The Rest of the Story

In addition to the two vacancies with the LLC with Mr. Partner, I asked Mr. and Mrs. Green to move this past summer. They finally left last month. So, though Mr. Partner has two vacancies, Marty Sunshine and I have three.

A quick background on the Greens. I loved them. I adored them. They would actually Fed Ex me the rent if it was a day late. They were my tenants for five years. Then Mrs. Green lost her job with no notice this past New Year's Day. I let her limp along for a month or two, with the idea that I would look them in the eye during my trip last spring and ask them to leave.

Except within that LLC I had another vacancy that needed a lot of time and attention. This particular LLC does ok with one vacant home, but two empty houses is a bit out of my budget. And the house in question was "managed" by my former-partner Jack. Jack neglected to mention the house needed flooring, roof repair, a hot water heater and significant outdoor drainage reconstruction when he begged out, leaving these issues for Marty and I to fend for ourselves. So essentially when I got to Birmingham, Mr. and Mrs. Green won the landlord lottery.

I believe in my heart the Greens were trying as hard as they could to make things right in their life. I also believe she didn't want to move. She would tell me about job interviews. I knew she was borrowing money from her son who is stationed somewhere where he is eligible for combat pay--and this was even with the reduction in rent. Somewhere around July, I did ask them to leave. I told her if she stayed current and kept the place clean, I would refund her security deposit.

Mrs. Green didn't leave until the second week of September and by then she was in for two month's of rent. So, the security deposit is mine. She also left the place clean except she left half of her worldly possessions behind, leaving Kirby to figure out where to donate them.

 Right now I am juggling these three vacancies, and wondering what needs to happen. I know I have done this before, but all I remember is the stress, not the solutions. At this moment, I have no answers.