Part The Last, aka, "I'm lazy and haven't had time to finish this string, dammit"

So one of my readers, let's call him Ete Packley, recently complained that I hadn't posted anything in a while. Well, Ete, the reason is that I've been dealing with getting new weiner tenants into my places to replace two of the old weiners.

But I thought you were selling one of your places, Disgruntled????

Part III - "The Sale That Wasn't" aka "Why I Hate Water"

So, there I was, back from vacation, and I'm immediately confronted with a $5000+ AC replacement. Fuck.

So, after replacing that, the tenants finally moved out. I strolled through the now-empty house and surveyed the scene, much like Lewis and Clark admiring the Pacific Northwest. And, like Lewis and Clark, I found that I was surrounded by filth, pet shit/piss, and a terrible smell! I immediately set out to get the carpet de-pet-stinked and de-stained.

When I first bought the place 10 months before, I, for some reason, decided that the soon-to-be new tenants needed a carpet that had just been shampooed and whatnot. Quite possibly the worst $150 I have ever spent. But, I was happy with the service this particular company (Absolute Carpet Care for those scoring at home) did on my carpet. So, I cheerfully called them up and asked when the earliest they could come was.

"In about three weeks."

Unfortunately, I had it in my mind that I would have sold it by around then (having figured on doing about two weeks worth of painting, etc. and then having an open house get flooded - foreshadowing - by bidders), so I decided to go with someone else. Since I'm only going to mention companies I recommend by name, and not ones who suck, I won't name this company, but let's just say that even though our NATION is WIDE, I doubt you could find a less inspired carpet cleaning job done. Still, I was pretty confident about the market, despite what the Washington Compost (real original Disgruntled...) was spewing.

I spent about two weeks repainting the place, being careful not to spill anything on the carpet (this will be important later), and undertook a grueling de-wallpapering of the kitchen (just grueling), and finally got the place in, what I thought, was selling shape. My realtor put the place up for sale at $509,000 ($55,000 more than I paid for it - I have no idea what he based this on), and we planned an open house. I began allocating the profits in my mind. $100,000 Crack Party, here we come!!!

Except that only one person showed up to the Open House.

My realtor attributed the poor showing to a number of factors: bad time of the year to sell (Christ I could have strangled him when he said that), needs new carpet, possibly repaint the bathrooms, new deck maybe. I thought perhaps it was the lack of a For Sale sign in the front yard, or the lack of directional signs, or the fact that it was advertised mostly on Craigslist (good for rentals, not as much for sales).

I decided, reluctantly, to replace the carpet and put hardwood floors in the living room/dining room area. I went with Empire Today. Why?

(in a singing woman's voice) "800-588-2300 EMPIIIRE (today)"

Not to drag this thing out, but basically, I paid up the ass for the flooring and the carpet, but, honestly, it looked good. Killed my leave at work while waiting on them to finish it, but, hey, it is what it is.

So, now I had brand-new carpets and flooring, the dog shit and cat piss smell was gone, and the place was clearly showable. As a matter of fact, it looked freaking spectacular. My realtor set up an open house on a beautiful Sunday, and I was in quite a happy mood. I went out to brunch at Cracker Barrel (the Disgruntled Investor's favorite restaurant) with the Disgruntled Girlfriend and the Disgruntled Girlfriend's Disgruntled Mother. I ordered Big Sam's Breakfast Special or something, and made sure they gave me extra gravy for the biscuits.

As we were leaving the Greatest Restaurant On Earth, about fifteen minutes before the open house was to begin, I received this phone call from my realtor:

"Um..hi, soon-to-be-Disgruntled Investor...I think you might want to come over here. I'm at the place. There's a bit of a...um...problem. Bring a mop if you have one."

In some previous life, I must have donkey-punched a nun or something, because this was getting ridiculous. When I painted the kitchen, I had pulled the refrigerator out a bit to get behind it, and, evidently, had pulled too hard, because at some point, a slow drip developed from the water line. And in the week since I had been at the place, the drips had accumulated into a lake. Lake Fuck You Disgruntled Investor. All this wouldn't have been so bad, except that water and hardwood flooring do not mix. Hardwood flooring is a bit of a tender bitch, and buckles like the Atlanta Braves in the playoffs (sigh). This is precisely the scene I was confronted with on the beautiful, hope-filled Sunday Open House day.

So, I got a contractor to fix the foyer hardwood flooring, and Empire to fix the laminate flooring in the dining/living room. The day Empire came out to fix the flooring, I happened to glance out the window. It looked like some people were doing work on a fellow townhome's garden. Except...

Wait a minute, they don't have any gardening tools. And those don't look like illegal aliens.

What the, what the hell are they putting up??? Wait...NOOOOOOO!!!!!

FOR SALE!!!!

The one thing I had counted on, the one saving grace, was the lack of competition in the neighborhood. Well, as long as they weren't trying to undersell me (I had lowered the price to $480,000 at this point) I'd be alright. I went home and checked out the realtor's website and quickly found the listing for this place, which was in most ways comparable to mine.

"Beautiful, spacious Arlington 3-level TH for sale - $445,000"


Six months later, I'm trying to find a replacement for one of the weiner tenants in the place.

I'm quite disgruntled.