I can’t decide which is better – not posting at all or posting about our current house drama. Trust me, nothing would make me happier than to post photos of Wito’s first birthday party (soon, I promise), but I can’t. Almost a week later, I haven’t even downloaded the photos from the camera. This house situation has us pulling our hair out in clumps. And to think of all of the blogs I’ve read recently about wanting to sell a house, wanting to buy a house, etc. We just want to STAY in our house.
When we received word that our place had sold as an investment property, we were thrilled. It was the best case scenario, actually – no moving, no more showings, and a 1-year lease from our new landlord ensuring this wouldn’t happen again in the near future. Music to my ears. In fact, if you saw me forcefully swatting the air this past week, I was probably high-fiving the universe.
We’ve had a slighty bumpy road with this property in the past year. The first time our landlord tried selling our house was when Wito was only 4 weeks old. When the Realtor called me about setting up a “schedule” of house showings, I nearly died laughing. A SCHEDULE? For a breast-feeding mother of a 4-week infant? Yeah, right.
We take exceptional care of this property. Our landlord continually tells us we are the best tenants he has ever dealt with. We spend our own money making improvements to this house because it’s our home. We really thought karma was on our side.
Until the call from the Realtor last night. It seems the house has some structural problems, which isn’t any surprise to us, given its age. Plumbing issues, large leaks, broken pipes – no biggie. I don’t mind the inconvenience of living in the property while the repairs are completed. Hell, we’ve already dealt with plenty. Painters + Plumbers + Realtors = Complete Nap Annihilation.
Then the kicker. The house has termites and needs to be fumigated.
Like this kind of fumigated.
We are an environmentally-friendly family. We eat organic. We use chlorine-free diapers and wipes. Wito plays with non-toxic toys on a non-toxic playmat. We use a green dry cleaning service. We do NOT use any toxic household cleaners (basically, all of the big-name brands).
Yet next week, our belongings will be enveloped in a mushroom cloud of lethal bromide gas. (Termite man – “Don’t worry! No residue!”, Whoorl – “That’s not what the EPA says…”)
This is rather disturbing.
When I explained our stance to the Realtor about toxic chemicals in our house, I asked for 30 days to allow us time to move out before the fumigation commenced. She briskly told me that wasn’t possible, the fumigation was proceeding next week and if we were to move out before then, we would be breaking our lease agreement and forfeiting thousands of dollars of our deposit.
Now, this just doesn’t seem right. We are currently attempting to educate ourselves on our rights as renters and working to stop this process from happening so quickly. If anyone out there knows anything about renter’s rights, I would love to hear from you.