Raising the Rent

Gramma

Raising the rent needed to happen.  I have only raised the rent twice since Jodi has been here.  Both times she has thrown tantrums.  Last time I had to call her sister because she was having a breakdown.  The rent is very reasonable.  And, she has rarely helped with anything.  Dave, the financial advisor, and a friend who wanted to rent it were all for a hundred dollar minimum increase.  So I decided on fifty dollars. 

All attempts to deliver the news in person were thwarted by her need to be pot infused and in bed enjoying the effects.  I opted to write her a nice notecard stating the increase and offering my apologies for not delivering the news in person, as she was never available.  I get a text asking me to come out and talk to her.  Again, always in bed, never available.  She could come up to the house.  I was usually home. 

She left me a notecard saying she couldn't afford the increase and would be moving.  I rejoiced.  A girlfriend wanted to rent it in the fall when her lease was up.  The reality was that Jodi could afford the increase if she picked up a few extra hours at work.  She hadn't worked a forty hour week in years.  But, alas, too stubborn and lazy, she would move in with her aged mother.   They did not get along well.  The pot would be a problem, as the penchant for the supine position. 

I put an ad on Craig's List for a summer rental option,  The first call was from a bubbly cleaning lady.  She planned to move to Florida in the fall to live with her son.  The place she was renting had been sold.  She would get me some money to hold it for her.  A few days later, she texted to say she was moving to Florida early.  Turns out I had dodged a bullet.  Friends new who she was and that she liked meth and other drugs, including a constant flow of younger men picked up at the bar. 

Meanwhile, I had turned down others who were interested.  The next caller claimed to be a grad student at a college over a hundred miles away.  He was studying something that made me think of  bomb making.  His foreign accent was difficult to understand and I had to keep asking him to repeat himself.  He had a job lined up about four miles away, which he would get to on his bicycle.  I was glad when he didn't call back.  I didn't want to have to call the FBI about all the incendiary devices I had imagined would be under construction. 

Caller number three was a harness racer.  He wanted something for the summer that would be close to the racing casino.  As he was four hours into Wisconsin, he would send his girlfriend's mother to look at it.  Then he texted to ask if he could bring his dog,  I interviewed the dog.  Cujo was a neutered mastiff, got along with other animals, including cats, and wasn't a barker.  He would go to work with his owner.  His person agreed to pick up the dog bombs. 

The mother came in her Cadillac SUV to look at the place.  She was impressed.  Then I get a text from the girlfriend.  "Can I bring a couple friends to live with us."  What next. the horses and the goat and the pig they had?  "No.  There is not enough parking and it would be too much traffic.  It would be too chaotic for us." 

"We will have to pass then."  

Good.  I had envisioned the parties with her friends drinking and drugging and thinking our stuff was theirs.  We considered leaving the guesthouse unrented for the summer.