Our Money Pit

9 years ago, my husband and I bought a small house as an investment opportunity. At that time real estate was supposedly a sound investment, but that was before the housing market completely tanked. In our naivete, we decided to dabble in the world of being landlords. The first year was great. We had fabulous renters, we managed the property ourselves since we lived nearby, and I think the biggest problem that we had reported that year was mice. The next year, was slightly more challenging, we moved out of state, and had to undertake the role of managing the property remotely. Our next renters were always late with rent, unfriendly, and had an attempted break-in that damaged one of the doors to the house that was a continual source of complaints. My husband still wanted to try a hands-on approach and make repairs to the door, install security lights, better locks, but the running back and forth got to be too much, and our renters were difficult about every interaction. We decided to sell the house. We sold it on contract to a friend of a friend. This meant the buyer secured the renters, managed the repairs, and after a period of nine years he would own the home outright. It was kind of like a rent to own deal. It worked, and for two blessed years, the house was not our problem. Then the housing market tanked. He couldn't find renters, and he was moving out of state for a new job. The house reverted back to us. No sale.

This began our foray into the world of property managers, we had to hire someone local to deal with the house. It was too stressful to attempt to handle every repair or complaint at a distance. The first property manager that we used, rented the house to someone that was apparently on trial for a felony. Information you would have thought a background check would have yielded, and might have been handy to have as a testament to character. Within the first two months, our extremely large picture window was shot out in a "drive by". It struck us as extremely odd, given the picture window was on the side of the house no facing the road, but nonetheless we ponied up for the repair. Upon later inspection, when we actually traveled back to our property we discovered that the double pane window was cracked on the inside, not the outside. BB gun discharged inside perhaps? Of course we would never know. Then the renters stopped paying all of their rent. Occasionally we would get a $100 check here or there, but after several months, the renters stopped paying rent all together. Eventually our property manager evicted them, after losing over 2k in rent. That property manager filed charges against the renters, and once about every two years, we get a $10 check from the garnished wages. It is good for a laugh when one arrives. I think they still owe roughly $1900 in back rent, and I am pretty sure that won't ever arrive.

Given that lackluster management situation, it was time to move on to the next property manager. Upon repossession of the house we discovered it was trashed and that we had become the equivalent in my mind to slumlords. It was no longer the cute little house we bought. The new property manager suggested thousands of dollars in improvements so that we could repair the damage but also upgrade the level of tenants that were attracted. We bit. He sold us on a dream and we hired him. The original estimate of 4k in repairs, gradually moved upwards of 7k, an amount that would have required several years of solid renting by honorable renters to pay it off. But we were suckered into believing it was within our reach. We had a woman move in, with guaranteed income. She allowed her brother and nephew to lodge with her, breaking the terms of the lease, but our property manager let it slide, because she paid her rent and was clean. Fast forward to the woman losing her state aid income and her daughter being diagnosed with cancer, and the rent stopped. Four months later, she agreed to move out. Her brother and nephew on the other hand, became some sort of squatters. It took another two months to get them out. Our property manager, didn't want to anger them, because he was afraid that they would trash the house purposefully, which they did anyway. After more bills came in for treatment of termites and other various items, and 4 months of vacancy, we fired the second property manager.

Enter Linda. She has been the most professional and organized property manager to date. She took it over, cleaned it up, made necessary repairs, had it treated again for some sort of bug akin to termites, and professionally removed lead paint that was found on the exterior portion of the garage. Another couple thousand down the drain, but she had it rented within 3 months. Were things looking up? Maybe? Nah. The pipes froze during the winter before the renters moved in. Good times. But after those pricey repairs, we started getting regular rent checks. Every month. The full amount. It was craziness. I did a little dance of joy every time a check arrived in the mail. Sure, we still operated at a loss on our taxes, but maybe we could be done shelling out the do-re-mi. We experienced a total of 14 months of bliss, before we received more bad news. Our renter, had a US Marshall show up on her doorstep to inform her that a sex offender had moved onto the street. Said Marshall did not give any further information or the address, basically just enough to scare the crap out of this mom of three. I headed to the internet for answers. It seemed a wee bit fishy to have a US Marshall show up for a run of the mill sex offender, so I wanted to see if I could dig up any information. Yeah, he wasn't just a sex offender, but a convicted murderer as well, having spent roughly 30 years in prison. You can fill in whatever expletive you want here, because I am sure I said it. Stark reality set in, no one was going to want to rent our house and our property manager was obligated to inform any renter of the circumstance at hand. Our renters indicated that they would be moving on as soon as they could find a suitable place, and we decided to put our house up for sale. Selling it was a longshot at best, but we didn't know what else to do. This week I encouraged my husband to touch base with our property manager to find out what was going on. According to our property manager's secretary the renters were going to be moving, and no one wanted to buy the house. I wanted more details, like, had anyone even looked at the house? Once upon a time it had been a cute house, maybe someone would see that potential and overlook the baggage. I asked my husband to call back for more specific details. He called back yesterday, but didn't get to talk to the property manager in person. Therefore, it was no huge surprise that they called us late yesterday. Unfortunately, they were not returning our call, but calling to tell us that part of our house had caught on fire.

