Visit house? Check!

My whirlwind trip... right. So, Dad and I went right over to the house when we arrived home. I was both dreading going in, and incredibly elated at the fact that the tenants who were in the house had finally left. They had broken the lease when they moved out and, at this point, I could not have cared less. They were costing me MORE to keep in the house than they were paying me in rent, which pretty much defeats the purpose of having renters in the house.

Aside from getting a property manager so that I won't have to deal with this situation again, I'll be managing the house differently also in that I'm 100% sure I WON'T be taking a chance on another tenant who has bad credit. Which is not to say everyone who has bad credit is a horrible person, not by a long shot, however, there's a good chance at a direct correlation.

I digress.

So, Dad and I went to look at the house. Here it is:

I crack me up.

The first thing that Dad showed me when we walked over was where the house's well is. Locating this well cost me $800 last month, so I damn well wanted to know where the hell the thing was. It had gone out the month before last, when the wires from the electrical box to the well shorted, as the owner two before me hadn't, well, bothered to actually insulate or protect the wires from the environment.

There are a lot of things that owner didn't do.

Next we wandered into the house. Knowing my nose is pretty much useless at this point, I immediately turned to Dad when we were in the house.

"What do you smell?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"Does it smell like mold?"

"No."

"Anything? Musty?"

"No."

F---ers. was all I could think in response.

I wandered through the house, looking at the work that had been done by the previous tenants, the work they were doing in exchange for reduced rent. The work was done was okay, I wouldn't say good. They kept all of the extra supplies I had bought. They left the windows unscraped and overpainted. And they have horrible taste in color.

The carpet was stained in a few places, so I was no longer surprised at their retarded insistence that I have the carpets cleaned three months AFTER they had moved in. Completely unsurprised, actually, as I had suspected this would be the real reason.

Still, the place didn't have any holes in the walls or broken windows or apparent damage to the insides. I have no idea if they were spiteful enough to send chemicals into the plumbing to ruin the septic system or not. At this point, I'm just going to have to hope for the best.

And find a property manager.