Begging Prettily & Moving Anyway

Finally to the landlord's office today with the token basket of yummy goodness and photos of my fabulous garden and clean carports. I have no shame, I went to beg, and bribe, and beg some more in the hopes that we could stay here where we love it so very much.

I told him how much we loved the place, how we had made so many friends, and how fabulous the area was, he was surprised. He was also somewhat abashed when I told him that it was safer than safe, close to the kids' special activities and classes, and that he was uprooting our family from the place we put our hearts and souls into for three years and called home. Not that I was trying to berate him or anything, but I wanted him to know that this was a huge surprise, and how shocking/hard it was on us. I asked him if there was anything we had done, or anything we could have done differently to have been able to stay. He said we were perfect tenants.

Well, that didn't work out as planned, but I did find out why we were asked to leave, and why we can't possibly stay. See, the landlord thought that with there being so many crazy college kids in the area, and how busy it all is in the alley, and with no real yard to speak of, that tenants as great as us deserved more, better than we had. *boggle*

We can't possibly stay because he has already signed another lease with some college students to move in here in October. If he backed out, he'd be liable for breaking a contract.

So we're moving. He loves us, He's pleased with his yummy goodies, and because this is simply one of the most bizarre situations I've ever been in with a rental property, it does get weirder!

First and foremost, he doesn't want to loose us as tenants, but if we have to go somewhere else to rent, he will give us an absolutely glowing recommendation.

Secondly, because the new folks aren't moving in until October sometime, I don't have to rip up the yarden, and can keep it producing well into the fall. Seems the new tenants don't care if there is a veggie garden (or strangers) in their yard for the first month or so, so I can just pull up the plants when the natural time comes, then reseed with grass and cover with straw after that. Even though we won't be here. That's a relief!

We'll probably be staying here until the first week in September really, mainly because the tenants in the other place we are interested in are planning to move out on the first and that place'll have to be cleaned too. Then again, I did tell him that we had a carpet cleaner so we'd clean these carpets here before we left, so he won't be in too much of a rush to have us out since a cleaning crew would take about the same amount of time, not to mention more money...

I'm sure it will all work out fine. Especially now that I'm not dangling from a damned thread of uncertainty. I couldn't sleep at all last night, kept waking up from the strangest nightmares...

We are moving, there are options, there is work to do. With the special back-to-school parties (more fun and free goodies for the kids) this week, and all the sorting, gifting, and packing, we'll be hard pressed to get everything ready in time, but we'll give it our level best.

I still wish he would have asked us if we'd wanted to move before he forced the decision on us. *sigh* More prep time would have been really nice.

On a brighter note, there's these cute little houses built in the late 1800-early1900s that have a garage or storage shed, and some decent yard (from the looks of the listings) that I think we'll like a lot once we look at them in person, and they're not much further from everything than we are now... More on that after I look at the available places on Monday.

Armed with information, plans can now be created and followed.

Off I go to pack!