I put an ad on craigslist and (no joke) within 24 hours I had about 8 people lined up to come look at the house. Providence! Hallelujah! Hooray!
The people we ended up renting to were the first call, and the first showing. I loved them. It was an older couple as well as a younger couple with 2 kids and they all wanted to share the house and live in happiness forever while paying our mortgage. It was an aunt and a niece and their husbands. I was ok with the fact that there were 4 people because, in all honesty, I thought it would be good rent payment security. Surely 4 competent adults could come up with rent each month, right? Providence! Hallelujah! Hooray.
Everything went swimmingly on move-in/lease signing day. Again, we just felt great about them. I was the only one to go in to Billings that day because Mike was working. After all the papers had been signed the older couple asked me to come downstairs with them. The oldies were going to live downstairs and the younguns were to occupy the upstairs. So, the oldies take me down and start telling me all the plans they have for the basement. They wanted to put a closet in our basement bonus room.
Uhhhhh.... ok?
Then they pull me in to the weird storage area in our basement (really- it was the cuckoo part of the house) and they explained how they want to build a kitchen down there. The oldies wanted a separate kitchen from the younguns.
I was kind of taken back. I told them that I would have to talk with the hubbs, but that we might be able to work something out. The older gentlemen was a contractor, so that gave us a little faith.
That day in the basement I said to them, "Well, we are willing to talk about this with you, but we cannot give you any money to do this. If you want to do this, you'll have to pay for it. And I know my husband and I will want to see your plans first and make the decisions with you."
"OH, of COURSE!" they said. "ABSOLUTELY" they said. "Don't even WORRY!" they said.
Mike spoke with them and we decided that we wanted them to feel comfortable in the house and make it their own, so we gave them the go-ahead with the understanding that we would be consulted about all decisions, and we insisted that all work be signed off as up to code by a licensed electrician.
"OH, of COURSE!" they said. "ABSOLUTELY" they said. "Don't even WORRY!" they said.
A few weeks down the road, the Younguns called to say they had painted the living room.
They had not so much as mentioned to us that they had chosen a color, let alone had us approve it.
We had not insisted on written consent. Our mistake, for sure.
"What color did you paint it?" I asked, thinking they had probably just re-painted the pretty slate blue which was already there.
"A really lovely Amber color. It's a wonderful neutral tone." she said.
I was surprised, but I thought that I'd be ok with it if it was neutral.
On my next trip to Billings I stopped by to see it.
Oh, boy.
It was a sickly combination of brown and mustard yellow. Not exactly amber.
It looked like someone had let a newborn poop all over my walls.
Not only that, but they had painted my hallway the same color.
Without so much as a phone call to tell me, let alone ask.
As I went to look at the hallway, I peeked in to the bedroom. Strewn across the (recently painted) bedroom wall were two large squares of forest green test paint.
Going through my head was the phrase 'Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile.'
At the time I was talking myself down and thinking "Well, they have told us that they want to be here for quite a while, so this is fine. This is what they want, and we want them to be comfortable."
At that visit, I was also able to talk to the oldies about the basement. They said things were going great, a few walls had been knocked out and they found a really good deal on cabinets.
Then they mentioned to us that we could take a portion off rent every month until the cabinets were paid for.
BY US.
Bewildered about what to do, we decided to try our best to take the high road. We emailed and told them that when they moved out, we would go through the house and (with the exception of the living room- which we had given permission to paint) let them know at that time what we wanted re-painted. The oldies were also informed that we would not take money off rent, but we appreciated all they were doing.
The oldies called and let us know that when they moved out in a few years we could pay for the cabinets or they would just take them, but we would revisit the issue at that time.
Fine. Whatever. You're getting annoying.
In early December we got a call. -
The Call- if you will. It was the young husband. He called my phone, but asked for my husband. Mike was gone at the time, so I said that he could just tell me whatever he needed to. He told me that they were going to be a little late with rent that month. They hadn't missed or been late with payments previous to that, and everybody has bad months, so I said that was fine.
He then proceeded to tell me that they found a house to buy (we found out later that in reality they were doing a "rent to own" situation) and he was giving their 30 days notice.
