Staycation Vol 2

In the last blog post I mentioned that Chris was on vacation last week. The purpose was two fold. Aside from giving me a break, there were a few things that needed to be worked on outside the house. The list was short but the headache factor was long. Gutters, edging the weeds around the house and shed, and something else that escapes my feeble brain. However, I know it was 3 things because the list was nailed to our door by the HOA lady. The things that needed repair were things we knew about, but being a single income family with one person working full time to pay the bills and the other one staying at home full time to care for a small infant, it's all we can do to keep up with the regular stuff.

Frankly, that lady ought to keep her damn mouth shut. When we took over this house, there were massive repairs needed. Massive. Cosmetic, structural, and the in between. The people living here before us were terrible tenants. Wait, let me back up. When Chris and I found out we were pregnant, we were living in this little one bedroom house about 20min away from our current residence. The house was very small and was made of concrete. It used to be the orange grove manager's house back when the property was part of an orange grove. We loved the house and the landlady was excellent. The only blight on our happiness there were the neighbors, who had moved out several months prior to the pee stick showing up with two lines. Unfortunately, when we found out we were having a baby we knew we had to move. There simply wasnt enough room for the baby in that house.

Chris and I were looking at places to rent but couldnt find anything affordable. Things were looking a little grim, until my sister's father approached us. He had this home (a double wide trailer) and while he owned the trailer he couldnt afford the lot rent and the mortgage on his home so he asked us if we would like it. He told us up front that the house needed a lot of work, because his wife's kids (not my mother) had been living there and hadnt made any repairs. Being that they were his wife's kids, he was trying to be polite about it but the Gods honest truth is that they were fucking pigs, and destroyed this house. The kids (although they are well into their 20's with children of their own I cannot help but think of them as kids) werent being thrown out, they decided to move out on their own and knew Chris and I were taking over the house because I was pregnant yet when we came here to begin our repairs the place was a fucking pigsty. I could not believe it. I didnt leave our rental property that way for our landlady, yet here I am, psuedo-family and pregnant, and they left food out, trash on the floors, smegma on all of the doors and floors, empty cigarette packs all over, toys that were damaged/disgusting left to rot in the front yard.

Hold onto your hats, because it gets better. Or worse, depending on your point of view. The first order of business was to take everything in the front yard to the dump. This wasnt an overnight process, as in they moved out one night and the next day we took it all. There was about a month's time where they could have come and picked it up. Yet when we took it to the dump they were all kinds of pissed. My thought process is if you gave a damn about the items in question you wouldnt have left it in the front yard for anybody to steal during the interim of you moving out and us taking control of the property but I guess they were a little short on logic.

The rude awakenings continued. Some of them we were aware of, others were sort of sprang on us. The ones we were aware of: one functioning bathroom, thermostat and back door needing to be replaced, flooring laid, drywall hung, and repainting. The things we werent aware of: A mouse problem (from the food they left behind), a serious bug infestation, a mold problem (from where the gutter had fallen and the strategically placed window left open), no water because there was a leak in the one working bathroom and instead of capping it off or fixing it (God forbid) they CUT THE LINE and left it to ruin the SUBFLOOR which meant no working bathroom either and, one last item of note. This was the final thing lobbed our way that blew my mind.

Sister's Father: "Honey, you're going to need to paint the subfloor before you lay any carpet or tile."
Me: "Paint the subfloor?" Huh, why would I do that?
Sister's Father: "Yeah, just go to Home Depot or Walmart and pick up a can of Killz. Paint the subfloors with it."
Me: "I've never heard of that. Why do I need to do that?"
Sister's Father: "Well, they had this goat..."

What the BALLS? WHO WHAT I JUST DONT UNDERSTAND! The kids had gotten one of their children a pet goat and since this is a high class trailer park, you cant keep a goat outside. So what do the fucking geniuses do? KEPT. IT. INSIDE.

When Chris and I realized the amount of work we'd bitten off for ourselves, I think we both had panic attacks. Let's face it, I cant figure out how to hook up the DVD player to the TV. Chris is better but not by much. Give me a sick person and give him a computer and we're both in our zone. Home repairs? Forget it.

We were leaning on friends and family, calling in favors, giving the BSE's and even tried to pay a few people to get work done on the house. For me, having my first baby on the way and the house in such a wreck, I was a mess. Chris tried his best but he was working full time and trying to do repairs on the weekend. There's nothing like being pregnant and having your home situation a giant question mark. Yeah, we had a house, but how could we move into it without water? I tried to spend my meager settlement wisely but the truth was we were carrying two houses for four months and were in way over our heads with the repairs. There wasnt enough zeros in our bank account to fix that mess.

As I look around the house I still see things undone but we've come so far from where we were. We had help from our friends and family. My mother's husband stepped up in a big way. He took his entire vacation to come down to our house and spent an entire week repairing everything he could. I am pleased to report that the major stuff was finished and with no time to spare. His vacation was in March and the baby came in April. Everything else that needs to be fixed just comes down to money. There just isnt enough spare change in the budget to buy the transition pieces need for the floors, we're out of paint, and out of patience. The baby is here, so the more important things are going to be baby proofing the house for when she gets mobile. We'll worry about pretty later.

So when the notice was tacked onto our door by the HOA lady it was a huge insult. I mean, we spent months cleaning up the mess of the previous tenants and she wants to bitch about little things like weeds and a gutter. That lady is dumb. Still, Chris did the work and repaired what was on the list plus a few things extra. She can die in a fire.