I love the Twilight Zone, but I never expected to find myself
living in it. Within the last 72 hours, I stepped from one dimension to another -- I had a nice little house to rent, and my own house closing was scheduled for this Wednesday. In one day, the closing was postponed, and I found out that my potential landlady is completely insane. I am now bereft, bothered and bewildered, caught in a legal whirlpool, and also really mad. So I have adopted the Tasmanian Devil as my alter-ego for the moment.
I rented the same little house 25 years ago when my boys were in grade school. We loved it. My landlady then was eccentric, but knew her business. We lived there 7 years and I've always remembered it fondly. I had kept in touch with the landlady over the years -- she would call every couple of years and ask how my sons were doing, how I was doing. It was really sweet. So when the offer on my house was accepted, I saw that the house was for rent. I was very sad to hear that my landlady had died last Christmas. However, her daughter (I will call her Myrtle) was taking over, and very interested in having me again for a tenant. You see, I pay my bills on time and I don't tear up houses. Myrtle lives 4 hours away and is rarely able to come to town to check on the house. It has been refurbished and just lovely. All looked to be going great. Myrtle sounded eccentric too, but I just figured it was a family trait. There is just one difference -- her mother was eccentric ... Myrtle is
crazy.
She was allowing me to move in before we signed a lease -- she believed me to be trustworthy, and indeed I am. This past Friday, we got everything boxed up, all junk removed, and the moving men were coming Saturday morning. In Friday's mail, I received the lease in the mail to sign and return. Oh my God -- Myrtle had taken a standard lease and added to it
52 -- count 'em-- 52 codicils, handwritten in a crabbed scrawl. What I could do, what I couldn't do (1 nail for 1 picture only), how to scrub the floor, etc. etc. If anything inside the house breaks, it
must be my fault so I would have to pay for it. I was not to allow water to stand on the countertops. If something spilled on the rug, I was not to use any cleaning products, but call her first and pay for professional carpet cleaners of her choice. She knew I had a cat, but the lease said no pets -- yet one of the codicils said "Cat shall not climb mini-blinds." Huh? I felt like I was in the belly of the beast. I cannot even
begin to try to describe the 12 page lease with the 52 handwritten clauses, and how crazy it really is. My sons read it and flatly refused to move me in there at the mercy of a crazy person. I sincerely thank God that the lease didn't arrive on Saturday afternoon or Monday, when I would have already been moved in. Just the thought of it makes me shudder. So I turned down the house (I can't bring myself to describe
that conversation). It was a huge disappointment, to say the least.
On the same day I got the lease, my realtor called and said that the buyer's FHA loan would not be approved until lead paint all around the house, window trims, door trims, porch had been scraped off, painted and every chip swept up. It's an old house in an old neighborhood --
all the paint is lead paint. So the closing was postponed for this coming Wednesday. The FHA appraiser was here 3 weeks ago, and we just found out. Apparently the buyer's realtor did not read the appraisal report correctly, and just realized himself what was being asked before the loan could go through. The buyer was perfectly willing to do it himself after closing, but
oh no -- FHA refuses the loan until it's done. So the painter has to spend at least 3 days doing all that, then FHA wants 2-3 days, then the bank wants 3 days -- the closing will not occur, if all goes well, until late next week, if then.
So here I sit, boxes all around me, wondering if I'm going to be leaving at all. Meanwhile, the house is being spruced up, which really makes me whirling
mad because if I could have afforded that kind of thing myself, I wouldn't sell in the
first place! Irony can be so ironic sometimes ... (I love that clever phrase!) Of course, the
first thing I corrected, the most
important thing, was cancelling my transfer of AT&T. I knew that Turner Classic Movies and my computer would save my sanity! On Saturday, I just spent the day recovering. Today I looked for places to live. Now I'm here for a while until the next round of moving plans begins. My son the Marine refers to events like these as FUBAR. I couldn't say it better.
I don't usually do personal kinds of posts, but had to get it out and let my Faithful Readers and Friends know that I am still here for a while. I will be making the rounds and catching up on your wonderful blogs, between crying jags -- LOL! Actually, I am doing extremely well through all this. I'm going on faith, doing what I can do, looking for another place to live, all the things that must be done. I have not
once gone to bed at noon and pulled the covers over my head. I think that is quite an accomplishment!
