Dodging Bullets

Moving was an unbelievable pain. Of course, there are moving stories. Our lives are never complete without a few days worth of wondering "who else does this happen to?"

Saturday morning started with me pulling something in my back, which was fun to nurse all day while carrying heavy boxes. We were also out one car for the move because Lia's car suddenly wouldn't shift out of park, so she had to call AAA to get her to the mechanic, and that repair will cost her about $150. Cable install took about 3 hours and the cable guy had to call for backup and his supervisor said this was the most difficult assignment he's had in his 6 years on the job. Since our duplex is in a historical house that is over 100 years old, it was sided with some weird slate tile stuff that they don't make anymore. One of the cable guys accidentally drilled through an outside wall and it SHATTERED the siding in that area. So the landlords got into an altercation with them. (But the good news is that I don't think we have to pay our install fee.)

Then in the last HOUR we were cleaning out the old place, the kitchen sink started belching up icky black stuff and we can't get it to drain anymore. We plunged it, we used Draino, we tried everything. Still won’t drain. Of course, this would happen on our last hour.

And now comes the pinnacle of our stupid decisions. In fact, this might be one of the stupidest decisions we've EVER made. You ready for this?

Remember that duplex that we pulled out of at the beginning of the month? (Go back and read about it, if you don't.) We’re still waiting to get the other half of our security deposit back. So we called Wendi and she gave us a sob story about how nobody’s calling about the place, and she’s so poor because it’s not rented that they’re going to have to declare bankruptcy and that if it’s not rented by July 15th they’ll have to keep our deposit. She’s offered it to three people and they’ve all turned her down and was talking about how she’s computer illiterate so she's not trying to blow us off because she wouldn't be able to get Lia's number out of her phone if she tried. So then Lia looks at me after the phone call and says “I’ve got a crazy idea. Since she said she’s computer illiterate, why don’t we put it up on Craigslist with her phone number?” So I remarked that this is one of those situations where everybody wins. They’d get a lot more interest considering that they’ve got more advertising than the one sign outside. We’d get our security deposit back. They’re out of debt. Everybody wins. What on earth were we thinking?

So we made an ad. And it was a good ad. Pictures and everything. It was late at night by the time we decided to do this, and it sounds like a really stupid idea now, but it sounded great at 11 pm when our brains were mush from the stress of moving. We were going to call Wendi back in the morning and see if she wanted it edited or taken down or what-have-you. Well, then the next morning came. And we forgot, because we were too busy tripping over boxes and forgetting that it was trash day. Oopsies.

An email from Lia comes in at some point during the work day, saying that Wendi’s called her like 5 times without leaving a message. Lia called her back and Wendi told her that her niece found the ad online and thought it was horrible, and that she had been getting calls from “riff-raff” all day. Lia told her that we were just trying to help, and that she erased it. Wendi told her the police have been contacted.

I finally got in touch with Wendi after playing phone tag for a while. I told her that I was a little confused about what was going on because Lia wasn’t available to call since she was working. So Wendi told me her side of the story, which was basically just that she started getting a terrifying amount of calls, and people started stopping into the house when she was alone there and texting her and all that kind of stuff, and that people were just offering to take it over the phone without even seeing the place. Sounds like a lot of sketchy activity. She called Craigslist and they did some research and found out that Lia had posted the ad, and so Wendi filed a complaint. So then I told her OUR side of the story and how it sounded like a situation where everybody wins and we were just trying to help. I also apologized profusely.

I’ve noticed when talking to Wendi, it’s not a conversation as much as it is that she’s talking at you, so this whole bit is her just “talking at me.” She scolded me (seriously, like in a “mom voice” and everything) and said that the reason she doesn’t have anything posted online is because she’s very picky about who she rents to and the kind of people who just see it online are lazy because they aren’t putting forth the effort to drive around, and she doesn’t think that they will take care of the place like they did. She complained about how she’s really trying and she’s in a really rough spot because before this all happened they had just put their house up for sale, so they’re broke because they wouldn't have done that if they knew we weren't going to be renting and she doesn’t feel like we are appreciating all of her hard work trying to get this rented. She said again that she has a legal right to the security deposit money because they never gave us receipts so it’s our word against hers, though since we wrote “security deposit” on our checks, it could be implied in the court room as our intent to rent, and then it wouldn’t matter whether or not we signed the lease because that still counts as some kind of a verbal contract. She said most landlords wouldn’t even have given half of it back. Then she told me how she feels like she’s being very fair with this entire process and she’s pissed that we've brought up legal action about the security deposit on more than one occasion.

I told her that I know she’s been putting in the hard-work because this sucks for all of us. I reiterated that we were just trying to help and we came to the agreement that she won’t press charges for this as long as we stop bringing up the legality of whether or not she's entitled to our money without a signed lease. She said she’s still going to try and get us our money back if it’s rented by July 15th, but she can’t make any promises that that’ll happen. After that, it’ll depend what’s going on with their money situation because of the home sale and everything. I made a suggestion for a location for her to move the For Rent sign, because it was in a place that I don’t think it was able to be seen very well, and she said she would move it immediately. I thanked her for all her hard work, which she said she appreciates, and she said she’d be in touch if it gets rented or July 15th comes. At least it ended on a better note.

I do not think the "police" had really been contacted. I think she meant that the Craigslist people had been contacted.

Live and learn, kids. Whenever you have a important decision that needs to be made, sleep on it. Ask people's permission BEFORE trying to help them, not afterwards, because they might not appreciate it. The best of intentions have often led to worst results. And the best way to handle conflicts is with peaceful resolution, not shaking your fist over your head.