On July 4th, 87C left the keys in our mailbox with a handwritten statement on notebook paper including the date and a witness. He was really worried about us filing an eviction with the court.
87C had a lot of help moving out (not by us, we just scheduled the dumpster arrival). Despite appearing to live a solitary, confined existence, he does have people who care about him and I hope those people are now more accountable for his well-being. He's 78 with prostate cancer and COPD. He doesn't want to be a bother. He pays his bills on time.
Andrew and I knew this place needed to be renovated. Initially our intent was to raise it to market rent. But we also knew the cabin was no longer safe nor sanitary, and as new landlords this pegged my 'liability' paranoia. As soon as we stepped foot in the emptied cabin, we knew we'd done the right thing. No one should be living like this and someone had to make the call.
Shame on previous owners for sprucing up the outside with roofing, siding and pretty flowers over the years, while allowing this to fester inside - the rent was paid and the tenant never asked for anything.
I rest my head at night knowing that 87C was treated with respect, grace, and straightforward business dealing by us and our realtor, who helped us rip off the "you've got to go" band-aid.
We invited our remaining tenants (3rd floor apartment, 20-something couple) to come take a look while we were tearing it apart, so they could better understand why we ended his verbal lease. They were aghast. They told us that 87C's family were all wearing masks during the move-out.
I hope that this realization, paired with the maintenance we've been doing in their unit (mold abatement, leak stoppage, lighting fixtures, faucet), are all they need to understand what kind of landlords we are. We're about to raise their rent and put them on a written lease, so these efforts to build trust and reputation will hopefully ease the news.
The state of the cabin and our progress over the last 8 days are best described with media. Below are three sequential video links and a link to a folder of photos.
The disaster clean-up guy told us he couldn't guarantee he could remove the nicotine smell and that it was one of the worst he'd seen.
Andrew removed all of the sheetrock yesterday in about 10 hours. (What an animal!) It finally doesn't smell like smoke.
https://youtu.be/9r2VB5deaMU
https://youtu.be/IQB2-abiVl8
https://youtu.be/2KJ5HXKg9Ik
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1YmKotckj2RQaxZ7Zo2HIXdGWWDKSSavu?usp=drive_link
Each of our 5 doors need our attention all at once right now:
- Last weekend we moved our furniture out of Wampanoag (left behind for the AirBnB period) and I'm doing one last clean for the inbound long-term tenants.
- 87C
- We got a bite for a furnished rental on the empty front cabin, so we've been furnishing that with Wampanoag spares and giving it a deep clean + minor maintenance.
- The house we live in now needs to be unpacked some more since getting our things from Wampanoag. But Glory!: Andrew is off an inflatable mattress for the first time since March. And we have real bathroom trash cans again.
- Working with our lawyer on the 3rd floor written lease.
... we wanted this, we're happy to be here, and we're exhausted.
We've sunk about $1200 on dumpster fees for the cabin renovation (we had to have it emptied and re-delivered!) and now we pause, think, enjoy some July travel, and rekindle our conversations with the experts.
