One Toke Over The Line, Sweet Jose
I have been completely without the internet since we closed on the house, only able to access NLQ and email on the few days a week I've visited the restaurant at Witch's Rock. I have eaten my fill of Casadas and Nachos As Big As Your Ass as I've tried futilely to stay abreast of NLQ unsuccessfully.
The closing went off without a hitch, even as Jim and I both were busy seriously mistrusting and disliking our realtor. I managed to keep from telling him off by the skin of my teeth.
The day after the closing we moved into our new house, and I set forth on the Sisyphian task of cleaning our rental to exacting German standards. I scrubbed for five full days, we're talking taking apart every appliance that could be taken apart and hand scrubbing every surface. The realtor selling our German landlord's hotel/property/houses had already warned me that the Germans never gave back anyone's deposit, and I'd likely get nothing back. Taking the security deposit is common here in Costa Rica.
I was kind of aghast at that idea because everywhere I've rented I've either gotten the entire deposit back or almost all. We were once gigged by an apartment complex because I'd forgotten that the ice cube trays belonged with the fridge to them. I had something like eight sets, and it was an oversight that cost me 25 dollars. I always leave my rentals completely clean, even our German house.
The day we moved out we had an inspection with our landlord and she said everything looked good, but to stop by in a month to settle up. She would not release our money until we showed her a receipt for paying February's electric bill. Yesterday we paid that bill, showed up with the receipt and asked for our deposit. It didn't go well. Our landlord reinspected two weeks later, and, of course, there was dust, iguana turds falling out of that leaking ac unit with water and other things dirty from that draining water. There was only one thing of her long list I'd actually not cleaning, the drain in the master bath. Pure oversight. I got so mad I pretty much exploded.
I know, having a temper is not a good trait, but once someone tries to rip me off and pushes me beyond a certain point I explode. It happened, and we ended up getting half our deposit back. Our old landlords ended up renting the place out for a 50% increase over the price we paid. High tourist season in Costa Rica is here clearly when someone paid that much for that place where almost every appliance and the electrical on property was super screwed up.
Settling into the new house has been wonderful, even more so that the electricity for the place is not messed up and everything WORKS! I no longer fear a landlord opening the door and tromping in unexpectedly like our landlord liked to do. No one barging in to exclaim that I'm running the ac at too high a temp when I'm the one paying the damn electric bill. The dining room table is on the big tile patio under a ceiling fan and teak ceilings. The marble kitchen countertops have encouraged me to do a little baking again.
We have more mangoes than we could ever eat, mixed with all sorts of fruits. Daily we see several large tribes of howler monkeys, a big iguana and many different types of exotic birds. I have parrots that visit daily to raid the Star Fruit tree.
The only drag is that we are off the beaten path, meaning that we're still waiting for the internet provider in the area to come hook us up. Three weeks and still no internet! I've only been able to occasionally access Facebook if I use my phone, stand on a kitchen stool waving my cellphone vaguely in the direction of the lone cell phone tower. I'm reminded of the scene in season one 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmit' when the Mole women have to stand on each other's shoulders to access cell phone coverage in the bunker. The ISP says they will be at our house tomorrow afternoon. I hope so. I made and quilted three quilts in the last month out of boredom.
The funniest thing is when we have to give out directions to delivery guys and contractors. The only directions that everyone seems to understand is to tell them to turn right at the first strip club sign, turn right again at the second strip club sign, go past the strip club and turn left and you are there. Yes there is the only strip club/brothel in the area near us. Sometimes I can see the traffic going in and out late at night if I'm in the very back of our yard and I peak over the fence. But overall there is no noise, crime or unsavory things happening that originate at the strip club. Girls gotta make a living somehow. I just worry sometimes that the girls working there may have been sex trafficked in from Nicaragua.
But buying the house was just the start of this very busy time. We priced pools, getting seven different quotes before settling on a local company. Right now the backyard is dug up, filled with toiling Ticos putting in a pool of about 40 feet by 90 feet. Jim is busy pressure washing the ten foot tall concrete walls around the property and preparing to paint them. We're still getting quotes on having the gate replaced with a motorized one so we don't have to struggle with opening and shutting the ten foot tall metal security gate when we come and go.
I just started on my project, redoing the guesthouse in the front of the property. Jim is not understanding what I'm up to. Right now he keeps telling me he thinks the experimental spot of paint I put on one wall looks wrong. He always does this when I remodel and usually has to eat his critical words when I'm done. I'm painting the guesthouse the palest of turquoises on the walls and the cabinets a darker shade.
