Detour

We stopped in at the new duplex last week to bring boxes over, only to find a HUGE puddle in the basement and lots of water damage on the basement ceiling. Lia and I made a list of a bunch of other stuff that needed to be fixed before we move in. The fridge was leaking, ceiling tiles in the basement were caved in, the tube that connects to the washer/dryer is apparently not up to code because it's one of those flexi-duct things instead of a solid pipe. The previous tenants left a whole bunch of crap there (including a full litterbox) and a bunch of other crap in the basement. A lot of the walls need to be completely repainted, which we didn't notice the first time through because the previous tenants still had all their decorations up. And there was still no evidence that they were planning on putting in a dishwasher, which was a dealbreaker for us.

So, after puttering around in there for a while and taking measurements, we walked out the front door and were looking around the yard. The neighbor who would be living next-door to us came out and we introduced ourselves. The FIRST THING she said to us, was asking if there was water in the basement. We told her that there was quite a bit, and she said that this had been an on-going problem for at least three months. She's called the landlords over, and over, and over, and they refuse to do anything about it. The landlord had hired a couple of "fly-by-nights" (her words) to come and fix the gutters a couple of months ago and they made the problem worse. The landlords won't get it fixed unless they can get the same guys to come back and fix it, which they won't. She described the water pouring into her basement as "a waterfall" and said this has been going on this entire time.

Back-up, now. When we first toured the place, they had responded to our phone calls almost immediately. The tour was set up quickly, their offer to give us the place was quick, and our response was also quick. They said our next step was to sign the lease and give them our security deposit. After not hearing anything for like a week, and leaving repeated phone calls to try and set up a meeting to do this, they called Lia back to have her bring our security deposit to Wendi (the wife's) workplace. My memory's a little fuzzy here, but if I recall, she had apologized because some family member is in the hospital so she's been really busy, and she forgot the forms. Lia gave her our security deposit because they said they need someone in there immediately or else they would have to find someone else.

We continued to call to get the lease signed because it had been freaking us out a little to not have it in writing that we're renting it. We didn't think that they were going to suddenly rent it to someone else, but it was still making us a little nervous because this whole process has been HIGHLY abnormal. One day, Wendi called to inform us that she was leaving the keys and the forms at the property, and that we'd have to stop in and pick them up from the current tenant before he moves. We each tried stopping in over and over and the current tenants were never home so we couldn't pick anything up. Lia finally managed to get in and get the keys, but the forms weren't a lease or anything, just a rental application.

After literally WEEKS of not receiving feedback from the new landlords, along with the testimonial of the woman next door, the whole thing was just very weird to us and we were quite concerned last friday. We left her a message with all the stuff that needs to be fixed or installed before we sign the lease. We gave them all a couple days to respond, and we hadn't heard anything.

No lease was signed, no applications were filled out, and popular consensus was that we should BAIL as soon as possible. The only real collateral is that we had keys to the place and she had our security deposit checks already cashed. We decided that's what we were going to do. We tried getting in touch with Wendi three times that night, and even left her a message saying that we were pulling the plug and wanted our security deposit back. It's just a very worrisome pattern of behavior and we don't think we should have to deal with that if we can still get out.

The next morning, Lia tried calling her again. Wendi claimed she never got any of our messages that were telling her to call us and that we were backing out. Lia reiterated that we want out. Then Wendi started screaming at Lia, yelling things like "I'm the best landlord ever! How dare you not trust me! I'm a Christian so you know you can trust me, because that's my identity, but I'm going to keep your security deposit anyway!" and all this crazy bullshit. It was on speaker, so I could hear too. It was pretty intense. So she got her husband on the phone, who was much more calm, and we talked them into giving us half the security deposit back (which we have in our possession right now.) If they can get a renter in the next two weeks, they'll give us the other half. We exchanged the first half of the rent for the keys. We're prepared to just eat the cost of the second half if we need to.

We looked at a couple of other places. Most of them were "meh." One of them really stood out to us, and we really liked it, and we are honestly having trouble finding any flaws with it. The only issue we had was that it was listed at our limit that we set for what we could afford, but she is willing to drop the rent by like $50 a month for us! That actually puts it at the BOTTOM of our price range! Newly repainted, nice floors, brand new energy efficient windows, awesome deck and yard, new appliances, has it's own washer and dryer and dishwasher, huge bathroom (with a blue toilet!), one balcony and an extensive upper porch, lots of square footage, lots of closet space, they allow dogs and have two quiet ones downstairs, lots of windows and natural light, etc. We put in our applications yesterday. It's vacant right now, so she said we would be able to move in as soon as we'd like to. The landlords live downstairs and it's a couple in probably their late 20's. It's actually a three-floor house. We would be on the second floor. They said they turned the 3rd floor into their own personal movie theater, so maybe if we become friends we would get to use it too.

Provided we take the place of course, but we both really like it a LOT. We're trying to not be over-zealous though, because apparently that gets us into trouble. We're going to take a second walk-through either way to make sure. I'm sure I'll have an update on this soon.