This guy was just plain disgusting! After a few months I could actually smell his filth in the front area. I politely asked him to find new living quarters soon there-after. He did finally move and I spent almost a month cleaning, repainting, and re-carpeting the rear apartment. I was NOT a happy camper. So much for the policy of only letting people I know stay there. I guess you never “really” know someone until you live with them for a while.

The next renters in the rear apartment where a young couple who was a friend of a friend. They were nice people but very noisy. And did they fight a lot! Unfortunately they both liked to throw things at each other.

While this couple was staying in the rear apartment Mark H. moved back into the front bedroom. It seems his girlfriend wanted someone with a lot more money than he had. (She was a real piece of work) Anyway the status quo was maintained for about a year until the couple in the back apartment had a blow out that ended when she hit him over the head with the iron stove grating. It broke the grating, the stove, and his head. They moved out to their respective parents the next day.

Another month of clean up, repair, and repainting closely followed. I was beginning to not like the rental baron title. To avoid the clean up I decided not to rent out the rear for a while.

My methodology worked well for the rear but the point was mute as the front became the repair focus. One day not long after finishing up the back apartment, Mark H. decided to do his dishes. In the middle of running the water into the sink his girlfriend Deana, decided to lure him into the bedroom for a little intimate pleasure. An hour or so later when he returned to the kitchen he turned off the water…… Not only did he flood the entire kitchen, but the hallway and the bathroom where soaked as well. It took four days of running fans through the rooms to dry out the carpet enough not to squish when you walked on it.

The kitchen cabinets and the counter where made from compressed sawdust. When they got wet they started swelling and came apart in chunks. I cut away the areas that were swelling and swore that he would pay for them to be fixed. (Yeh right) I also removed the carpet in the kitchen and bathroom to replace them with linoleum.

Some time later Mark and Deana moved out into their own place leaving me with ruined cabinets and no rental income. Although a bit hard on the wallet, my girlfriend, Cindy S., and I spent quality time together without room mate or renter interruptions for a while. We did do a little decorating but mainly the house remained as it was until she gave me the ultimatum of marrying her by Christmas. While I did love her, I was not prepared to marry, nor willing to be coerced into a life commitment. Once she left me in March of the following year I decided it was time to make changes in my living situation.

The first step was to get together some money. As I was living pay check to paycheck there was no way I could afford to make the changes I wanted. So the back was again rented out. This renter was another co-worker named Mark S.. Though a bit rough around the edges, he is a pretty good person that cares about the way he lives. (Mark has now been there for over seven years.)