Looking Up

Last weekend, our landlord Dana came to show the house to a prospective buyer. We didn't want to leave our home while she showed it, and this made her angry beyond belief and she gave us a verbal eviction notice. However, we talked to Legal Aid and she has no legal grounds to evict us. They also told us that it is innapropriate for her to ask us to leave the house while she shows it. We didn't want a fight with Dana, so trying to take the higher road, Mike offered to sign an agreement to terminate the lease early. She still refused to buy us out of the lease. We're to the point where we just want to be done with her, so we gave in. We will end our lease on August 31. It'll be good to be rid of her once and for all.

However, this left us with the dilemna of where we were going to live. We searched like crazy all over Meridian and Nampa listings and went out to visit several places on Saturday. After a hard day with no really great leads, we came home for a bit of a rest and checked craigslist.org for any new listings. There was a new post about a pet friendly 3 bedroom, 2 bath duplex in Nampa for $750/mo. This was slightly on the higher side of what we were hoping for, but after looking at the places under $700 and not finding anything, we thought we'd try raising our housing budget. We called the number listed and spoke to the leasing agent Jenny who told us that they were actually renting for $650. This is a GREAT price, so we excitedly asked if we could set up a showing. A couple of hours later, she met us at the apartment. It was brand new construction, never before lived in. It was large and nice and absolutely incredible for that price, so we jumpped at it!

We had to fill out a rental applicaton which would check our credit and referals from past landlords. We were much more concerned about the referal from Dana than we were about a bankruptcy showing up on our credit report. We were right to be worried. Jenny had told us to expect a call from the building owner this afternoon as to weather or not we had gotten the apartment. After hearing nothing, Mike called Jenny to ask about the status of our application. She told us a very interesting story. It is her job to call on our referals and check our backgrounds. When she called Dana, she aparantly got an ear full of her ranting about what horrible people we are. Jenny said she was awful and crazy and she called Dana a few choice words that I won't repeat. She wasn't convinced about what Dana had said since she had met us and we didn't seem so horrible. So she called our landlord prior to Dana. We lived in a rather large complex owned by an even larger management agency. They told her that they remembered us and that we were excellent tenants. She called the building owner and told him about the conflicting reports from our landlords and told him her impression of us as being good clean and kind people. So the owner decided to drive by our house. He reported back to Jenny that the yard was emaculate and he couldn't imagine that the inside would be any different and that we were approved. Yay!

We will post pictures of the place on a later entry. We tried to take pictures the last time we were out there, but our camera died. Here are a few pictures from the craigslist listing.

Now all that's left is to finish packing... and to leave Dana a "present" hehe >:} See... I have this little scheme... part of us really craves revenge, but the better part of us wants our deposit back. So I've cooked up the perfect sabotage. Back when we moved in, Dana asked Mike to fertilize the yard 3 times a year. Once in the spring, once in the summer, and once in the fall. Mike accidentally over fertilized the front yard which caused it to grow at an uncontrollably fast rate. We had to mow about 2 times a week, and even doing that, the grass would still grow so long that it would start to seed. Dana, of course, complained even though we swore we had JUST mowed it 2 days earlier. I'm sure you've figured out where I'm going with this by now, but in case you haven't, I think it would be just perfect to buy a couple bags of fertilizer. It shouldn't be so difficult for her since she's out here every other day anyhow. (no, we won't really do it, but wouldn't it be fun?)

In other news, congratulations to Dave and Karen on their new baby! Make sure you get some pictures out ASAP! (blogs are great for that!)