Are you there God? Its me, Meghan.

WARNING!  THIS IS A BITTER POST!

So along with myself being laid off last June and my hubby experiencing long bouts of unemployment, we had a very negative renting experience with a house that we still own in Flat Rock.  (We got a great deal on our Trenton house while we were both gainfully employed and able to make both house payments if necessary) Our renters turned out to be complete losers-not sure why I was surprised since the only time we got rent on time was when they signed the lease.

So, after throwing $5000+ down the drain making the house payment on the house that THEY lived in (and, of course, paying the water bill since it was still in our name even though they were supposed to pay it) we finally got them evicted.  February 1st.  A month before their lease was up anyways.  The problem with not having any money is that it took us a while to get the house back to "livable" conditions (which included removing a no longer living Christmas tree and a Corona case full of dog feces).  Every door had been slammed nearly off the hinges and apparently they had locked one of the dogs in a bedroom closet, as the inside of the brand new closet door was scratched up like crazy and the molding was all chewed up.

So, it took us until about May but we bought new carpet and had the entire house painted on the inside.  We contacted a property management company so that we wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of finding tenants or basically doing anything with this property.  The day after we put the property management sign in the front yard we received a $200 ticket from the city of Flat Rock for not renewing a business license on a rental home.  Since we never HAD a business license and since no one had been living in there for months (and no one had been paying rent there for even longer) we weren't aware that we had to have a permit.  My husband went to city hall and explained.  The guy at city hall told us to just not pay the ticket and explain our situation to the judge when it went to court.  In the mean time we had some renters interested in moving in June 1.  So my husband paid the ticket so we wouldn't hold up the renters moving in.  Then we applied for the business license.  Which requires a $200 home safety inspection.  (Bill so far to get the house rentable?  $100 in cleaning, $800 for paint, $500 for carpet, $200 ticket, $200 inspection charge, $600 to replace ruined doors-so far $2400 that we don't have just lying around)  Once the inspection is complete, we have 30 days to complete everything on the list to make our house safe for the renters.  (side note-this inspection is not required if we were to sell the house-does that make any sense?)

We received our list of things that needed to be fixed a few days later.  Did I say list?  I meant PACKET.  I understand most of the issues-for example, making sure all outlets are grounded makes a house more safe.  But when it lists fixing a small dent in drywall as a SAFETY hazard that would prevent us from allowing someone to live there?  I think its a little ridiculous.  Hang a poster over it and be done with it.

So we have to hire a licensed electrician to fix all the outlets and put in light switches, etc. where code deems appropriate.  Plus a handyman to finish the rest of the laundry list.  We are looking at around $600 just to start the work.  We've been hustling try to figure out how to come up with the money so that we could get the work done within the 30 days and get our potential renters in the house and not have to choose a house payment over food.  We think Ryann could fetch a hefty sum on the black market but we have grown quite attached to her in the 2 years she's been around.

I have been praying and doing any other sort of ritual that might bring us some luck.  I guess God must have wanted to help but maybe misunderstood why I was so stressed out-because our June renters backed out on the day they were supposed to sign the lease.  Apparently they qualified for a mortgage and didn't feel like telling us for the past THREE WEEKS that we have not been advertising.  

I need a sign quick that doing the right thing is still the right thing to do.