The moving process is quite a long one. You prepare both physically and mentally for the move. This move was a little different because we hadn't found a final destination yet, but we knew that it was time to get our family re-united. Joseph had been living in Utah since the beginning of June. Originally he was supposed to start work in mid-April, but there were a few glitches with the acquisition that had to be cleared up before he could start. We decided a few months ago that we would let the kids finish the school year in Oceanside as well as all of their extra curricular activities. It was a good thing, since we started much later than we had anticipated.
The hard part of this move was that because Joseph was already gone, I had to help the kids finish off their final experiences in Oceanside as well as prepare the logistics of the move. I think I was in denial for a while because I called the moving company later in the game than I should have. Luckily they were able to squeeze us in and things worked smoothly that way.
While my parents were here at the end of June, they helped me prepare the house and they watched the kids while I organized and got rid of things I didn't want to move with us. They were so helpful. Dad was constantly heading to Home Depot for this or that and my mom was great to take the kids to the park and the pool. She even had a little garage sale with the kids in the driveway to sell our plaid couch. It looked a little ghetto, but it will be a memory they won't forget. I just need to find the picture.
The packers came to pack everything up on June 28th. I decided to get the kids out of the house, so we ran errands while the movers packed. I had everything organized so it was a really quick job for them. We had the option of staying in the home one more night, but I didn't want the boys messing with any of the boxes so we opted to go to a hotel. The Marriott Residence Inn became our home for the next 5 days. They fed us dinner on a few nights and breakfast every morning. I think the hardest part was at night when it was time to go to bed. I was so tired mentally and physically from being alone that I just wanted to go to sleep when my head hit the pillow, but the kids were always pretty wound up.
On June 29, the loaders came and put everything into the moving van. Everything went well with the exception of an ornery neighbor who was furious that the moving truck was in the front of the homes on our street. I happen to be there at the time, but let the movers deal with her. They left from there and met my mom the next morning in Utah at the storage units where we would be storing all of our belongings. Having to put things in storage also made things a little more complicated. It was really hard to pack. I had to ask the packers to label the clothing boxes and to put them at the front of the unit, in case we needed to access those boxes. We still don't feel we have everything we need, but we have enough to get by and I must say there is something satisfying about leaving all of your belongings and not having to worry about all that "stuff.'
The moving part ended up going very smoothly. The day after everything was moved out I had someone come clean the house and the carpets. Again, there was no way I would be able to physically get it all done by myself with all of my kids. The cleaning crew worked all day. (You would have thought we were all slobs with the time they took, but they had the place sparkling.) My friend Julia watched the kids that night so I could do a walk through with the owner. This is where things were not so smooth. I have to admit, I was in a tender place, I was preparing to move from a place that I loved. I had no idea where our family was going to be landing long term. I had been by myself for almost a month, so I was tired and spent. To make matters worse, my hormones were reaching their emotional peak for the month. The carpet cleaner decided to take a job earlier in the day far from where we live and it put him 3 hours later than he had told me he would start. This meant he wouldn't be finished when the landlord arrived. He charged me $700 to clean the 3700 square foot home. At 6:30, the owner and his wife pulled up. (I have to pre-empt this next part by mentioning that the garage is covered in epoxy flooring, so it's easy to clean and doesn't let the oil penetrate, I had wiped up and vacuumed out the garage beforehand.) He walked in the door and before he said anything he said, "There's a little grease spot on the garage floor, are you going to wipe that up before you go?" I got a lump in my throat and said, "Yea, I have paper towels in the car." I knew from that point on that it wasn't going to be good. The house really looked perfect and they didn't say one thing about how clean it was. I was so mad that I just wanted to leave as soon as I could. They were trying to make small talk as they nit-picked about this and that, and then the wife asked me if I had changed the filter on the refrigerator. I gave her a look of bewilderment and then told her, "No, there was no manual to be found, I didn't know I was supposed to." She said, "Well, you could have found that online." I was DONE! The landlord then said, well, I'll go ahead and deduct from your deposit that little bit of grease and have my maintenance guy wipe it up. At that point, I didn't care about our $3000 deposit. All I wanted was them to say, 'Thanks for having the house so clean." I seriously could have taken a swing at both of them. I was not feeling good feelings. As I left the house, they started to say, "Well we're going to miss you guys." Which I took as We're going to miss the nearly $3000 in rent that you pay every month, always a week early. Yes, the money in which we are pocketing because we haven't been paying our mortage for 2 years and we are going to deduct as much as we can from your deposit so we can pocket it also. The home received a foreclosure notice on it a few weeks ago, which makes me even more upset about this whole ordeal. He has no obligation to repair anything in the house. We had to keep our contract because our contract had nothing to do with the contract he made with the bank.
Anyway, according to California Renters Rights he has 21 days to return our deposit, before we can take him to small claims court. We'll see what happens. Honestly, I don't want to fight them on this, I would rather say good-bye to the money because I forgot to mention he is also a slimy attorney himself, so I think that even with the short-sale, foreclosure of the house, there is some under the table stuff going on. He would figure his way out of it.
I got in the car and started sobbing. I called Joseph, who was in Sonoma on business and started sobbing. He was at a restaurant having dinner and had to leave the table, I think I was that hysterical. By the time I had gotten to Julia's house to have dinner and pick up my kids I had pulled myself together a little more, but I talked things through with Julia and felt so much better. The silver lining in all of it, was that I was DONE with those people. I didn't have to go back to the house, as much as we loved living there, it was actually a blessing, because it made me ready to go!
We spent the next couple of days playing in the pool at the hotel, running last minute errands and saying good-bye to our favorite places in San Diego.
**I have to add a little post script and say that the 21 days he had to return our deposit came and went. In fact, 28 days came and went. I was still feeling some of the same awful feelings. I kindly emailed the landlord and reminded him that I expected a receipt for the repairs that he made along with the remaining portion of my deposit. He quickly responded that his wife had mailed it the day before. It arrived the next day with a kind note about them missing us and their best wishes for our new life here. Included was the full deposit for $3000. At first I read through my original feelings and felt I was a little overly emotional and maybe spoke too harshly. I wanted to erase them because my heart had changed, but I decided to leave them because my feelings were real then. They might not be the same now, but that's what they were then. So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
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