While we were in South Louisiana I'd purchased an entire stock of a Waverly decorating fabric, 15 yards, and I'm making curtains and the shower curtain out of this. It's white with turquoise shades of butterflies and flowers. Since we officially named the guesthouse the Butterfly Cottage and CR has a certain turquoise butterfly called the Blue Morpho I thought it would be a good theme. We have so many butterflies that visit the extensive flowering garden.
I hope to have the cottage finished by the time our kids arrive for a visit. Right now the Ticos putting in the pool are using the cottage fridge to store their meals and the bathroom for themselves. The first evening I went into there to paint I was in for a big shock. I opened the bathroom door and was almost knocked over by the cloud of pot fumes rolling out. Yes, the pool guys are smoking up the wacky weed right on the job! I'm not going to say anything about it because the contractor is doing a good job and he's working on rewiring the cottage as part of the contract. I was surprised to say the least, but if I had to run the machine that pounds the gravel into a solid layer before pouring the cement and having to lay iron bars under the cement I'd probably find it more interesting after having smoked a doobie.
The thing I thought might be an issue turned out to not be. We have ended up not putting a hot water tank in. By the time we knock off all the working on the house and shower we are THANKFUL for ice cold water in the shower. It's too warm here to ever take a hot shower.
The only fly in the ointment of our move is that our tenant in our Virginia house has defaulted on paying the rent by several months. We filed to have her evicted and she's countersuing us, claiming that she would have had plenty of money to pay the rent if we've had fixed the broken water main between the street and the house before renting the house to her. We did fix it as soon as we knew about it. About a three thousand dollar repair. The problem is that we knew nothing about it, it was fine when I moved out, and she didn't realize anything was wrong until she'd paid five water bills of about $200 each.
You would think when she received the first super high bill she would have reached out to our rental agent, or the water company. I know the few times I had a plumbing problem that resulted in a high bill I immediately got the water company out there to examine the system and had it fixed asap. I didn't sit there for five months and pay a crazy high bill with my thumb up my ass.
So she's refusing to leave, she's claiming we rented her a defective house. The problem with this is when we first started the eviction process back in February we bought airline tickets to come home in a few weeks from now, and tentatively lined up the shipping company to take everything we owned left in the storage room over our 2 car garage, pack it into a 20 shipping container and ship it to our new home in Tamarindo area. Plus put the house up for sale. Being the owner of a rental has not worked out as well as we hoped. The market is higher there now than it was a year ago. We'll get 50K more now so the time is right to sell and invest here in a place in the mountains and go between our two houses whenever the mood strikes us.
So I'm not even sure that she'll be out of the house, or if we'll be able to access our remaining things when we will be those very few days in Virginia.
The closing went off without a hitch, even as Jim and I both were busy seriously mistrusting and disliking our realtor. I managed to keep from telling him off by the skin of my teeth.
The day after the closing we moved into our new house, and I set forth on the Sisyphian task of cleaning our rental to exacting German standards. I scrubbed for five full days, we're talking taking apart every appliance that could be taken apart and hand scrubbing every surface. The realtor selling our German landlord's hotel/property/houses had already warned me that the Germans never gave back anyone's deposit, and I'd likely get nothing back. Taking the security deposit is common here in Costa Rica.
I was kind of aghast at that idea because everywhere I've rented I've either gotten the entire deposit back or almost all. We were once gigged by an apartment complex because I'd forgotten that the ice cube trays belonged with the fridge to them. I had something like eight sets, and it was an oversight that cost me 25 dollars. I always leave my rentals completely clean, even our German house.
The day we moved out we had an inspection with our landlord and she said everything looked good, but to stop by in a month to settle up. She would not release our money until we showed her a receipt for paying February's electric bill. Yesterday we paid that bill, showed up with the receipt and asked for our deposit. It didn't go well. Our landlord reinspected two weeks later, and, of course, there was dust, iguana turds falling out of that leaking ac unit with water and other things dirty from that draining water. There was only one thing of her long list I'd actually not cleaning, the drain in the master bath. Pure oversight. I got so mad I pretty much exploded.
I know, having a temper is not a good trait, but once someone tries to rip me off and pushes me beyond a certain point I explode. It happened, and we ended up getting half our deposit back. Our old landlords ended up renting the place out for a 50% increase over the price we paid. High tourist season in Costa Rica is here clearly when someone paid that much for that place where almost every appliance and the electrical on property was super screwed up.
Settling into the new house has been wonderful, even more so that the electricity for the place is not messed up and everything WORKS! I no longer fear a landlord opening the door and tromping in unexpectedly like our landlord liked to do. No one barging in to exclaim that I'm running the ac at too high a temp when I'm the one paying the damn electric bill. The dining room table is on the big tile patio under a ceiling fan and teak ceilings. The marble kitchen countertops have encouraged me to do a little baking again.
