Disaster Strikes Again at a Rasmussen Rental

This time it was our 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in Lakemoor, IL. When we could not sell our house last year, we scrambled to rent it out before we moved to MN. We had thought we found the perfect tenants. Although we never met the husband, she seemed so nice and genuine and like she would care for our house. The fact that they had four children under the age of 6 concerned us a bit, but we just wanted someone to take care of that mortgage.

We requested one month’s rent as a damage deposit ($1400). She had said that they had not gotten their damage deposit back from their previous renters yet but would pay $100/month towards our damage deposit until they got their money back (which was supposedly 45 days or so). So they paid us $750 bimonthly. Then December rolled around and she supposedly sent us a money order, but it never showed up. She supposedly canceled it and was supposed to get a refund in 8-12 weeks. The rest of the payments were prompted until the second payment for March rolled around. Her grandmother supposedly died and they had to go to Texas so they couldn’t make the payment. Then her husband was supposedly laid off from his job and couldn’t make April’s payment either. During this time we kept on asking about the half month’s rent from December and the damage deposit from their old landlords and never got a straight answer about either.

Well they couldn’t live there for free so they asked us for three weeks to get out. We told them that they are bound to their lease (end of September) unless we could find someone else to live there. They said they would leave the house in pristine condition.

Trevor decided to go work from the office in Chicago last week so that he could do a check out process with those tenants and have them sign a new contract saying that they would make payments to us for what they owe (two months’ rent so far). He called them and said he would be there on April 30 at 1 o’clock. To his surprise, they were gone, and this is where the most fun begins!

Trevor called me up when he got in the house at about 2:30 (he had to run to his aunt’s house to get a key because he didn’t have one). He called me to tell me the shape it was in. I bought a plane ticket at 3 o’clock for a 5 o’clock flight. I threw some clothes for me and Addison in a suitcase and rushed out the door.

Back to the house. They left garbage for us to dispose of in half of the two car garage. The house was a complete disaster. There was garbage everywhere. The walls were painted half way up the wall from her trying to cover up the dirt and grime from their children who seemed to be terrors. The carpets were stained beyond belief. There were stains in the master bedroom from where a console TV was on the floor (which they also left for us to dispose of). We think it is mold from rotting wood. The screen door needed to be replaced because there were huge holes in it and scratches from dogs on it. (They were not supposed to have dogs in the first place, but we have eye witnesses who told us otherwise.)






Needless to say, the carpets need to be replaced, every wall in the house needed to be painted, and the whole place needed heavy cleaning. Uncle Gary took two truck loads full of trash to the dumpster plus one truck load full to Goodwill. Trevor and I would have been there for a week or more working 12-hour days if we had to do it ourselves. Thank God for family. Dick, Debby, Krista, Eliya, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Gary, and our friend Rachel from IL all pitched in and helped. We got the place looking pristine. We worked out butts off from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Then we had the long six-hour drive home. We got home at about 11 on Sunday night just exhausted.

Some interesting things that we found in the house while cleaning and going through crap:
1. All four of their children’s social security cards and birth certificates.
2. Their marriage license.
3. Their old lease agreement from their previous landlord, of which we looked at and found that they did not leave a damage deposit at that house, so it was a lie when she told us that they would get it back since there never was one in the first place.
4. A credit card.

These people lived like pigs. They are despicable people who were deceitful and sleazy. Shame on them. They have no integrity. I am glad they have to answer to God for what they did. We will, however, do our best to make sure we ruin their lives until we get what they owe us (sue them for what they owe us in rent plus all the damage and travel expenses, etc.). I am glad they moved back to Texas because I would have been tempted to find them when we were in IL and give them a piece of my own mind.

Sorry this was so long. Trev feel free to add anything to the comment section that I missed.

Time to get back on our own...

Most of you know that Meghan and I have been living in the basement of her parents house for a while, since moving back to Minnesota. The purpose for this was to save up some money for a downpayment on a new place up here since we decided to rent our house in IL rather than sell it. It worked out fairly well for us and we recently decided it was time to move on even though it was very comfortable here at the Corcoran's.

