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Checking In.
9 years ago
Restructuring this journal so it's not just a ramble.
Here's why I've been absent so much since April:
April 9th: Open commissions
April 10th (2 am): Basement floods
April 17th: Property management company waits a full week to remove sopping wet carpet from basement. Leaves asbestos under carpeting everywhere.
May: Get tired of contacting our property management company every day trying to get the basement resolved. Hire an attorney to send a strongly worded certified letter. Hire inspection company and confirm elevated levels of mold in the basement. Nothing comes of any of this.
Late May: Apply for and qualify for a mortgage. Begin searching for a house we can own.
June: House hunt. Property management company does literally nothing with the basement.
Last June: Make an offer on a house.
Late July: Officially close on a house.
Late July: Put in 30 Day Notice at property management company. Company throws a fit. We contact our attorney.
Good news: We bought a house!
Bad news: We may be in for a long legal battle with our property management company.
---
To my commissioners:
I know I have a handful of commissions from the April batch. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I honestly believed this situation with the flood and subsequent negligence of our property management company's maintenance team would eventually resolve itself. What they're doing isn't legal and it put us in a bind. I'm extremely excited that we can purchase a house, five years earlier than our plan no less, but I did not imagine moving this year. Not again.
I never transfer funds to my bank account until commissions are completed, so if you need a refund, send me a note with your e-mail and I will return your money. If you're willing to wait, I'm happy to finish your commission but I have to get my autoimmune health under control, we have to get moved and I have to resolve this issue with our property management company, in or out of court.
We officially move on Monday. Our 30 Day Notice ends our lease on August 31th. Our lease technically ends September 27th. I'm hoping all of this will be resolved, one way or another, by October. It could be earlier depending on what the property management company decides to do. I'm not going to go into the specifics of what we've discussed with our attorney, but suffice to say we're planning to be more counter-offensive than on the offense, if that makes any sense. I'd much rather just wash my hands of this and both parties just walk away. But it is up to our property management company how far we take this.
---
An extended history.
I know I've been kind of sporadically on FA for the past year or two. It certainly hasn't been intentional. My husband and I have been renters with a horrible rental experience. The house we rented when I first joined FA sold out from underneath us. The subsequent apartment had both a murder and a person drive a truck through a basement level apartment. The following rental house's owners lost their jobs and had to move back in after 10 months. Then we rented a house where we discovered a hazardous materials issue the owner couldn't afford to fix. After 30 days there, he had to foreclose and we had to move because it was unsafe. Then this whole deal with our current property management company.
Financially, we are fine. We're stable. We've got this, and I'm incredibly proud of that. I mourn the time we could have been stable in other areas of life if we weren't constantly packing up and moving our lives all over our city, but all of that has been entirely out of our hands. That being said, I take full responsibility for my flakiness and intermittent availability, as well as not updating you guys in terms of what's going on. Every time something pops up, I assume it will resolve faster than it does, or that we've "finally gotten stable" and we haven't. In fact, I came back briefly in March and April because our house was doing fine and we'd really settled in. Then the leak in the basement and negligence of our PMC led to us buying a house, moving again and hiring an attorney.
It is beyond me that property management companies can treat their tenants this way and get away with it. They are preying on the concept that most renters can't afford to put an attorney on retainer and it is utter bullshit. Slumlords using people. Shocking, right? I truly thought that, eventually, whether it was from my excessive calling or contact with our attorney, that the company would eventually fix the situation. Mold and asbestos are serious issues and our PMC is a nationwide company. I still truly cannot believe it has come to this.
But, we bought a house! And I'm incredibly excited for that.
TL;DR: Rental property neglected by property management company's maintenance team, led to dilapidation of property and partial unlivable conditions, attorney hired, we purchased a house, moving this weekend, dealing with property management company legally, will be back by October (hopefully sooner).
Here's why I've been absent so much since April:
April 9th: Open commissions
April 10th (2 am): Basement floods
April 17th: Property management company waits a full week to remove sopping wet carpet from basement. Leaves asbestos under carpeting everywhere.
May: Get tired of contacting our property management company every day trying to get the basement resolved. Hire an attorney to send a strongly worded certified letter. Hire inspection company and confirm elevated levels of mold in the basement. Nothing comes of any of this.
Late May: Apply for and qualify for a mortgage. Begin searching for a house we can own.
June: House hunt. Property management company does literally nothing with the basement.
Last June: Make an offer on a house.
Late July: Officially close on a house.
Late July: Put in 30 Day Notice at property management company. Company throws a fit. We contact our attorney.
