The Pink Shoe Diaries

to make a long story short: we are not moving into the two bedroom.

to make a long story long: here goes.

so, all along we were not dying to leave our apartment. it was basically "if you give us a good deal on a two-bed then we will move there, if not we'll renew our lease in this apartment". this was what we told Jim. now, Jim is an awesome landlord. he is fair, he fixes things right away, he's really friendly and you can tell he cares about his tenants. unfortunately, Jim had a medical emergency (brain aneurism) about 1.5 weeks ago and has been in the hospital (expected to make it thank god!) so we have been dealing with his wife, Carrie.

Carrie is, now how can i put this? a bitch on wheels. she doesn't really know anything about the real estate business or the business of renting and maintaining apartments but she THINKS she does because her husband has been doing it for thirty years.

anyway, Carrie is the one who showed us the two bed last Friday. we told her about the deal we had with Jim, and how he was only going to be charging us $100/month more than we were paying now, and how we didn't need to pay any first/last security because we paid all that in October of 2004 when we moved in, and we were staying in the same complex.

makes sense, right?

Carrie agreed with this and after our "final walk-through", when we were standing in the kitchen discussing where the baker's rack would go, she says "ok, let's talk numbers".

excuse me? what numbers.

apparently since we only paid 1/2 month's rent as a security deposit last year (that was all Jim asked for). we owed her the balance on that plus the difference between that and the rent on the new place. basically about $800. NOT what we had discussed with Jim. at all.

so we told her that Jim said that we didn't need to pay anything to move in since it was like we were essentially staying in the same place. and they still had our last month's rent and security from last year.

"he would never say that" she said haughtily. "i know my husband, we are like this (crosses fingers and sticks them in my face) and that is not how he does business"

here is me

but what can i say? i know she is upset because her husband is very ill but she should NOT be taking it out on us. and why would we lie about what Jim said? he is awake and talking. she can ask him herself!

so basically i am like "well we can work something out, right?" and she is like "probably". so we say we need to think about it and we go back to our place. we give her permission to start showing our place while we think about it.

it isn't just the money, although that is annoying. it's the principle of it. we made a deal with our landlord and his wife is renegging on it and she NEVER even mentioned having to pay the $800 until after i was like "we'll take this place". like she was waiting for me to like the place before she stuck it to me.

then yesterday we decided to call Carrie and say that if she was going to charge us $800 PLUS more rent a month just to move into another apartment then we would just stay where we are.

"Oh well i already rented out your place!" she said casually.

Excuse me? we haven't even signed a lease for the two-bed yet? how can you rent out our apartment from under us? we TOLD you we had to think about it!!!

and she dropped off the lease at our apartment (FYI she showed our place yesterday too and didnt lock the front door when she left and then DENIED it when we asked her about it). and first of all my last name was wrong on the lease, and second of all the rent was $150 higher than what we had discussed. she said it was to "make up for the lack of 1/2 of the security deposit!". hello! if i wanted to pay $150/m more than what we agreed on i would be living in a MUCH nicer place!

at this point, i was like "F this B" . so i made a few appointments at other apartment complexes and told Adam to tell Carrie that we were gonna go somewhere else. I don't need this strong-arming.

that's when she told us if we left we wouldn't get our security deposit OR last month's rent back (our lease expires Aug. 31 and we already paid Aug rent because we thought we were staying AND we also paid "last months rent" when we moved in). We explained that we WANTED to stay but we were being lied to and felt like we were being forced into getting an apartment we didn't want. Carrie told us that since we didnt give her two months notice that we were leaving, she wasn't obligated to return that $1450 to us.

i know, right, what a bitch! the only reason we didnt give 2 months notice is because we wanted to STAY in the complex and then at the last minute you changed the deal. that's not OUR fault!

then she tells us that they want us to stay. that she didn't really rent out our place. so apparently she was just "saying that" to try and get us into a two bedroom and pay that $800.

so it came down to stay where we are, in a place we like, and pay no money. leave the complex and lose $1450. or move into that two bedroom and pay $150/month more rent than we agreed on.

um, we're staying where we are. i can't take this housing madness anymore!

but we ARE getting a new living room set and kitchen set and curtains so it's almost like we're moving, right?

right

oh and we are still having a housewarming party. why the H not?