My new job is about a 30 minute commute from my apartment near Shaker Square. Every day I travel through some of Cleveland’s most attractive suburbs on E. 55th and Buckeye. Apart from that, gas prices have never been higher and my car has never seemed to guzzle quite so quickly. Suffice it to say, it’s time to move.
I’ve been checking out houses with two friends who both want to live on the West side. I work on the border of Westlake and Bay Village, and they both work in Bay. The first house we looked into was an absolute trip. Although I have the owner’s name, and I really feel like publishing it, I’ll restrain and just tell you the story of a man you’ll likely grow to mistrust.
I’ll start with the pros. The house was spacious. There were four bedrooms, a full basement. There were some very nice spaces in the house. It’s location was perfect. It would probably be a 3 or 4 minute drive for me, and even less for my friends. However, it was dirty as all get out. For wanting to rent it out on the 12th (that’s about 15 minutes from now), nothing had been moved out. The house stuck out like a sore thumb on the road, because the foliage was billowing out from the house. The owner took no time to introduce himself or portray the house in any sort of favorable fashion. The house also had no stove or fridge; we had to provide those. In any case, we decided to go ahead and fill out the application, putting down the 15th as a move in date.
The next day, one of my friends gets a call from one of the owners, who says that we should meet them to put down a security deposit and sign the lease. Okay, at least things are moving forward. However, we didn’t spend all that much time in the house, and it’d be nice to check it out again, especially after seeing the terms of the lease. So we meet at the house the next day. I arrived about 15 minutes early to find the owners sitting on the front porch filling out the lease information. I approach them to say hello, perhaps make some idle conversation, or talk about the house. The only thing that comes out of their mouths are, “you’re a little early, aren’t you?” I said, “I suppose so,” and I walked back to my car, where I sat for 15 minutes for my friends to arrive.
Upon reviewing the lease, we noted that they had changed our move-in date to the 12th. Now this is a problem. First of all, because we had written the 15th on our application. Second, because I won’t have either the security deposit or the first month’s rent until the 15th. We ask the owners if we can go in the house and check it out a bit more thoroughly than during the open house, however they don’t have a key. ... Now the house is occupied by current tenants, but the actual owners don’t have a key? That doesn’t sound right to me. So we ask them if we can review the lease and get back with them. They agree to it, probably because my friend’s father decided to come along.
The next day the owner calls my friend and tells him they need a definite answer by 3:00. We told them we needed to review it, but now they need a definite answer. He calls me, and I call back the owner and tell them that we asked for some time to review the lease, and we would like to see the house again before finishing the deal. I ask if we could come see it on Monday, I was told no, outright. After a bit of back-and-forth, I tell her that if we can come see the house today, sometime after 5, we will make the decision on the spot. The owner says they need to check with the tenants, and they will get back with me. When I get the next call, I’m told they were unable to contact the tenants and the two owners talked it over and decided they wanted to retract their offer to us. What??! The people are literally the worst negotiators/business people/realtors I have ever dealt with in my life. What strikes me is how reasonably I handled the situation. I was willing to compromise. My guess is that there was something seriously shady about their operation. Otherwise, I just can’t understand why things took place the way they did.
Now, I’m off to my oh-so-humid bedroom for a mid-summer’s night dream. I’m going to view another house tomorrow, so here’s to hoping that goes better than the last.