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| Charlotte tries on my shirt in my mom's basement. |
We used to live in a sixplex near campus with a lot of character and a moat when it rained. Early this spring, Sarah started hearing rumors that our building would be renovated and we might lose our apartment. Whenever she dropped off the rent check, she’d ask about the rumors, and they said they’d let us know if something happened.
They didn't let us know. On June 9, a letter from the new owners informed us we had to be out by July 1. The company was renovating the apartments, essentially changing it from family housing to rent to single students so they could make more money.
We weren't big fans of this plan. I don’t think either of us feel we’re entitled to a whole lot — maybe not even our crummy apartment — but we looked at our baby girl and reasoned that kicking a cute, helpless larva out of her home had to be illegal.
Several blustery Facebook posts and a few minutes of Internet research later, we determined Heartless Business Monsters LLC was well within its rights to kick us out. We hadn't signed a lease, so we couldn't sue for breach of contract. And in Logan, you’re required to give tenants 15 days’ notice before dumping them onto the curb. They’d generously given us 22, so we started looking for new digs.
Then lady luck must have started feeling like a jerk, because the next day, our real estate agent showed us a house in our price range. She’d done that before, but previously all the houses we could afford had meth contamination or roofs slowly ceding the point to gravity. The house she showed us this time was clean and structurally sound. By the end of the week, we were under contract to buy it.
In order to purchase a home, you have to convince the bank you can reliably produce pieces of paper, whether it’s dollar bills, tax documents, papers bearing your signature or checks for $500 they say you’ll get back at some point. In that respect, we made it rain. We buried the bank under a fluttering paperslide, hoping somehow we could move into our new home as soon as we moved out of our old one.
Three-hole-punch drunk, the bank promptly began sorting our paper mountain. They squinted at one third of our papers for a bit, then emailed us, saying these weren't the ones they were looking for. They gave another third to the government, and that’s the last we've heard of those. The last third they shredded and used as hamster bedding, I bet.
By the end of the month, we were up against plan B — my parents’ basement. We packed up our belongings — by which I mean Sarah packed up all our stuff while I told her how I was a packing pro in my bachelor days and didn't have to start yet. We put our things in storage and set up camp at the ancestral home, ready to move out at any word from the bank.
At the beginning of the month, we had word that we’d be waiting at least until Aug. 28 on our USDA loan. It's Aug. 28 now, and the USDA just asked us to produce more papers. We’re enjoying our stay and my parents are wonderful housemates, but there’s a problem. The basement we’re camping in doubles as my mom’s preschool, and we have to move out at the end of the month.
But looking at my cute, helpless baby, I bet my mom’s inclined to keep her as a tenant, at least.