Today we drove over to our little money pit. The kitchen is gone. The roof over the kitchen is gone. Part of the ceiling in the bathroom was coming down. Vents throughout the attic that vented to the outside were melted. Theories that the insulation caught on fire in the attic were abounding. Where the flooring still existed it was clear that all of that was ruined, ceilings and walls were charred gray with smoke. I was a little shocked at what we found. We read in a newspaper article that the fire chief was estimating 10k in damage, so I figured the interior damage was mild. Perhaps I have a completely skewed perspective of what things cost, but it seems like we are talking about a heck of a lot more damage than 10k. From what our renters indicated, the fire department ruled that the stove was left on, but it was clear that they did not agree with that finding, which would have made them at fault. Not that fault really mattered at this point, what was done was done, and they didn't have any kind of insurance anyway. They lost everything. Even their dog was in the hospital, having been found unconscious at the scene. I wasn't interested in laying blame at their feet. How could I? I have a roof over my head, food to put on my table, and clothes to wear on my back. Don't get me wrong, this is a HUGE hassle and my head hurts just thinking about how many decisions and trips we are going to have to make in the near future, but it is just that, a hassle. I can't help mulling over the words of Sweet Brown tonight though. "Oh Lord Jesus its a FAR! Ain't nobody got time fo' dat!" Google Sweet Brown if you don't know the reference. She gives a riveting interview about a fire.


An adjuster arrives tomorrow to assess the true amount of damage. So now we wait.

Not Ideal

My husband and I often go to bed at separate times. He is more of a night owl than I am usually, so I am often asleep well before him.  Tonight, after a rather overwhelming day (which I will blog about tomorrow), I invited him to bed to "talk".  He quickly discarded his laptop, aka his first love, and promptly came to bed.  Much to his chagrin and disappointment, he discovered that I really meant that I wanted to talk.

I started off by saying, "I have printed off a few things that I want to discuss, so that my thoughts will be more organized." Staring at the papers I thrust into his hand, he was shaking his head, "You seriously brought printouts to bed?"  In my defense, it was only one official printout, the rest were notes that I made that were inspired by the printout. Based on his unenthusiastic reaction to the paperwork, I should have just stopped the conversation right there, but I plodded along, trying to explain how overwhelmed I have been feeling lately. The printout he held was by a blogger that wrote about needing "margin" in his life, and he sketched out his IDEAL week.  I was inspired.  I needed to consider what my ideal week looked like. Mistake number one, was handing my husband the papers to peruse before I started talking.  He heard nothing I said, and was studying this guy's ideal week.  Mistake number two, was giving him a copy of the blogger's ideal week, because he thought it was MY ideal week. My husband was really impressed by by my ambition, and somewhat disappointed when he learned it belonged to the blogger,  thus making my proposed ideal week appear a lot more dull by comparison.

But the real problem that I encountered had nothing to do with my husband.  It was my attempt at creating the ideal week for myself.  My obligations are so convoluted and time-consuming, that I can't really decide what my ideal week would look like. For example, is part of my ideal week, taxiing my children  twenty different places?  Which places do I like going with them?  Which places are just fluff? I used to really enjoy taking them to their activities until we had so many places to go that I never had a night at home. Now, it seems all my time has been claimed with various activities, and I don't know how to re-claim it. Additionally, I don't have any idea how to fit in the vague term, "me-time" that I wrote down. And what exactly would I do with "me-time" if I actually had it?  I have NO idea.  This is a fairly disturbing place to find myself.  And this is what I wanted to discuss with my husband.  Page 3 was my list of "stressors" that I created.  It was a rather lengthy list. His eyes however, seemed to be glazing at this point, and I took my cue that he had no ability to reason through my stressors and ideals, when he answered with "Mhmmm" or "Yeah". No real input just tacit acknowledgement that I was speaking and he sees my mouth moving.