Except that they were only 5 months in to a YEAR LONG lease agreement.
I told him I needed to talk to Mike.
Young husband yelled in to the phone, "That's why I wanted to talk to him in the first place!"
As if I couldn't make decisions without Mike, but he could make them without me.....?
Frankly, from there everything went to crap. He called me 3 days before I was supposed to leave on a GIGANTUOUS trip to California for the holidays. Not only that, but I was offended by the chauvinistic jerk. I am not a bra-burner or anything, but when you can't even bring yourself to deal with a woman on a business level, I take issue with it. He kept calling Mike's phone and wanting to talk to Mike. I deal with 90% of the Billings house stuff because my hubbs works his butt off at a full time job. GET OVER IT, dude! I feel sorry for your wife, and you are a pig.
We decided to let them out of their lease. Once again, we were trying to be nice. We let them know that until we found new renters they were responsible for payment of rent.
A few nights later, we got a call from the old husband. OR, rather, MIKE got a call. He put it on speaker. Love my hubbs.
The old husband asked us if we could pay them the 600 dollars they had put in to the basement. Frankly, the fact that he had the audacity to even ASK irked me. We told them we were really sorry, but we weren't able to pay them that. His response was "Well, just make sure you pay it forward."
He was being nice about it (or so we thought).
We went to Cali, and Christmas was fun and we thought all was going to be fine. It was a hassle to try and get new renters over the holiday, but we had agreed to let them out of their lease, so we did what we could.
A few days after Christmas I called them to talk to them about a move out date and the paint and a few things. The young wife answered. She informed me that the entire kitchen had been ripped out of the basement.
I was in complete shock.
So now, instead of us having to put a little money in for flooring, we would have to deal with hoses sticking out of the wall, weird light fixtures and outlets everywhere, AND putting flooring down on twice the space.
Before they moved in it had been portioned off as a storage space. It was clearly delineated. Granted, it was kooky, but it had had a specific purpose. Now, since the walls had been knocked down and there was no kitchen there, it looked like we forgot to put carpet down on half the room or finish it in any way.
We talked to the old husband a few days later (who had done all the "work"). He said that since we "weren't willing to pay him for the work he had done, he had to sell the cabinets to get some money back."
Now people- I GET that he had put his own money in to my house. But we hadn't asked him to do that. That was HIS choice for HIS family to make HIS life better- not mine!
Not to mention the fact that THEY WERE THE ONE'S BREAKING THEIR CONTRACT EARLY! IT'S NOT LIKE WE WERE KICKING THEM OUT FOR NO REASON.
He was also really mad that we wouldn't pay him for the hourly work.
I'm not even kidding.
The audacity of it still blows me away.
I wanted to
scream at him that if a management company had been dealing with them they sure as HELL wouldn't be getting out of their lease, let alone getting their deposit back, let alone getting out of it without EXTRA charges.
On move out day the old husband actually started lecturing us about being grateful for God's blessings. As if he had been a blessing to us?
There have been blessings, but they did not stem from our dealings with those people.
The only blessing that came as a DIRECT result of them was the fact that they moved out and we now have awesome people living there. We ended up losing a lot of money in the situation- which I hate to admit. I'm not going in to the details of the financials, but they were angry that we took their deposit, even though they didn't pay rent in January. We even pro-rated it for them. I guess when you can't figure your life out financially and you break contracts all willy-nilly it makes sense that you would feel entitled.
Grrr. Makes my blood boil, even 4 months later.
It was one of the most awkward/stressful situations I've ever dealt with.
SOOOOOOOO...................
Here's my advice to anyone who wants/ needs to rent out their home:
Hire a management company.
If you can't: Put every last detail in writing and make sure your renters realize up front that you are not nice.
Don't ever be nice or you might just get screwed.
And, while we've been "once beaten, twice shy", we are still nice people. Can't let the poopooheads get you down, eh??
Post Edit: My sister just messaged me with a link to
this blog post.
I will now thank my lucky stars that our experience (while stressful) was nowhere NEAR as bad as these poor people. As far as I know, our renters didn't get new titties with thier rent money.
