Why I'd like to own my own home
Got a call from our current rental agency today. She wants to show our house at 2:00 to prospective renters, and has mentioned that she has a key and we don't have to be home for her to do it.
Today is not acceptable, I explain. A.M. is working third shift most of this week, and I do not want anyone walking through the house while he is sleeping OR while he is getting ready for work. Additionally, we are still packing for the move, and I don't feel comfortable having strangers walk through our house in the state it's in right now (total disarray). I tell them that, given A.M.'s work schedule this week, the prospective tenants can stop by after 7pm on Friday or Saturday of this week.
Oh, well, this is a problem!!! Apparently two and a half hours should be PLENTY of notice for us to have strangers walking through our house. She explains to me that part of the "understanding" (translation of understanding - something not codified in the lease) is that the current tenants (us) should be willing to "work with" the landlords to ensure that the property is transferred as quickly as possible to another hand. She says that this "could cause a loss," but doesn't specify whether this is a threat to dock our security deposit, or whether she's whining that they might not get a full month's rent for March. Boo-hoo.
Our house is a mess. Seriously. Stuff all over the place, an entire room full of boxes, rooms that have to be thoroughly cleaned because we've been lazy about it and haven't taken sponge to floor in months. In addition to that, A.M. is working third shift, 12 hours a night, for another four nights this week. My level of "understanding" that they need to show this place ENDS at the point that it's going to make my life more difficult.
In other news...
I sent a detailed fax to the prospective landlords yesterday with a list of things that still haven't been done to the "finished" house we're moving into, including such minor things as.. removing construction equipment and materials, fixing two massive holes in the bathroom wall, wiping up all the sawdust, putting handles on the kitchen cabinets, and removing the filth and splinters that have been embedded in the master bedroom carpet due to the work that has been done in there. They still haven't called me back, and they've had that fax for another two hours. I seriously fear that we're going to have to move into a house that we're going to have to clean ourselves. By God, if that happens, I'm demanding the security deposit back.
Update:
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. The world is insane.
I called the future landlord's property manager to find out if they had received the fax I sent yesterday, and if anything was being done about it. He answered the phone, muttered that he was sending someone over "to clean the floors and such" tomorrow morning, and said that he hadn't called me back "because (he) was all alone in the office yesterday."
Uh huh.
Best part of this conversation was him asking the following question: "Have you been able to transfer the utilities yet?"
Ex-fucking-cuse me? You're not even done fixing the house for your future renters, but you want them to pay for the utilities that will be used to finish what you'd promised would be done over two weeks ago? I told him that we'd have the utilities switched when the house was finished. His reply: "I'm sendin' sumwun ovah tamarrah mornin." Well, tomorrow night I'll see what state the house is in, and Thursday morning I'll make utility phone calls to have stuff changed. Not before.
I'll add to all of this that A.M. and I noticed that the theromstat is reading at LEAST ten degrees lower than the actual temperature of the house, and whoever was last in that house had the temp set pretty high for a building that no one's living in (70 degrees or higher). I refuse to pay those kinds of electric/gas bills when I'm not even living there yet.
I have a feeling the property manager is slack on his duties, since the big boss (that we originally met with and seemed to have his act together) is on vacation for a month, and won't be back until March 8th. Tomorrow night, I'm taking my digital camera, taking pictures of the inside of the house, and if anything is still amiss, I will document it and present it to the owner of this little realty company and demand a partial deposit return.
Rar.