How quickly things change : (

Well...bad news.  I don't have a renter. 

When I called the man's landlord (property manager) on Monday to verify that he was a good tenant, his boys weren't a problem with the neighbors, and that he paid his rent on time, I got a very good report, and the man immediately called my tenant and offered to match my rent.  Of course, he decided to stay - why not with lower rent for a larger place and not having to move?  I had his check, but we didn't sign the lease, I wanted to call his employer and landlord first and sign it on Monday.

Good for him, not so good for his current landlord, and a real bummer for me.  So, the condo is back on the market.

I learned a good lesson.  I was having an issue trying to find a place to run a credit report for another person.  My daughter, Kristy, said to have them run their own credit and bring it along with them.  If I have a potential tenant who is willing to hand over the check with the application and their credit report, and that info matches their credit report info, I'm going to pull out the lease and get it signed right then, assuming I feel good about them.  It says in the lease that if the info in their app is not true and correct, I can cancel the lease.  Do any of you have experience with this?  How do you handle it?

Live and learn.

I have the Craig's List ad up again and the For Rent sign out front.  Once the Estate Sale is over and the house is empty, carpet cleaned and the place cleaned up, I'm going to take out a newspaper ad. My son suggested that.  Craig's List, of course, is free, but a 3-day rental ad in the local paper, the Union Tribune, is $54 for three days for 4 lines, which is about 32-36 characters.  Wow!  That's expensive for not very many words.  I checked the newspaper ads on line, and there were hardly any in my area, and I can see why.

I'd actually rather rent to someone older, and lots of older people, not RVers, but regular older people, don't have computers and wouldn't think of looking at Craig's List.  They would still be searching in the paper, so I thought I'd give it a try for the weekend after next. 

I had to get out of my house. The last two nights Katie and I slept in my sleeping bag on a bare mattress, and last night we were surrounded by other people's junk.  (When they do Estate Sales, they bring in lots of unsold stuff from other sales, so when they take the photos to put on-line the place looks packed.  It did.  And I was sleeping amongst it all.  I was thinking of all the "other people's dust" we were breathing in, and I opened the window.  I finally went to sleep, but didnt' sleep well.

I decided to stay in The Palms, somewhere - anywhere, for the duration.  I put my makeup, four changes of clothes, the sleeping bag and my quilt and my coffee  maker in the car before I left for work.  After work I drove to a hotel next door to our building, our parking lots adjoin, and asked the General Manger if I could stay in his parking lot for tonight and tomorrow night and he said it was no problem.  He was really nice.  Said I could run my generator, I'd be far enough away that it wouldn't bother anyone.  So I drove to the storage lot and transferred everything to The Palms, locked the car, and headed back to work.

I'm now ensconced in the almost perfectly level, very quiet, rear parking lot of the hotel next door to work.  The Gen. Mgr. asked me to check in with them when I was settled.  I parked, got some KFC and milk and microwave popcorn, brought it back to The Palms and then checked in with them.  That's when I realized they have a restaurant inside the hotel.  They serve breakfast and dinner, so tomorrow I'm going to have at least dinner there, and probably breakfast tomorrow or Thursday before work.  It's the least I can do.  I was so relieved when he was so nice about it. 

Katie is happily sleeping on the couch across from me right now. She ate her dinner, played with her little tennis ball for a while.  I threw it from the couch into the kitchen, but it isn't far, and she was sliding on the floor.  She had to be really careful not to slip, she would have done a header into the cupboards. I got out two more balls, and she had a good time juggling them for a while.

It's starting to cool down now. I had the A/C on for a little while, then turned it off, opened one window and turned the Fantastic Fan.  It must be drawing the cool air in through the window and taking the warm air up and out, because it's getting very cool in here very quickly.  It really is Fantastic!

I noticed I have 4G here.  Nice!  I sure hope I have it in Santee, but I kind of doubt I will.

I couldn't understand how some of you RVers could park sooooo close to each other and not feel like you've lost your privacy.  But as I sat here eating my KFC and drinking my ice cold milk, I was looking out the open windows at all the AT&T trucks slowly surrounding me, guys getting out with their rolling luggage and heading to the hotel. One man with a clipboard was walking around organizing them all.  I felt like I was in my own little bubble, and I didn't see one man look into my windows.  I felt like this is my little world and they were respecting that.  So now I get it a little better.  Maybe I wouldn't mind one of those RV sites so much.

And I'm also re-thinking the thick forested areas a little bit, too.  Sap on my RV????  Dust and rain have gotten it dirty enough. And loss of the Internet?????  I don't know, maybe the wide open spaces would be better.  I'm gong to have to try it all out and see what works best for me.  but I have to admit, I AM starting to understand.

Now I'm going to relax and see if I can get Brothers and Sisters on Channel 131 - it got pre-empted on Sunday night due to the Bin Ladin news.

From Me and My Dog, have a nice Wednesday, everyone!  : )