Thursday, October 01, 2009

Communication Breakdown

I hate moving. No, I mean, I really detest it. Big time.
We have to be out of here by the 31st of this month. It is sneaking up on me and as usual, I am ill prepared.
We do have another place to call home. It is 3 bedrooms, with a den, and an en suite set up for our main floor master bedroom. The rent is more expensive, of course, but that is what you get when you rent a place with central air and a built in dishwasher. I'm not complaining about the rent, mind you. We looked at some really interesting houses before we found this one.
There was the house for $1400 a month. It was an old Victorian-type place with a large living room, rotting floorboards and no driveway. Not just a missing driveway, but no place to even stop your car to unload groceries. It was on a hill so steep that climbing the cement stairs would have been like climbing a ladder in an old musty barn. (Trust me, I know about these things).
There was another house on the same road, that was advertised as a 4 bedroom with a large yard. What the ad failed to mention was that the owner(s) wanted to keep the living room for their own use. A home office in what would have been MY home.
Oh, but that's not a problem, is it???
There was another place that was cute as a button. Sweet fenced in yard, huge shed (fort) and the bikers that lived next door? Oh not Lance Armstrong kinda bikers, but patch wearing, beer swilling, dirt bag kinda bikers. The garbage spilled out of the house and into the yard next door - our potential space. The home owner also wanted to use the shed (fort) and basement to store HIS stuff, so umm...where would mine go?
There was the 50's style bungalow on a quiet street with parking for 4 vehicles. Oh,and don't mind the guy in the basement.

Sigh..
You can see what I was up against when Kayla found the cute lil war time home on kijiji. I called one second after the listing posted. (No kidding, I really did) and made an appointment for the next day. I liked the hard wood floors and the fact that my wee lil nephew Ryder and my kinda sorta niece Claire would have room to play and run in the back yard. I loved the brand new bathrooms (BOTH of em!) and the fact that the fridge was huge and much newer than my own. The landlord seemed to be very professional, congenial, and easy to deal with. He even agreed to let us break our last months rent deposit up into three payments so that we could afford this move.
We signed the lease and we given the keys on the 19th of September...So, like a spazz, I actually moved a few things in. Just some basics - a couple of gallons of paint, rollers, paint trays, some bed linens (ready for the 1 st night without searching), food for Jessica, (always have to be prepared when you have a diabetic in the house), some new towels, etc.
Imagine my surprise when Kayla and I stopped by the house a few days ago to find all of stuff gone. Oh, wait, they left the brand new shower curtain behind. I guess that it wasn't the right style for someone...
Yup, it was all gone, the paint, my bedding, all of it. When Shawn called the landlord (after a frantic call from me) he was told that the land lord thought that it was all...garbage.

Huh?

Brand spanking new towels, paint, candles, everything except my bedding, still in the package was garbage?
So, of course, thinking that it was garbage, the food was eaten, the paint supplies were used, the candles went missing, and my king sized bed sheet was used as a drop cloth.

A drop cloth!

It has taken two days and several phone calls to get our things back. My bed sheet is still paint stained, the paint supplies are used, and the candles are open....oh, but I did get a brand new package of juice boxes, two bags of crackers and some potted Mums for the garden.

I am still seething.

This was nothing more than a blatant invasion of privacy, and, as far as I am concerned, a case of theft. We have already signed the lease and given the owner our money.
We are BROKE. I have $30 to my name and I have no way of paying for another house in the next 4 ish weeks. It would take weeks, at the very least, to get our money back in court ( I am reasonably certain that we would win in court..Sounds like theft is a lease breaker to me) but that does little to help us in the here and now.

I hope that this was some kind of fluke. I do. I want to get into this new home and make it my own. I just need my privacy and a sense of security. My mental health depends upon it.

I really, truly, hope that this was just a case of miscommunication and not a sign of things to come.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh.My.Gawd.
I would be beyond pissed. I hope that things work out, cuz more than anything, you need to feel secure in your own home.
hugs.
maggie mae

Biddie said...

You know it. I am a freak about my privacy anyway, so you can imagine what having someone poke thru my stuff is like...Ack!
I hope that this is the end of it. I just can't handle someone in my face. Gah. I hope that I am going from the frying pan into the fire!

DILLIGAF said...

Loadsa hugs babe. Hope it all works out for you xx

That'd be me you know. Get a new house and find some bloke living in the cellar. Normality for me ;-)

Biddie said...

4D - Oh, well get it all sorted out. I am just pissed at the invasion of privacy, and the nerve of this guy (or his people as he says).
You make a point, ya know. This is kinda normality for me too.. Why should I expect any different??
Lol.
Hugs right back at ya.

Martha said...

I would think that the landlord should have to replace everything, whether it was him or his "people." One of the happiest days of my life was when I moved out of my last apartment into my own place without a landlord. I couldn't stand the thought of people being in my stuff. One time after the landlord keyed in, I freaked out and threw away all the open food in my fridge because I kept wondering if he touched any of it.

Anonymous said...

Yuck...I had never even thought that someone might be into my food! I had a landlord that would let her son (in his 20's) go through tenants apartments while they were out..I knew that he had been in mine but I never, EVER thought about my food!
Peter Piper

Biddie said...

Martha - Ewww! Thankfully I only had some snacks there and my fridge was all but empty.
Everything that I can remember that went missing has been replaced,and he even gave us a nice pot of Mums. Well, my bed sheet is ruined, but otherwise....
I love this little house, but it will always feel like I was..victimized, really. I hope that one day we will own our own place, but it doesn't look like it's i the cards for us...Maybe someday. :) It would be a dream come true.

Patty said...

I hope the first thing you plan on doing is installing new locks. I certainly would not trust that they wouldnt come in again when your not at home. I live in an apartment complex and they were all the time coming in on some excuse or another..change a filter, check for leaks..what every, so I changed the lock. Now when they want come in they have to leave me a note. The last one ask me to give them a key. I sweetly told them I did give them one, that they must have lost it. If they push me, I will give them a key..and then promply change the lock again..I suggest you do the same
Good luck

Biddie said...

Peter - I lived in a place like that too..The landlady let her kids play in the hallways, and in the actual units..When I complained, my brand new couch was slashed to shreds when I went our for groceries one day.
Gah..I never thought about my food either!

Patty - Yup, we already chacnged out half of the locks. The deadbolts will be changed when we get a couple of extra bucks, but neither the landlord nor his minions are getting in now!
I will give a key up if I have to (much like you) but I will switch the locks out again if it comes to that. I will just keep switching em around if I have to.
The house that we are living in now has different locks - the church that owns this place has several people that think that they are in charge of the rental units and we had too many people walk in on us. I swear, I must have idiot written on my forehead, because all of the landlords that I have had in recent years have done this...
Anyway, we are painting and making the place feel like home, so hopefully this is the end of it :)

Biddie said...

Kimber - His idea of grovelling was to put a pot of mums in my mud room. He will never admit to using anything else...I am so upset by this, it is a horrible way to start a new relationship of any kind.
We did replace the locks and I will be adding more to keep anyone out that is not invited. I just can't handle the invasion of privacy thing.

Biddie said...

Kimber - His idea of grovelling was to put a pot of mums in my mud room. He will never admit to using anything else...I am so upset by this, it is a horrible way to start a new relationship of any kind.
We did replace the locks and I will be adding more to keep anyone out that is not invited. I just can't handle the invasion of privacy thing.

Biddie said...
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