Kirby

After spending New Year's day fretting about if Kirby paid me the rent money he owed before his company disappeared into the dust, I followed Marty Sunshine's gentle patient frustrated urging and actually called Kirby. As I kept explaining to Marty, Kirby isn't one to actually answer his phone and promptly calling people back isn't really his thing.

"He likes you. You were his favorite." Marty said for the twentieth time and I finally caved.

You see, at the end of every month, Kirby e-mails me a statement saying he paid me the rent money to me. In December I hadn't received it. Therefore I had no way of knowing if the money had been transferred to my account until many days later (the bank process is slow. It is a Southern thing). I needed to know as soon as possible, because I had mortgages due.

I did call Kirby. And by some miracle, he called back almost immediately. He had made one last deposit into my account before his company went poof at midnight. However, he had just forgotten to send me the monthly statement. We ended up talking about this and that for about 20 minutes, and I got the distinct impression he didn't want to get off the phone.

Kirby did tell me I had been his favorite landlord. He said, "Sometimes you would get squirrely like the rest of those owners, but I would get you back into shape and you'd come around." I believe if I am translating that correctly, he meant that he would ignore me and let the issue in hand pass over. When I said as much he laughed and said, "That has to happen sometimes to get those owners into shape."

Though I will miss Kirby, I will probably be better off with a different company. Perhaps one better organized. I suspect Kirby was running himself ragged. He didn't really have enough people to handle the amount of work he had. I am hoping I will have a chance to stay in touch with him down the road. Because he really was one of the bright spots in this journey.