Sunday, May 27, 2007


Sigh... Well, I'm through with playing 'enthusiastic landlord extraordinaire', or rather, I was as of about 10:30 this morning, moments before our first 'potential tenants' of the day showed up. I can honestly tell you that owning apartments and renting them out is a fantastic investment, but it's a huge one, not only of money (which we are currently very short on!), but of time, of emotion, of risk.. We had several people through last week (I believe we showed it about 6 times over the week, with four of the showings occurring in one evening). All went well, but for the most part, it was young couples who either weren't comfortable with the price or were not really into some aspect of the neighbourhood or house. Luckily, we do have a beautiful little apartment, and we received tons of compliments on our decorating (yeh!), but that doesn't necessarily mean that people will rent (and sometimes, that's a good thing). We held our breath a few times, like when the 30-something divorcee who went through the house with a fine-toothed comb, and started commenting on things like 'hmmmm, I don't like open concept too much' and 'I think I could fit my daughter's bed in here with my queen sized bed' and 'so I would be able to store all my excess things in the crawl space until I find a house?' (read: I am moving out as soon as I can find something bigger)... Then there were a few others who were either incredibly finicky and nit-picky, or had a dog 'but he's such a good dog', or were 18 years old, etc... After four more showings today, we managed to finally luck in with a couple who have one baby, and who are extremely nice. Though I was put in the awkward position after talking to them on Friday evening (to schedule an appointment for this morning - dumb after a bachelorette/bachelor party evening last night), and right after I hung up the phone, got another call from a sweetheart of a girl (single mom to an 18 month old baby boy) who poured her life story out to me and had me chatting with her like we were old friends for HALF an HOUR. She told me she desperately wanted this apartment, she had fallen in love with the pictures, the idea sounded perfect, and she has to be out of her current apartment by July 1. She had me promising to store her stuff while she lived at her relatives while we fixed up the place, and pointing out day cares and things for her kid. We even discussed whether her duvet would match the paint in the bedroom (and it would, lol). She was so excited, she drove around the neighbourhood on Saturday (but looked at the wrong house), and then called Luc to tell him all about it while he was trying to bar-b-que (three sheets to the wind as well). She even told me this morning that she had found a garage sale on our street and she and her friend had bought all the guys' paintings, yadda yadda. Anyway, so naturally, she had wanted to see the apartment before I showed it to the nice couple, however I didn't want to do anything 'sneaky' incase it turned out we didn't want her to rent or something. So she showed up today and was severely disappointed when she learned that she probably didn't have the apartment as they had sat down right then and there and signed the reference forms. We were then stuck with the awkward and stressful task of trying to figure out which one to choose - her or the couple. We finally decided to do the 'right thing' and take the couple first, as they were really first in line. It did involve me having a semi-counselling session with my will-be 29 year old tenant (the husband) about exactly what apartment living is going to mean for them, and were they fully understanding that it will be a BIG transition from a huge house in the country to a small apartment in the city where they will definitely need to learn how to live with other people they don't know in the same house... Anyway, he assures me it's all fine. I'm now exhausted and am taking his word for it, and so we hopefully sign a lease tomorrow (woohoo!).

That means I can move on to stressing about everything else in our life - like where we're getting the money for the house, planning (and hopefully doing) all the repairs on this place, settling into our new place (and cleaning and painting and fence building), finding appliances and furniture both for here (to replace the washer/dryer that we're taking with us) and for there (new fridge and stove and furniture for the entire finished basement), plus bringing the dog back into our busy lives and dealing with his 'transition period' where he'll invariably piss on the floor infront of Luc who will have a heart-attack and probably try to kill him (with the help of our psycho cat who has to actually be drugged with anti-depressant 'stoner' meds to make him not jump on the dog's back and sink his teeth in as far as they will go), all the while I'll be upstairs crying on the phone to my mom and having a nervous breakdown... Sounds like fun eh? Welcome to the life of 'the smart thing to do' where all you have to do is be in a constant state of stress and someday, they assure you, it will ALL PAY OFF BABY!!! ;)


No seriously, I am doing alright with managing the stress, mostly because it still seems kind of like a 'dream' and not like we're actually moving. I was looking at our place this morning, thinking to myself how much I'm going to miss it. And I really will. When we bought it, I made a promise to myself not to get too attached as it WAS an investment property.. and I know that one day our new house will have the same feel for me, but right now, this is HOME. I love the paint colours, the neighbourhood, all the quirks of the house, our tenants, the location, everything. I'm going to miss it! But you have to make sacrifices in life to get where you want to go, so while I am finding it all a little scary right now, it will eventually all work out and we'll be smiling on our brand-new two-tiered deck overlooking the gardens and pool, while my well-trained dog lies at my feet and MAYBE two little kiddlets are playing in the yard... In like 15 years, lol... ;) (see how good I've become at the self-pep-talks? Makes you want to vomit, doesn't it?)


Anyway, I need sleep. I'm going to have to go cut the power wires leading into the trashy next door neighbours' house though because they have AWFUL music pumping out of their basement that is practically vibrating the walls (did I say I was going to miss this??) .... ;o)


xoxo

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