A Landlord’s Tale of Woe: **Kleenex Optional

Whilest away thinking Deep Thoughts and being all Zen and Stuff with The New Plan, one of our tenants moved out. Things went  fairly well until we arrived on the premises for cleaning and make-ready.

We were greeted with this cheery sight:

Amongst Big-Shot real estate investors, this is what’s commonly known as ’A Clue’ as in ‘Something Here is Seriously Remiss and the Landlord Needs to Get One.’

And peaking out amongst the branches of the flowering plum on this lovely spring morning…

Let’s get in close to fully appreciate the composition and detail of our artist in residence…

De-e-e-e-p breaths.

Repeat after me… ‘it could’ve been worse, it could’ve been worse…’

 By the Way, Exactly How Much *Was* That Deposit?

Much emoting ensued. Many hands waved about in a pointless, yet oddly satisfying manner. Panic maneuvers began, stalled, began again as the landlord in attendance realized that spray paint on the exterior might indicate unseen interior damages. At which point, Hand-Wringing with Muttering Sauce commenced whilest keys were fumbled, dropped, inserted in the wrong lock, etc.

After a long and detailed search of the inside (which thankfully yielded only a couple of dog-chewed miniblinds and scratches to the interior doors), the Brz cell phone bill took a hit as calls flew back and forth. It was decided that Mrs. Brz would call the tenant while the mister worked on lowering his blood pressure. This is an important point to this painfully long saga as the mrs possesses certain skillz which escape the mister, namely the ability to detach completely from The Situation At Hand and speak in a monotone, yet professional manner which sounds suspiciously like a telemarketer.

Waiting 4 hours before making the call doesn’t hurt either.

Much Ado About Something

There’s a happy ending to this tale of woe. The tenant took full responsibility and had the little artist out scrubbing pronto. Bricks and fence were cleaned to our satisfaction (I’m told a graffiti solvent was eventually employed.) And, after subtractions for cleaning and doggie damage, the former tenant even received a portion of her security deposit.

So… the tenant was relieved, the landlord was relieved and the little Brz’s were joyous because they didn’t have to scrub anything.

And we have yet another great story to embellish when we congregate around the driveway fire next fall.

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Tags: landlord, landlord tenant relationship, rent house damages, security deposit, tenant