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November 18, 2005
What Went Wrong: Part IV
Today is the fourth and final installment in our miniseries postmortem of our move. Thanks to everyone who's kept reading with us so far, even if it's raised your blood-pressure! It's nice to know our friends are still out there (because they're sure as hell not in Kingston, NY.)
The Aftermath
Sophie had slept great our first week at Sarah & Anthony's, despite being in a new environment and sleeping in her Pack'N'Play. After the restless night at the hotel, we were all looking forward to getting a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, Sophie's third tooth started coming in right after we got back to New Jersey; she was up most of the night, after which I got back in the car and returned to Kingston to meet our realtor. Brandie & Sophie stayed behind with the cat and dog, to hopefully expedite the review process. We only had two more days to find an alternate rental before the moving truck showed up with our stuff.
I was exhausted, but it was far easier to be in the car all day without having to worry about the stress on the baby and animals. The realtor & I drove around to four or five places in the area, then returned to the rental to take some pictures and pick up our mail. Our criteria (a short-term or month-to-month lease, a dog and a cat) turned out to be more limiting than we expected, so the list of potential rentals was short and less than ideal.
At sunset, I drove back to New Jersey without having found a place. There were a few possibilities that we wanted to sleep on, but nothing concrete. That night Sophie was up a lot again, and my cold worsened. I decided to stay home the next day to look through the online classifieds again and see if we could find anything ourselves. Our realtor offered to drive around and check out some places for us. In the meantime, we found out the landlord at the rental we weren't going to occupy wasn't pleased with our decision. They were going to keep all of our deposit (nearly $5,000), and threatened to sue us for the remainder (another $5,000). We were going to need legal help.
Our realtor referred us to a lawyer her firm recommended. Brandie called, and within a few minutes he had questioned her level of education ("I assume you're college-educated, and you signed the lease anyway?") and mental health ("And you're not mentally handicapped in any way?"). He also wasn't interested in hearing any further details about the property. Suffice it to say it was another unpleasant call, and this unsolicited grief was from someone we wanted to pay to help us.
In the end, we didn't find a place in time. We drove back up Thursday morning to meet the mover, and helped unload all our belongings into a storage unit. It took us several hours, during which the weather turned cold. Afterwards we went to a diner for some chili, drove around a little bit and then headed back to New Jersey again. We were beat.
We stayed at Sarah & Anthony's that night, then packed up the car another time for the trip up to George & Sue's. We arrived without event, and have been happily relaxing here since.
The happy ending? It's too soon to say, since a lot is still up in the air. On the bright side, we've caught up on a lot of lost time with our East Coast family. We both dreamed about spending a full fall cycle on this coast, and we've gotten to enjoy a great one here. Thanks to Dad & Sue and Sarah & Anthony for allowing us safe havens in this storm we're weathering - we couldn't do it without you. We also hope there's never need for us to return the favor, but we would in a heartbeat!
Posted by Jacob at November 18, 2005 3:17 PM
Comments
ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
The nerve! I can't believe all the hell you all have been thru. I cannot believe that landlord, how could they possibly think that place was in any state to be rented in? What a dump!!! It's a shame you cant sue them for causing such a disruption to your lives. I think you should seek an alternate legal counsel esp. if the LL
thinks they can squeeze more $ out of you for providing you nothing but grief. I am just happy to hear you are all now safely tucked in at George's and Sue and that your sis and Anthony provided you much comfort at this time. I am sorry to have heard that your intro to the east coast was such a bad one. Don't let a few bad apples spoil your soon to be wonderful experience to be near your family and all the good times ahead. Thanks for keeping such a thoroughly documented website, the sweet parts and the aggravating and blood pressure rising part. it really is good to be able to share with your day to days. (Gosh, keeping a website must be a fulltime job.) Keep warm and rest up lots!!!
Judy
Posted by: Judy at November 18, 2005 9:32 PM
I just knew that was JY-B in the comment above even before I read the byline. :)
Well, thank goodness for your family out there! Just imagine, the experience would have been 10x worse if you didn't know anybody in the area. And I have to think that things can only get better from this point forward.
Posted by: Space Colonel Matt at November 19, 2005 11:13 PM