Hey Yall! How has your week been so far? Mine has been stressful. I've been dealing with my slumlord landlord harassing me these past few weeks.
You may have noticed I haven't been that active on social media; I haven't been on the go as I'm usually am, and that's all because of my greaseball landlord and what he has been putting me through.
I have mentioned to y'all recently that I've been going through some drama with him. Well, let me tell you some more details of the stunts this scumbag has been pulling.
Three weeks ago, my landlord called me telling me he has to sell the house starting in July since his mortgage on his house he lives in has gone up $400. This sounds like B.S., but anyway, I figured that him selling in July would give me some time to find a place to move to, hoping I would find something in the same school district. However, since this is the start of moving season, it has been hard to find places for rent, also places I do find is either too high, or someone has already leased the property.
Every other day, my landlord would harass me asking me have I found a place yet. Come on now, didn't he say he was going to sell the house in July? Why the rush? We pay our rent on time, every time! We painted and cleaned his house before we moved in since his lazy butt didn't want to, put up blinds in the house because some were missing and broken.
I kept running into dead ends searching for places, so I came up with a plan to buy a house, yes buy a house! My fellow blog buddy Kita recently purchased a home, and I was talking to her about my situation and she explained to me that the purchase of a house is a good idea because, for one, you own it, two, you don't have to worry about rising rent prices.
Buying a home is a huge deal, but my concern is about making sure I'm making enough money with my blog every month, I didn't want to get into a problem that I'm no longer is making enough and I can't pay my mortgage and lose my house. But Kita assured me that I need to have faith. She's right.
I was preapproved for a mortgage loan, had enough for a down-payment and closing cost, found a real estate agent, and each day I have been house hunting. During this time, my landlord was still hounding me about if I found a place yet, and he took things a step further by telling me he's going to start the open house process very soon, needed pictures of the inside of the house to get the ball rolling.
This man was doing way too much! He started to get me stressed out. You all know I have severe anxiety, I worry a lot. This situation was putting me on edge, to the point of depression. I wasn't eating much, wasn't interested in blogging, I just wanted to roll up in a ball under the covers and be left alone.
Finally, I found a house that I loved. It was brand new, beautiful three story four bedroom townhome around the corner from my girl's school. It was perfect! I had my real estate agent and lender crunch the numbers of what my mortgage would be, the mortgage along with the fees and HOA would be $1600 a month. Ouch! That's not the price range I want to pay. I can pay that, but I have to be cautious. This is something I needed to pray about; I didn't want to jump into something and regret it later. Although I could always refinance later. But I want to play it safe.
Again, my landlord contacted me saying someone was interested in seeing his house and wanted to stop by to see it, if interested, this person would like to move in at the end of June. Mind you; he wanted to do all this when it was Michelle's birthday, I had guest over, I don't have time for any open house!
I was so furious, this man rushing us out of his house, Mr. M and I decided just to pay him the extra $200 a month until the end of the year, by that time we would have made a final decision about purchasing a house. Plus, this gives me time to see how I did a full year working for myself without having an outside job.
Moral of this story, always sign a contract!!!! My lease was up at the end of December; my landlord contacted me through email to see if I was staying another year and I told him yes. Then, he should have given me a contract to sign to renew my lease, but he didn't. Also, before we even moved into his house, he told me as long as we are living in his house he would not go up on rent, we should have gotten a contract on that too.
This scumbag is a liar! I now see why people hate landlords. I told him off through email the other day, and now he wants to have a talk with me face to face. His best bet is to leave me be; he doesn't want to feel my wrath, I may be a sweet and kind person, but when you do me dirty, I go off!
Always, even in business, have a contract! This will save you if it comes down to a legal matter. Lesson learned for me, and hopefully by the end of the year I'll be stepping in my very own home. I have thought about moving to Texas, but I have to put my children first, I can't move them away from their friends they've grown up with, so my plan is to buy a house, and in a few years or so, rent it out. As you can see, I watch too much of the DIY channel, learning about income properties. But it's good to have income coming from different places.
Have you ever dealt with landlord issues?
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