74 Days (or So) To Go

Ms. Kathy had three things going for her last week when she sent me an e-mail telling me the remaining rent would be coming in $50 increments for the next several weeks.

1. She sent me enough money to make the eviction process not worth it at this time.

2. I was sick enough to know that if I wrote her back I probably would use words with way too many syllables for her to understand exactly how furious I was. And, being sick, I wasn't sure I could control my syllable count.

3. Carolsue was going to call her and be the good cop. You know, "Hey Ms. Kathy, this is Carolsue, I don't know what has gotten into the landlord, but boy was she mad at y'all when I mentioned your name.... what happened?" Even as stupid as I think Ms. Kathy happens to be, I am not sure she would believe it if Carolsue called her and was friendly (no offense Sweetie, but you scare the hell out of me so Ms. Kathy must cower under the bed when she sees your name come up.).

Last week, when I started growling about kicking her out, Marty Sunshine pointed out this was a terrible time to find a renter. Why not wait until January? We didn't have to renew her lease. We could ask her to leave then. Carolsue echoed similar sentiments. Neither impressed me.

And though that seems like pearls of wisdom, neither of them are personally dealing with a woman who puts bailing her brother out of jail over paying her rent for her and her kids on a regular basis. This task is left to me. So, even though I was thinking through an Alka-Seltzer induced haze, it made perfectly logical sense to have a vacant home for a month or two than deal with Ms. Kathy and her stupidity.

And yet, like most everything Alabama that has happened to me in the past few years, Providence stepped in. Legal Eagle contacted me. Mr. Smith was fired from his job. He is neither working right now (I also checked on Facebook) nor is he doing anything productive. He is also still living across the street from Ms. Kathy's home (still with his father-in-law). Mr. Smith also found out I was trying to garnish his wages. Apparently he wasn't very happy about that (but as he isn't employed right this second, it doesn't matter).

Now I really don't want a vacant home. Just what I need, Ms. Kathy living next door with her sister and Mr. Smith living across the street. Two evicted tenants with an ax to grind and an empty home. I made an executive decision: Ms. Kathy gets to stay.

Please! Somebody please remind me of this next time I start threatening to kick her out sooner.

Come early January, I can politely tell her I am not renewing her lease, and thanks for the laughs. Bye-bye now.

And, you never know. Maybe by then I will have convinced Mr. Partner that Kirby is worth every penny and we need to lower the rent on the home. I have 74 days (or so) to accomplish that task.