The Irony of Life, Part 34: Moving 3 times in 3 years

I spent four months trying to find a rental in Heber Springs, Arkansas.  There are none.  And then a friend from Colorado told me about a listing on Craig’s List about a woman who wanted  to share the house in the Edgemont Community, ten miles north of Durango.

Her name is Susie.  I called her number and we had a nice chat.  She was asking for a professional person, preferably a woman, to share her house.  She used her cell phone to do a Facetime with the house, showing me every room except the upstairs where she lived.

It’s a beautiful house in an area that has its own trails.  In Heber Springs, I walk the Sulphur Creek Trail and drive ten minutes to and from it.

Ironically, the pricing is much lower than a single house rented by a single person in Heber Springs.

Susie gave me the number of the property manager who emailed paperwork for me to fill in.  I did the best I could and then called the manager again.  Unlike Heber Springs, they do not request your social security number and the amounts of money in whatever bank accounts you might have.  That was reassuring to me.  (I read and article that said don’t give those numbers to anyone for any reason.)

I was smart enough to print two copies of the application for that house so I could delete those numbers for social security card and banks.  I mailed the application on January 10. Assuming they get it by January 17th, they might call or text me whether or not I have the rental.

If I do, this will be interesting to discover how I get someone to drive the U-Haul truck to Durango from Heber Springs.  I made a friend, Danny, who did odd-jobs after work; he’s a man who installs or fixes windows.  When I lived on Searcy Street in a rented house in Heber Springs, he did at least one of the many things I typed on a long list of things that needed to be fixed.

As a property manager for nearly 40 years, I told my new tenants that they had five days to make a list of things that needed to be repaired.  After five days, the owner would charge them to fix whatever items were broken.  I didn’t know how they did things in Arkansas so I did what I told my renters to do.  Danny was one of those guys who fixed things in the Searcy house.

I asked Danny if he would help me load the U-Haul and then drive it to Durango.me. He said he would because he wanted to experience Durango.

[my house in Heber Springs]

And then the winds blew some shingles off my roof and I had yet another hassle to deal with.  Stephen David, the adjuster for my home insurance with Farm Bureau came out to see the damage and then gave me the phone number for his friend, John Brand, owner of RoofTec.

John came out to assess the damage and told me the entire roof needed to be placed, he said, “because the guy who did it didn’t do it right.” he said he would “do it right” for $10,500. Holy Cow!  If I do that, I won’t have the money for the Colorado rental.

What’s interesting to me is that the man I paid $450 to do an appraisal for this house I bought on Lakeshore Dr. had no comments about the roof.

Because I had been a property manager for so long, I naturally wanted to call three roofers, and I’m glad I did. The one recommended by the man who built this house was Greg Simmons.  He said only one area needed to be replaced and he would do it for $225-250.  I asked when he could do it and he said “Now.”  And they are working now as I am typing this article!

Till next time,

Please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi, aka Dr. Young