Housing Frustrations Part 1

WARNING: POST CONTAINS RANTING AND COMPLAINING AND MAY BE LONG IN LENGTH AND DRAWN OUT IN NATURE

So, some of you may have been privy to the craziness with our housing when we first moved here. We were lucky enough to find and sign a place MONTHS before we would typically be able to. We were able to see pictures of the actual place and talk to the owner and the current tenant. We agreed on rent and on what items of the owners would be left in the home for our use and signed a lease. Done. Lease was mailed and deposit was sent. We were good to go. One less thing to worry about with graduation and moving and such.

Months later, we drove across the country and pulled up to our new place. Now maybe I was just spoiled since they had painted and carpeted and put down new linoleum in our place in Provo; because I expected that's more or less how it would be when we got here. Plus, my parents were assistant managers of an apartment complex for about 6 years and new carpeting and painting were typical. It wasn't quality carpeting or anything, but it was done. Along with a good cleaning, aka in BYU terms as a cleaning check. And we had seen pictures of this place and everything looked good. So you can imagine my surprise and dismay when we unfolded out of our car after 4 days on the road, knocked on the door, and everything was not fine.

First thing I noticed -- this place REALLY needs a paint job. Having been built in 1992, it's almost 20 years old and it has never been painted. Never. So not only does it have flat, basic builder paint that just needs sprucing up, but there are also settling cracks and nail pops everywhere. Plus, there is smoke/soot outlining all of the beams in the living room and dirt/dust/whatever outlining where all of the pictures/artwork have been. And the touch ups that were made, were made with the paint used on the base boards, which is not the same shade or texture as the walls. Next thing I noticed -- this place could also use new carpeting. Same never been replaced scenario, plus you can feel nails popping through where the carpeting connects to hard surface flooring (i.e. hardwood, tile, linoleum).

Okay, so putting these things aside as maybe me being spoiled, I had 2 more immediate issues. Issue number 1, how much of her stuff was still here. We had agreed on specific items that either we wanted or that were going to be too much of a hassle for her to move, and we agreed to a $10/month rent reduction so she could leave a few things stored in the garage. Well LOTS more than what we agreed upon was here. All of her knick knacks, decorations, artwork, side tables, storage bins, kitchen things, rugs, towels, bedding, board games, lamps, trash cans, desk, filing cabinets, curtains (not as big of a deal), and other smallish furniture were left. And the few things that were supposed to be left in the garage, ended up being  basically everything else from the house but the couches. So basically we had to take down and gather all of her stuff. First putting it in the second bedroom, we eventually moved it to the garage and I had to organize it so we could fit our small car in. We were finding her stuff for DAYS in random places. This was hampering my ability to make it feel like MY home and MY space and to be creative. Plus, I hated having to move someone else's things so that I could move in my own, especially since it was unexpected.

Issue number 2 (would have been part of the last paragraph but I don't want you to go blind reading this), it wasn't clean. Now it wasn't disgusting like with mold or rot or filth or anything; but it never would have passed a cleaning check. EVERYTHING was dusty and cobwebs were everywhere. I had to clean dirty toilets that Devin and I had never personally used (this in my opinion is not okay, unless you're being paid for it or you volunteered). There was, and kinda still is, a fine layer of greasy film on everything in kitchen from the table to the walls to the cabinets. The insides of the cabinets and drawers had to be cleaned out and I lined them. I vacuumed floors and scrubbed tubs. I dusted and tried to remove soot from the walls and fireplace. I was also not pleased to have to be doing this in addition to the superfluous moving and the regular unpacking and organizing.

On a side note, when we got the air ducts cleaned, we found out that they had probably never been done and there was mold, bacteria, tons of dust, and bugs in there. Shudder. And when we got the chimney cleaned, we found out it was probably leaking carbon monoxide back into the house, the set up was unsafe (too many fake logs and the fake ash stuff was too close to the front), and someone had used this gas fireplace as a wood burning fireplace. Luckily, our landlady was kind and paid for both of these issues.

Now all of this is just back story for the current frustration which I will tell you about next.