I am not giving up. Not yet. I just don't know how to really start.

Matters of the Heart

Dealing with death will either bring out the religiosity in people or the denial that there is any need for religion at all. For once, I got to sit on the sidelines for this weekend's funeral that we "attended". Actually, my husband attended, and I kept our kids clear of having to participate in another funeral, but we all travelled out of state to support our family members that were affected. We were, however, present for the after party, and the family gatherings, where everyone was decompressing from the stressful week.  I knew how they were feeling, having walked this road a lot in the last year or so; mentally, emotionally, and  physically exhausted. We tried to keep things light and go with the flow, but I have to admit I felt a deep sorrow on several occasions that related very little with the passing of the actual person that died.  I am the first to admit that one way to deal with such an undue amount of stress it to attempt to use humor. Jokes, no matter how ill-timed or inappropriate, are a lifeline, a release, a few seconds escape from the business at hand. I am okay with that.  I can roll with that. However, I have a hard time joking about true matters of faith. Ever. The woman that passed was a bit of a Pharisee, for lack of a better modern day comparison.  She struggled with people failing, and breaking religious rules.  I believe her intent was pure but her execution of sharing her faith with her family was somewhat detrimental to actually convincing them of the need for God or anything to do with Him.  With that in mind, she had conveyed to friends her concerns about certain family members needing salvation, and being fellow Pharisees, these friends chose the funeral as a time to express that they were praying for these "lost souls". Additionally, pointing out what situations were certainly leading them down paths of destruction. The people that were addressed by these women reacted one of two ways.  They were either incensed, as if they needed anyone praying for them for any reason at all, or they were mocking these women for wasting their time.  I casually inserted that it is never a bad thing to have someone praying for you, whether you think you need it or not, but I felt heavyhearted. These women had done nothing to encourage faith, not really, in fact they may have successfully pushed the objects of their prayers even further away with their "concern".  This scenario has forced these matters of the heart into my consciousness...living in denial, pretending everyone I know is a Christian is easier, but it has been confirmed that everyone I know is NOT a Christian, and frankly, that sucks.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day.  First, to the father that gave me life.  I am blessed to have an earthly father in my life that is a tangible example of my Heavenly Father.  I like to think some of my best traits came from my dad; some learned, some inherited. But even as I approach middle age, I know there are still some things that I can learn from him. He is my hero. Not the super-hero kind, just the daily kind; someone I will always admire.

Second, to my husband, the father of my children. More often he acts like the children, but every now and then he morphs back into the father figure...when I really need him too.  It is probably good that he is such a goofball, because he balances out all of the serious that comes in the package that is me. Sometimes that child-like propensity is frustrating, but my basic understanding is most men generally tend towards this end of the spectrum. My husband tackles life with humor, and a great ability to reason.  He is logical and a good listener.  If I have a disagreement with anyone, I would much rather it be with my husband, or someone like him, rather than with someone like me, and that is admitting a lot. He is a good man, and he love this family deeply. I can't think of a better dad for my kids.

Love you both!

What To Do?

My children encountered a fairly distressing dilemma this afternoon, at least from their perspective. They each had a bowl of ice cream following an afternoon at the pool, and they topped it off with a bit of chocolate syrup and a bit of carmel syrup, because ice cream can almost always be improved upon with toppings. 5 minutes later my eldest announced, "Mom! We still have carmel syrup left, but we finished all of the chocolate! What are we going to do?" Her tone was urgent and perplexed, yet I detected just a hint of hope in the mix. It amazed me that this was even considered a problem, not to mention a big enough problem to bring it to me. The appropriate mom answer that I gave was, "Put it back in the refrigerator, and if I ever buy ice cream again we can use it then." I really shouldn't buy any more ice cream. Ever. If it is in the house I canNOT resist temptation, but I digress. Her response was a fairly deflated, "OH." Then I heard her whisper to her sibling in crime, "Mom said we have to put it back." Clearly that wasn't the answer she was hoping for, which made me ponder what response would have been received more enthusiastically. Should I have said, "Oh no!  Throw it away! It has no purpose without ice cream in the house!" Or, "Well, we can't let that go to waste.  Everyone grab a spoon and we will squeeze out carmel syrup and eat it until it is gone!" (More likely what she was hoping to hear). Or, "Carmel milk for everyone!" (Probably wouldn't have balked at that one either.)  Truthfully, I adore carmel, but the thought of carmel milk sounds slightly revolting. I am not sure why, and it could be positively delightful, but I wasn't going to okay that concoction after a bowl of ice cream anyway.  I gathered however, by their pervasive disappointment that the last two options were the what they were angling for and instead I thwarted them. If only all dilemmas were this easy to solve!