We started searching for places about two months ago. The first step was getting pre-approved. We had our eyes on this one house (looked great, perfect location) so we pushed to get it done quickly only to see that house get pulled off the market the DAY we were pre-approved! CRAP...not the kind of start we were hoping for!

After spending some time evaluating where to live and what kinds of homes we wanted (luckily we have similar desires with homes) we started choosing places to look at. Meg found a place that she labelled her "dreamhome"...not only was it more than we talked about but it was out of price range and needed a lot of finishing, but there is NO denying that it was a STEAL and a place we probably could have lived in forever...and it was in the TPC neighborhood which is a sweet place . We arranged a time to see it so we could see if it was feasible or not but upon arranging our visit, we found out they had an offer come in. We still saw the place but realized we would have to move quickly. After looking the place over though, we quickly realized we were in over our heads, this place was totally too much work for us novices!! We moved on, a little sad because it was amazing!

About a week later an even better "dreamhome #2" showed up. It was perfect and a foreclosure so it was a STEAL. The house had an ALMOST finished lower level that would have been perfect for us. We could have lived there the rest of our lives though. After seeing it, we went home calculated how much we needed to spend to get the place finished up (needed appliances and stuff) and then on Monday (the next morning) we got ready to place an offer only to find out they had an accepted offer on Friday that they never told us about. Our realtor was LIVID with the other Realtor...we were crushed. We literally were moving in there in our heads already. We started to figure out that even though it seems like a buyers market, when the homes were priced right, you need to MOVE on them fast!!! It took us almost a week to even look at homes again, our spirits were crushed after missing out on this one! Tiffany, our realtor was great though and encouraged us that the right place is out there and to just be patient and move quickly when you find it!

We were quickly realizing that even though we were in a down market for homes, we weren't able to find the kind of place we'd be happy in for a long time in our price range since we didn't have much of a down payment. There wasn't much out there on the market that we were interested in now though so our second strategy was looking for townhouse or cheap home that we could be happy in for like 5 years and then after selling our place in IL, we'd find our new dreamhome. We set out to find a townhouse, something we both swore we wouldn't do again after the process of selling my last one. There were a few disappointments and a few with potential. We were quickly learning what we liked and didn't like in the townhouse market. At the end of the weekend we still didn't find a place we were excited about though. We came up with one more list of four places to look at the following Tuesday. There were two in particular that we were really anxious about.

We walked into the first house and didn't even make it upstairs...ew! No way we could make that one work. The next house had a great location that we loved but the arrangement would have been less than ideal so we moved on. Then we found our dream townhouse...we walked in and it was like alarms were going off in my head that this was the place! What? Oh Meg just told me that alarms were ACTUALLY going off...I guess the power was shut off and the alarms were going off. We couldn't bring Addison into the house so we took turns touring the house and our smiles grew bigger each time we switched off. Could this be THE one for us? Could we seriously end up living in Coon Rapids AGAIN!?!?

We conferred outside and came to the conclusion that this was THE house...we had to act quick. The house had been on the market for 4 days but was a STEAL. We also had an obstacle with having FHA financing which was not listed among the approved options by the bank that was selling the house and there were a few things that needed to be fixed up before we left. We rushed to our realtors office and wrote a very creative offer...then the waiting began.

Amazingly we got a call the next day...they took it! We were shocked...it was a long shot because banks are notorious for being completely inflexible. We've spent the last week figuring out what we need to buy for the place and hiring people to fix up a few things before the FHA assessment but we feel fairly confident that everything should work out and this is going to be our NEW home:

• 3 BR / 2.5 BA
• It has a lower level that is about 75% finished that will add an additional BR and BA...anyone wanna come help with that project?? :-) When we are done it will be a 4 BR, 3.5 BA townhouse...you don't see many of those on the market!
  
• All three bedrooms are upstairs and all have walk in closets
  
• Master suite with a walk-thru closet and a full master bath with whirlpool tub
• Nice detail work throughout the house
• All this for our offer of $135,000 (bank pays closing costs)
• The people bought it new in 2005 for $210,000!

We are very excited to move in. The closing is set for May 14. We've been out on the prowl for new appliances along with other fun stuff to finish the place off and make it our own!