Good news: We bought a house!
Bad news: We may be in for a long legal battle with our property management company.
---
To my commissioners:
I know I have a handful of commissions from the April batch. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I honestly believed this situation with the flood and subsequent negligence of our property management company's maintenance team would eventually resolve itself. What they're doing isn't legal and it put us in a bind. I'm extremely excited that we can purchase a house, five years earlier than our plan no less, but I did not imagine moving this year. Not again.
I never transfer funds to my bank account until commissions are completed, so if you need a refund, send me a note with your e-mail and I will return your money. If you're willing to wait, I'm happy to finish your commission but I have to get my autoimmune health under control, we have to get moved and I have to resolve this issue with our property management company, in or out of court.
We officially move on Monday. Our 30 Day Notice ends our lease on August 31th. Our lease technically ends September 27th. I'm hoping all of this will be resolved, one way or another, by October. It could be earlier depending on what the property management company decides to do. I'm not going to go into the specifics of what we've discussed with our attorney, but suffice to say we're planning to be more counter-offensive than on the offense, if that makes any sense. I'd much rather just wash my hands of this and both parties just walk away. But it is up to our property management company how far we take this.
---
An extended history.
I know I've been kind of sporadically on FA for the past year or two. It certainly hasn't been intentional. My husband and I have been renters with a horrible rental experience. The house we rented when I first joined FA sold out from underneath us. The subsequent apartment had both a murder and a person drive a truck through a basement level apartment. The following rental house's owners lost their jobs and had to move back in after 10 months. Then we rented a house where we discovered a hazardous materials issue the owner couldn't afford to fix. After 30 days there, he had to foreclose and we had to move because it was unsafe. Then this whole deal with our current property management company.
Financially, we are fine. We're stable. We've got this, and I'm incredibly proud of that. I mourn the time we could have been stable in other areas of life if we weren't constantly packing up and moving our lives all over our city, but all of that has been entirely out of our hands. That being said, I take full responsibility for my flakiness and intermittent availability, as well as not updating you guys in terms of what's going on. Every time something pops up, I assume it will resolve faster than it does, or that we've "finally gotten stable" and we haven't. In fact, I came back briefly in March and April because our house was doing fine and we'd really settled in. Then the leak in the basement and negligence of our PMC led to us buying a house, moving again and hiring an attorney.
It is beyond me that property management companies can treat their tenants this way and get away with it. They are preying on the concept that most renters can't afford to put an attorney on retainer and it is utter bullshit. Slumlords using people. Shocking, right? I truly thought that, eventually, whether it was from my excessive calling or contact with our attorney, that the company would eventually fix the situation. Mold and asbestos are serious issues and our PMC is a nationwide company. I still truly cannot believe it has come to this.
But, we bought a house! And I'm incredibly excited for that.
TL;DR: Rental property neglected by property management company's maintenance team, led to dilapidation of property and partial unlivable conditions, attorney hired, we purchased a house, moving this weekend, dealing with property management company legally, will be back by October (hopefully sooner).
So it's good to see you're back! It sucks to hear the situation you were in.
But it's good to hear you're now out of it. It seems a lot of bad things seem to be happening to people at the moment.
So I hope all goes well, and I'm going to guess, I assume you're going to sue? Is that what the legal thing is about? Regardless if it is or not, I also hope that goes well.
Since legal matters are awful to deal with and just drag on.
So I'm hoping it gets better in the end. Since well, no one really deserves to be put in such a situation.
Also you shouldn't need to promise such things.
If you need to poof for a while again, then it'll happen.
I mean, it IS your private life, and that should always come first.
Long story short, I hope it all goes well and good luck with the legal proceedings!
I probably won't talk too much about the potential legal battle we may be going into, but I will say that, if they don't make a move, we won't make a move. If that makes any sense. I have the counter-offensive rather than simply offense. I'd rather just wash my hands of it if we can.
Mostly I just feel awful about the handful of commissions that got left hanging. That's incredibly flaky of me. I can't wait to be back full force after the move and legal matters settle.
From experience at least. xD
Sometimes things go on longer than hoped, you didn't have to give an update. But ya did which is always a good and positive thing since it shows your commitment.
It's alright, you needn't go into any details, just as long as it all goes smoothly. Since law struggles are literally the worst.
I can understand that, but I'm sure they knew the possibility of bad things happening, it's just something you have to be braced for in case issues do come along.
I'm sure they're all pretty happy that you're back.
I personally can't wait to see the upcoming content~! :>