Overwhelmed

My worlds are colliding.  Everything that could possibly hit at the same time, is and will be, for the next week and a half. You might wonder how I process extreme levels of stress.  It has taken years of practice, but before I even realize it I am able to tense every single muscle in my body right down to my toes.  Jealous, aren't you?  Cramps and pain manifest themselves in my back, neck, legs, feet, arms, and hands, and the crowning glory is I get grumpy and impatient. And, sleep.  Ah, blessed sleep.  One sure fire way to escape the stress of my daily life, except that I can't sleep, and when I do sleep, I am awakened by panic attacks. This is just another reminder that I can't and shouldn't be doing it all on my own. I bring it on myself, so I truly have no one else to blame, but me.

Before my maternal grandmother died last year, she warned me about trying to do too much and that I needed to slow down. Then she up and died on me, and left a whole lot for me to do! True, I didn't HAVE to do any of it, I CHOSE to do the things that were left unattended. The bottom line is I don't do a very good job of protecting my time, of being intentional in the choices I make or the activities where I spend my time.  At the same time, I don't love being completely free all of the time, because then I feel like I have no purpose.  It comes down to balance, and I am a tightrope walker that falls the moment I start, because I have zero ability to balance.  I don't do it to be a martyr, and to say "woe is me, look how busy I am", and I know others are just as busy or busier.  Maybe they just handle it better?  Or maybe they know where to draw the line?

At any rate, if you see me upright and behaving mostly normal in the next few days, consider that a huge win for me.

He IS a Stud

Yesterday we had our first ever garage sale. It was kind of on the fly, as we did zero advertising until the day before, which included two emails to a large homeschool group we are part of, a Craigslist advertisement, and then posting street signs the day of the sale. Actually, I was surprised by the steady stream of customers we had all day. Everyone that came was calmly greeted by the official welcoming committee, our labradoodle.  He would politely wag his tail, and then accept head pats and butt rubs.  Thankfully, most everyone that showed up were "dog people".  In fact, several commented on how great he was behaving, and as a proud doggy parent, I had to agree that he was. The only time he got a little rambunctious was when a cat invaded his territory, presumably to shop and take in the great bargains. It was a rather bold cat, as he wandered all the way into our garage to check things out. Our dog, once spotting the intruder chased the cat to the very end of our driveway, and then stopped, watching it cross the street.  He knows his boundaries and does not take advantage of them.  Have I mentioned he's a smart dog?  A couple of people asked if he was "for sale", HA! 

When one man approached, taking particular interest in my furry baby, I prepared myself for another version of the "Is He For Sale" joke.  Instead, he commented on his disposition, his looks, and then asked if he was fixed.  Embarrassed, we admitted that he was not.  Back when we purchased our little guy, it was shortly after we had lost our labrador retriever due to issues that were discovered during a surgery.  He was put to sleep at that time, and I really hadn't recovered from that incident.  Because of that, I kept putting off the neutering surgery, besides, he was such a cute little puppy I imagined what the world would be like if we populated it with more furry bundles just like him.  The problem was, we never found the "right girl" for him.  And we knew, that as responsible pet owners we should probably have him fixed by now. The guy was elated to hear that our dog had all his necessary "accessories", which I thought was weird, but then he offered a breeding proposition with his 2 year old female labradoodle.  At first I was taken aback, I mean, yes, we were selling all sorts of things at our garage sale and doing a whole lot of bargaining, but it seemed a little odd to sell THAT. However, as the idea took root throughout the day, I became more and more excited.  Basically, the part that I like best, is that as our dog gets a few years older, if things go well with this, then we can have one of his offspring someday. 

So, I had my husband call the guy back tonight to express our mutual interest.  Yesterday, the man took our dog's picture with his phone. I guess he was eagerly awaiting a call from us, because  he immediately recognized our name, and went on to enthusiastically say that he had shown our dog's picture to his dog, and she was "very excited". That made us laugh. My eldest wanted to know how it works for dogs, she asked, "Do you put on music for them? Do they have a date first?" It does seem like there should be some wining or whining and dining first, doesn't it? Maybe we can find a little doggy bow tie for him to wear. Anyway, that was one thing I never expected to "sell" at our garage sale yesterday.