Tampa!
09/15/2010
I live in Tampa, Florida now. Figured that was good fodder for a personal blog. Only one other time did I ever live in a house (besides when I lived at home with my parents) where it was only one unit. And this is the first time I’ve ever lived alone.
I don’t own the house, I’m just renting it. I really like the house, but wow, I can see what a hassle home ownership can be. Already there has been loads of stuff to deal with.
The house didn’t come with a washer and dryer, so I bought those (Whirlpool Duets). The first load in the dryer, it broke. It didn’t get hot, so the clothes don’t dry. I call the place I bought them. They tell me to call a real repair shop and bill them. Repair guy shows up and it turns out it’s a blown fuse. He can replace the fuse, but the problem is the ventilation. He doesn’t do vents, so I gotta call a vent cleaning service. While he’s there, I have him look at the Fridge. It has water/ice, but it doesn’t work. He pulls out the fridge and the water isn’t hooked up. He’ll have to come back later.
In the meantime, the vent guy comes, cleans the vents ($80), dryer now works fine. Appliance guy comes back, hooks up the fridge, but the whole things use a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system under the sink. When it’s hooked up and sending water, it leaks. There is a drain clamp that isn’t sealed. Appliance guy says he can’t fix that, I’ll need a plumber. I look up a few online. Appliance guy says those are too expensive, use Craigslist. Applicance guy was about $125.
I find a handyman on Craigslist. He says he’ll come out tomorrow. He never shows. I call a real plumber. Real plumber comes and says it’s a weird part specific to RO systems and he can’t fix it. He does fix my running toilet though ($120). I call a water filtration specialist. They don’t do houses. Refers me to another company that does. The specialist says he’ll come out today. He never shows up. He’s my only hope, so I’m going to need to hound him.
Wow, quite the journey!
In the meantime, I’ve tried about four different lawn service companies. One answered my call, said they’d email back with more info. Never emailed. Another company had an online contact form, it didn’t work. Should have used Wufoo. Another company had an online contact form only. I submitted it, they didn’t get back to me. I tried a guy on Craigslist. TAMPA Craigslist. My house was too far away. IN TAMPA. He said he would have his buddy call me who does lawn care closer to me. He never called.
I just bought a fricking lawnmower. Then two hours after I’m home with the mower, a guy shows up and cuts the yard. Apparently the management company does it and they haven’t told the guy to quit yet since the house is rented. So now I both own a mower and have a mowing service. Cripes.
Now my toilet that I just got fixed is running again. I talk to the guy across the street, he says I really should get pest control. It’s affordable and a good idea.
HOLY COW WHEN DOES IT END?!
But I’m all good. In some ways it’s kinda fun juggling all these things getting the house perfect. I quite like it here, so it’ll all be worth it.
Hah. My wife and I bought a HUD (foreclosure) to fix up a couple years ago and it’s still not even finished. Houses can be a pain, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
That was quite a journey, looks like a first time experience you would never forget, and the next time you rent a house you’ll check up on all these things before paying the rent.
You should look at it this way, like you learn new things on the web, and sometimes the way you want the web page to look doesn’t turn out to look like that and looks a lot worse, but you learn that if HTML/CSS etc. is used that way, then the results will be like this.
The same way, you learn new things in the real world, and sometimes things get so confusing that a lot of money is spent trying out options until the problem is permanently fixed. So, then you learn that if I don’t check this, this, and that too before renting the house, then it could and most probably would end up like it’s going on for you.
Did you understand what I just said? I know, it look confusing (for me too) and if you don’t understand I’ll write a shorter version too.
Chris, you’re a do it yourself man when it comes to the web.
Perhaps becoming a “do it yourself” guy in those real world situations will yield benefits too. One thing I’ve been taught is that if you have to pay people to repair things in your house, you’ll easily end up spending thousands. Really sucks, I hope things work out.
I have similar problems. I had a leak in my bathroom, which was fixed several times by my landlord. He told me I can have a shower two months ago, still nothing. Then they put up some scaffolding to fix the roof, they worked on it for no more than 4 days, and then leave it there for 2 weeks. That caused a lot of problems with my set-top box. During the time when the scaffolding was up my ceiling in the bathroom fell down twice, and now I have a massive hole which still isn’t fixed. And it’s not even worth all the hassle, the flat is a size of a hamster cage (obviously it’s bigger, but then again, people are big as well), and we want to move to a house which has an actual garden, not a block of concrete…
Moving into a new place is always a hassle. Don’t stress, you can’t optimize the procedure of moving into a new apartment/house.
I’ve tried various methods (and I’m an Engineer). No matter what you do, no matter what you plan for, a move will always consume twice the time and three-fold the original budget/cost you originally planned for.
Good luck settling in! I just did myself, in Philly :)
I’ve done this more times than I’d wish. And only once have I NOT lived in a stand-alone place (current move included), both as an owner and renter, with roommates and solo. It’s always a pain in the ass, things come out of the woodwork from nowhere, and it’s generally more work. The flip side is no wall-to-wall noise from other folks. It makes the 3am work time easier.
Oh, and as a Pinellas / Hillsborough resident for 24+ years, your neighbor is right: get pest control.
sounds like you moved to florida.