Wednesday, March 3, 2010

"With a little luck Abba, maybe you won't get sued for discrimination in housing. Just be careful who you turn down."

"I sure as hell hope that isn't a threat."

"Just a friendly warning. You can't pick your tenants by race, sex, age or marital status. You can limit the size of the family by the number of bedrooms though."

"I'll keep that in mind." I hadn't even thought of about who would rent the place. I mean what kinds of people. I made a note to check into the law these days. If worse came to worse, I would turn the place into a guest room or something. I had always planned to rent it though.

It was after three when she showed up. I heard the car pull into the gravel drive. I looked out the small front window to see her walk up to the front door. She was indeed thirty at least. She was stocky without being fat. She wore a sweatshirt with some rural fire department's logo. Her hair was short and stood up in spikes. It reminded my of my cardiocare nurse from a few weeks before. It must be some kind of new style, I thought.

Her hair was a honey blonde, no doubt from the local hairdresser in whatever little town she sprang from. She knocked on the door even though I saw her walk up to it. If she had been a cop, she would have known that I watched her approach. There was nothing timid about her knock. I approved of that.

"Yes?" I asked through the storm door.

"I'm Molly James, Harvey called about me."

"Yes he did. Frankly Miss James, I'm not so sure I'm ready to rent the unit. I explained that to Harvey, but he insisted that I see you."

"He told me, but he also said I would be safe here. I have never lived alone before."

"Ah, well since you are here, you might as well take a look." I handed her the key. "When you finish looking come back."

She would have opened the door to a small room with a freshly cleaned and sanitized carpet, a sofa on the verge of dominating the room, an end table and lamp and a long, low book case on the wall opposite the sofa. It was a yard sale purchase still in the original box. I did the assembly myself. The first door off the hall would be the small but clean bathroom. Next in the tunnel line was a room dominated completely by the double bed. I did manage to get a night stand and lamp and the chest of drawers in there. The closet was a decent size, since it was the only one in the house.

Back in the hall she would pass the wall furnace next. It was at the end of the closet space. That was why the closet was a decent size. The furnace was also at the end of the hall. The hall spilled into the kitchen at that point. The appliances were not new but were very clean thanks to an afternoon of work by Shorty's wife and oldest daughter. At the furthermost end of the kitchen resided a small round table exactly like the one in my kitchen. Mine had four chairs, the table in the rental unit had two. As previously noted all six came from my old dining room set in the rental house. The rear deck completed her unit. The fenced year was meant to be a common area. It was my plan to do the yard work. I had a small power mower since I had been responsible for the lawn at the rent house.

She knocked on my door again. "It's awfully small but I can make do for a few months until I get time to look for a larger place."

It was the point in the negotiations where I should have scared her off with talk of a lease, Instead I decided to give the kid a break, since we were both test driving me as a landlord. "That's up to you completely. As I said up front I'm not even sure I'm ready to rent it."

"Oh I am definitely interested. How much is the rent?"

"I'm still thinking on that, but since this is the first short term rental, how about four hundred a month. You will still have the electric and gas bill. I pick up the water bill."

"Could you charge me more and pay the gas and electric as well"

"No I can't do that, I have no to know what those will run."

"Harvey said, that both the electric and the gas company would prorate the bills over the year and you could use that figure as a base." She wasn't arguing she seemed to be trying to help us both.

"Tell you what, I'll make the calls and set it up that way. Your rent will be four hundred bucks, plus a share of the prorated utilities." I was careful how I phrased it, since her share would be more than half. There was always a settling up fee at the end of the year. I did not want to eat that amount every year. Frankly, its going to be a bit more than it would be to pay your own utilities."

"How so?" she asked.

This is August, you are going to be paying for heat you will never use, if you leave before November. In other words you are paying for a prorated winter charge, when you will only be using summer utilities."

"I see maybe I should just go with the rent and pay my own utilities."

"I would, you can turn on the electricity and get myself one of those ceramics electric heaters, for chilly mornings, if you are still here in October. If you are here when the real freezes start ,I will insist that you turn on the gas to protect my pipes. It's all in the lease."

"So how much will I need to move in," She asked.

"First and last months rent, with any repairs coming out of the last month's rent. I need a thirty day notice and it is not an even month I charge a hundred a week for the odd weeks. You can make the repairs yourself and save the damage charges."

"Do you change for nail holes in the wall?"

"Not if the are the size of a nail, but I do charge for chunks missing if the nail rips the drywall. I will try to hang things for you, if you like. I think I can minimize the damage that way."

I was a little surprised when she pulled a checkbook from her back pocket. She quickly wrote me a check for eight hundred dollar. "Can I move in on Monday?" she asked.

"I suppose so."

"Is your check any good?"

"It is," she said with a laugh. She must have known from my grin that I was joking.

"If you stop by tomorrow, I'll have your copy of the lease ready. Don't worry it's going to be a month to month lease for you."

My long weekend was spent on the same routine, which had given me an eight pound weight loss in four weeks. I was pleased, but I still needed to lose at least four times as much. I also cleaned the yard, and cut the grass. I went to the nursery where I bought some shrubs to pep up those fifty year old bushes along the foundation of the house. The new ones, I was assured, would add color to the yard.

By noon Sunday I was bored with the duplex. I really needed the distraction of the scanner. I managed to spend ten hours with the scanner and my old negatives. I fell into bed Sunday night as exhausted as I would have been had I done real work. It was probably the whole weekend catching up with me.

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