We’re moving AGAIN {insert panic here}

Remember when I’d just had a baby and a month later I had to move three states away to a city where I knew not a single person?  And I lost bits of my sanity I’ve been searching for since?

That was less than a year ago.

And because we like to keep things interesting, we’re just going to go ahead and move again.

I’ve mentioned several times about the issues with this rental house, but I’ll recap them for you:

• Before moving in they were supposed to hang blinds and paint walls.  None of it was done.  We had to buy blinds ourselves and hang them.
• The house was disgustingly filthy when we moved in. It was clear they didn’t even make an attempt to clean before allowing new renters to move in.
• They’ve tried to squeeze more money out of us by claiming we didn’t put the gas and electric in our name soon enough and we need reimburse the owner.
• The oven randomly fluctuates in temperature. Usually up to 550 while I’m baking a delicious batch of cookies. They’ve known about this since my first week here. No one has even come to look at it, let alone fix it.
• The heat broke a couple of weeks after we moved in. In winter. In Minnesota. It took them nearly a month to fix it. That’s right, I lived in a house with a tiny baby for nearly a month with heat that barely worked. Awesome, right?
• The house failed the fire inspection in a couple of major areas that they were told to fix that day, basically. Two weeks later, nothing was fixed. They finally fixed the issues after the fire inspector threatened them.
• The property manager sent an e-mail late one evening that I didn’t see until the next morning, telling me he’d be out to look at something in the morning. He didn’t even give us 12 hours notice. When I didn’t answer the door, he just went ahead and let himself in. I guess it’s good I was wearing pants.
• The tiles surrounding the tub were clearly installed poorly and are literally falling off the wall. They’ve known about this issue for months and nothing has been done about it.  We’ve made futile attempts to fix it ourselves, but someone needs to rip it all out and install it properly.
• The fridge leaks in several places.  We suspect it’s tied somehow to the ice maker, but we don’t know for sure because no one has ever come to look at it.
• A minor leak coming from under the kitchen floor turned into a flood every time I tried to do dishes. It got so bad that it took several towels to soak up all the water everyday. They knew about this issue from the time I noticed the minor leak, and even after I told them that it was rotting the sub-floor of the kitchen, they did nothing. Finally, after a couple of months, someone fixed it.
• The air conditioning stopped working and they didn’t send someone out to look at it until summer was nearly over. The technician told us he highly recommends, due to the age and condition of the furnace that we invest in a good carbon monoxide alarm. That’s not scary or anything, right? When the property manager was informed of this, he said “thank you” and never said another word about it.
• The lawnmower stopped working (the one they provided for the house) and they basically told us we needed to figure out how to fix it. We ended up having to rent a mower so we didn’t look like we were coming home to a jungle everyday.

Despite the multitude of problems with this house, I was fully prepared to stick it out until we could find a place to buy. I didn’t want to really move again if I didn’t have to. It’s a hassle. It costs money. It costs sanity.

But then we got this on our door:

When we moved in we were told we had to pay gas, electric, and trash. We’ve never received a water bill or any other notice of late payment here. it would stand to reason someone has been paying that bill all these months.  But when I brought the issue to the attention of the property manager he told me the water bill is our responsibility and we should pay it.

Hold on.  Hold on.  That’s all he had to say about it?  I shouldn’t have been surprised, I suppose. But still, I guess I just expected more. Finally after more urging on my part I got him to at least agree to contact the owner to see what was going on.  That was 10 days ago and he has not bothered to respond to any of my attempts to get in touch with him.  I had to pay the water bill myself to make sure it didn’t get turned off.

And that was just the last straw. If this guy was willing to let us live without water (which, by the way, it’s illegal to rent a home without running water so I did his sorry behind a huge favor by paying the bill) then I was willing to fork over whatever was necessary to get out of here.

So life is going to get a little bit…interesting.  We found a lovely house 30 minutes south of here and found out today we were approved to rent, so we’re signing a lease tomorrow. I’ve tried to communicate our intention to move to the property manger, but again, crickets.  I’m not sure how to proceed with him. I mean, I know how I’d like to proceed with him. But I don’t think I’d get away with smearing him with honey and tying him to an ant hill.

For now I’m just going to focus on the move and hope he doesn’t cause us anymore problems than he already has.

Here’s a sneak peek at the new house

Not my dream kitchen by any means, but it somehow has this awesome six-burner gas stove. I’ll take it!

And the bathroom. Nothing is falling off the walls.The light switch is in a normal place. And the door actually shuts without having to ram it with your shoulder. That sink is stupid though. I won’t pretend I like that sink.

And my future office/lady cave. I think I have room in there for all my junk. I’m excited. Plus it has doors. The child will be so sad he can’t unplug all my electronics.

Man, if you stuck with me through that long rambling post, I owe you a cupcake. But you’ll have to wait a bit. Right now I have to walk around the house having a panic attack while I look at all the stuff I have to pack.

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