afraid of dogs. By now the cats want to know what is going on, they start coming out of the wood work. The lady is also afraid of cats. The rest is history. We think she stopped hyperventilating the next day.
We finally settled on a couple who were getting married in May. He is a computer designer, she is a grad student (both have good credit). Neither one of them is keen on animals, but hey we're taking them with us anyway. Plus they gave us a check for both the security deposit and the first month's rent and it didn't bounce.
In the meantime, things have been moving with the house we are selling: an inspection was done on the house. It turned up a few things: our doorbell doesn't work and we have a leaky window. We can deal with these. We've also been able to start packing up the rest of the house and start moving the furniture to the entry level of the house for easy loading on the moving truck. (At least we hope it will be easy) It's at times like these (when you are struggling to carry a mattress down two flights of stairs) that you start to wonder why you need so much furniture, and maybe it would be easier just to keep all of your clothes in convenient piles on the floor.
We've also been given a definite settlement date at the end of April. The buyer's financing isn't definite, but its looking good. Now our only problem is how we are going to move the fish in the fish pond out back.
There's also been a few "events" to report regarding the house we are buying (the Hari Krishna house): Remember when we said that everytime we've dealt with O'Connor, Piper and Flynn realtors its been a disaster? Well, we're heading that way: the seller decided to change the contract. He didn't talk to our realtor, he didn't talk to us, he just penciled in that what he wanted to change and gave it to his realtor, 4 weeks after he signed the original contract. Maybe the Hari Krishna swami told him to do it. In the mean time, we've managed to set up a tentative settlement date for this house at the of April.
In the meantime, on the animal rescue front, (that's why we're getting a bigger house and more land anyway) we are still working at the Save a Life shelter, although we are not taking in anymore cats for foster care. We are also still trying to trap one cat in the feral colony with absolutely no luck. However, we will keep trying.
Our immediate goal in life is to get through the next 4 weeks, during which we will have to finish packing both houses, move the fish, go to settlement on both houses, and do a "change of address" with most of the world. In hopes of keeping track of what needs to be done when we've set our "move" up as a project in Microsoft's Ms Project software. Bob and I are both supposed to be computer geeks, we figure it's the least we can do.
