Ick!

I haven’t really announced it here, but guess what folks! We’re moving again. Our lease is up July 31, and we’re not renewing it. This has been a very interesting house to live in and I’m glad we did it, but the house needs so much work and the home owner is either unwilling or unable to take care of it.

So, I get a phone call from the homeowner that he has someone who wants to see the house and since he lives 3 hours away, he’s going to ask his sister in law, who lives next door, to show the house. Ok, I say… Just give me 24 hours notice and I’ll make sure everything looks good and that I have a bra on and the toilets are relatively clean. We make an appointment for Thursday at 7PM, but he swears he’ll call me between 5 and 6 to confirm that they’re coming. At ten minutes to seven, there’s a man I don’t know waiting at the gate (the property is gated) and he’s pacing to and fro on the road in front of the house. I call the landlord who says, “Dang! I fergot to call you. They’ll be there.” I say “Well, he’s already here and your sister in law isn’t.” He says, “Oh she’ll be there.” At ten after seven, I feel bad for the guy and I tell the kids to go open the gate and invite him onto the property. I try to make small talk and he’s a nice guy, so I offer to show him the house. He gratefully accepts and I have the kids stay outside with the dogs on leash. I show him the down stairs, going through all the rooms, making sure to keep my mouth shut about everything that’s wrong with the house and as we’re on our way upstairs, the sister in law barges into my house without knocking, wearing a towel. Yep, a towel. By the way, they don’t have a pool. She barrels through me and I do my best to be cordial, but her soaking wet hair, her mumu towel and her missing tooth are making me cringe a little. Mind you, I have lived here for a year and she lives next door and this is the first time she has ever spoken to me. She starts flicking switches that obviously she’s not familiar with (she turned on one of the exhaust fans which I didn’t realize till hours later) and I do my best to transition the authority to her, although she’s so obsessed with it, that she comes off looking like an ass.

In her effort to seem knowledgeable, she starts to talk about how long she’s owned her house (she doesn’t own it, I’ve checked the public records and I found her rap sheet, just so you know) and how she found this house for her sister and how her brother in law lost his job and her sister had to get a job three hours away and how she really misses her.  I must tell you, I can’t wait to repeat this to the landlord, I’ve been really restraining myself, waiting for him to call me so that I don’t seem as petty as I really am.  She unlocked doors and windows, while I wasn’t looking and I had to go through the whole house relocking them after she left.  We had a couple of words when she wanted to leave the bedroom doors wide open (there aren’t screens and we’re lousy with wasps, not to mention mosquitos, beetles, flies, etc - Hello?  It’s Florida), I closed the door, she said, “leave it open”, I said, “no, it’s dusk, I prefer to avoid bugs in the bedroom “, she said, “there are no bugs”.  Ok, whatever.   I ignored her and closed the door as I didn’t want to discuss, in front of the prospective tenant, how I was still paying rent and therefore this was my house and she had no say here. You know, cause I don’t want fight.

At one point, she started to grill me about where we’re moving and I told her we were staying in town.  She pried, trying to find out where and I’m sure she was trying to get information for her sister, but I’d be happy to tell them.  There’s just no way I’m giving this idiot any information…  Just because, at this point, I was hoping to annoy her. She made some ridiculous overture of shaking my hand and thanking me and after I wiped the residue off my hand,  I locked up and went to buy my new phone.  After that ordeal, I deserved it.

Thumbnail image thanks to: Eagle693