We have more mangoes than we could ever eat, mixed with all sorts of fruits. Daily we see several large tribes of howler monkeys, a big iguana and many different types of exotic birds. I have parrots that visit daily to raid the Star Fruit tree.
The only drag is that we are off the beaten path, meaning that we're still waiting for the internet provider in the area to come hook us up. Three weeks and still no internet! I've only been able to occasionally access Facebook if I use my phone, stand on a kitchen stool waving my cellphone vaguely in the direction of the lone cell phone tower. I'm reminded of the scene in season one 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmit' when the Mole women have to stand on each other's shoulders to access cell phone coverage in the bunker. The ISP says they will be at our house tomorrow afternoon. I hope so. I made and quilted three quilts in the last month out of boredom.
The funniest thing is when we have to give out directions to delivery guys and contractors. The only directions that everyone seems to understand is to tell them to turn right at the first strip club sign, turn right again at the second strip club sign, go past the strip club and turn left and you are there. Yes there is the only strip club/brothel in the area near us. Sometimes I can see the traffic going in and out late at night if I'm in the very back of our yard and I peak over the fence. But overall there is no noise, crime or unsavory things happening that originate at the strip club. Girls gotta make a living somehow. I just worry sometimes that the girls working there may have been sex trafficked in from Nicaragua.
But buying the house was just the start of this very busy time. We priced pools, getting seven different quotes before settling on a local company. Right now the backyard is dug up, filled with toiling Ticos putting in a pool of about 40 feet by 90 feet. Jim is busy pressure washing the ten foot tall concrete walls around the property and preparing to paint them. We're still getting quotes on having the gate replaced with a motorized one so we don't have to struggle with opening and shutting the ten foot tall metal security gate when we come and go.
I just started on my project, redoing the guesthouse in the front of the property. Jim is not understanding what I'm up to. Right now he keeps telling me he thinks the experimental spot of paint I put on one wall looks wrong. He always does this when I remodel and usually has to eat his critical words when I'm done. I'm painting the guesthouse the palest of turquoises on the walls and the cabinets a darker shade.
While we were in South Louisiana I'd purchased an entire stock of a Waverly decorating fabric, 15 yards, and I'm making curtains and the shower curtain out of this. It's white with turquoise shades of butterflies and flowers. Since we officially named the guesthouse the Butterfly Cottage and CR has a certain turquoise butterfly called the Blue Morpho I thought it would be a good theme. We have so many butterflies that visit the extensive flowering garden.
I hope to have the cottage finished by the time our kids arrive for a visit. Right now the Ticos putting in the pool are using the cottage fridge to store their meals and the bathroom for themselves. The first evening I went into there to paint I was in for a big shock. I opened the bathroom door and was almost knocked over by the cloud of pot fumes rolling out. Yes, the pool guys are smoking up the wacky weed right on the job! I'm not going to say anything about it because the contractor is doing a good job and he's working on rewiring the cottage as part of the contract. I was surprised to say the least, but if I had to run the machine that pounds the gravel into a solid layer before pouring the cement and having to lay iron bars under the cement I'd probably find it more interesting after having smoked a doobie.
The thing I thought might be an issue turned out to not be. We have ended up not putting a hot water tank in. By the time we knock off all the working on the house and shower we are THANKFUL for ice cold water in the shower. It's too warm here to ever take a hot shower.
The only fly in the ointment of our move is that our tenant in our Virginia house has defaulted on paying the rent by several months. We filed to have her evicted and she's countersuing us, claiming that she would have had plenty of money to pay the rent if we've had fixed the broken water main between the street and the house before renting the house to her. We did fix it as soon as we knew about it. About a three thousand dollar repair. The problem is that we knew nothing about it, it was fine when I moved out, and she didn't realize anything was wrong until she'd paid five water bills of about $200 each.
You would think when she received the first super high bill she would have reached out to our rental agent, or the water company. I know the few times I had a plumbing problem that resulted in a high bill I immediately got the water company out there to examine the system and had it fixed asap. I didn't sit there for five months and pay a crazy high bill with my thumb up my ass.
So she's refusing to leave, she's claiming we rented her a defective house. The problem with this is when we first started the eviction process back in February we bought airline tickets to come home in a few weeks from now, and tentatively lined up the shipping company to take everything we owned left in the storage room over our 2 car garage, pack it into a 20 shipping container and ship it to our new home in Tamarindo area. Plus put the house up for sale. Being the owner of a rental has not worked out as well as we hoped. The market is higher there now than it was a year ago. We'll get 50K more now so the time is right to sell and invest here in a place in the mountains and go between our two houses whenever the mood strikes us.
So I'm not even sure that she'll be out of the house, or if we'll be able to access our remaining things when we will be those very few days in Virginia.
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