We were in Arizona Thursday of last week until this morning. It was anything but a vacation. We went because our tenants moved out and we needed to get the house in order to rent again and get new tenants in. We expected we would have to do a bit of work, but as it turned out our house was pretty trashed. I guess that's the down side of being a landlord in another state. They let their kids write all over the walls with crayons, markers, and pens, they let their animals pee all over the carpet in every room (it was like a land mine), one of the closet doors was cracked (it looked like someone punched it), the side door in the garage had a huge hole right through it, a window was broken, a ceiling fan was hanging half way down (as though someone hung from it), they let their dogs have puppies in the master bedroom closet and didn't clean up the blood, their dogs chewed up the dining room french doors, the back sliding door wouldn't close all the way...the list goes on. I had painted one wall red in the room that used to be my scrapbook room - I guess they decided they didn't like red because they painted over it with white. But they didn't use primer first so it was all blotchy. Nice. On top of that the house was just dirty and smelled bad. We also upgraded a few things that we wanted to do while we were living in the house, such as replace the garage door, replace the oven, and build a shelf above the fridge.
Yep, it was a ton of work. On average, we were at the house working from 8am - 3am. It was crazy. So if you are a friend of ours in Mesa and you're wondering why we didn't call to get together, now you know. It was strictly a work week for us. I honestly haven't been that exhausted from working since my mission. However, we did get it all clean, repainted, carpets cleaned, all repairs finished...and we have to ask ourselves why we do this for people who will trash it when we didn't do it for ourselves while we were living there. Anyway, I'm so glad it's done. We have a nice family moving in and we're crossing our fingers that when they move out it will be nothing like this experience.
We did take a quick dip in my dad's pool yesterday morning (at 8:30 if you can believe it - that's how hot it is there). Dusty (my dad's dog) decided to join us.
Arizona was, of course, very hot. I burned my hand while opening the trunk of the car yesterday and I got sunburned while mowing our lawn. I think my body is still in shock with coming back to this chilly weather. I haven't been able to get warm all day. Regardless of the chill, Washington feels like home. I was telling W last night that both Arizona and Washington feel like home to me, and he agreed. I've lived a lot of places in my life, and no other place feels this way. We really love it here.
Our luggage is still sitting in our front entry way...better go take care of that.
ETA: Just FYI - did you know taking a limo from Sea-Tac Airport is the same price as taking a cab? It's true. We got in at about 1:30am so we gave it a try. Pretty cool pulling up to our house in a limo at 2am.
7 comments:
Hi Ashley, so sorry to hear about your house. I heard you were in town. I also heard that your house was really trashed. The Dexters told me. They are so nice!! Anyways, do you know the people moving in this time? Are they members? fill me in.
That is so much work! Hopefully your new tenents won't be bad like that. I think carpets can be expected to be trashed (except the animal pee is over the line), but everything else is way crazy. That's too bad you didn't get more relaxation.
Oh, I am so sorry that happened to you. My in-laws own a 4-plex and they go through that sort of thing all the time. I always feel so bad for them. It's awful that people would do that. And then when we sub-leased are apt this winter {furnished} the guy trashed our things. He spilled pop all over are furniture and didn't clean it up and different things like that. It was a nightmare. So I can only image what you went through. So sorry. . . My be next time you should not allow pets to help eliminate some of the problems. I think it's too much for you to have to worry about being out of state and all. I really hope your new tenants are much better for you this time!! Good Luck! :)
Wow...that is CRAZY! Sorry you guys didn't get to relax much. We ended up going out to dinner with family every night...sorry we didn't stop by to see the house. Next time we'll have to meet up when we're both there for fun! I just unpacked our suitcases tonight too! (3 nights after returning) Hopefully those wet swiimsuits in a Safeway bag aren't too stinky huh?
well it was good to hear from you again. i figured you guys were out of town. we have thought about renting ours but we're scared about the "trashin" thing too. it seems that no matter how nice people seem we've always heard horror stories. people take much better care of stuff if its theirs and they are paying for it. glad you got everything done. clark went to england this week for business. he saw some really really neat stuff!
What in the world! Who does that!?!? Seriously, that is horrible. Who would have ever expected that mess? I always washed the walls, floor boards, ect-remember Carriage House! They were so picky about little stuff, wow, I never knew people could be so trashy and inconsiderate! Way to go and work so hard! I hope that you can veg out for a while and relax =0)
That's just awful. I hope you charged them for all of the mess. I can't even imagine leaving a house like that! Too bad we didn't get to catch up with you guys while you were here....next time for sure!
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