Today we had our tax appointment over at H&R block. I’ve always done our taxes myself online but this year with the moving, the business and all the other financial craziness we decided things were complex enough to pay the $300 to have someone prepare them for us. Taxes only took about one hour 45 minutes and $300 later we were done and our returns are on the way back to us now!

Oh, note to self:

When you find an envelope stuffed with a hand written letter in your mailbox from your landlord saying they’ve changed banks and the envelope also includes several self addressed empty envelopes and bank deposit slips from the landlord don’t assume the landlord wants you to actually send correspondences and rent payments with that new information!

Just because they’ve provided a new address and bank account to you doesn’t mean they actually want you to use it!

Our landlord showed up today on the front door so I gave an earful about how we tried to pay February rent and also that March rent is on the way to them via certified letter. Apparently the mailing address given to us via those self addressed, empty envelopes was… *gasp*… WRONG!

Also, the landlord admitted to having their newest account (that they just recently provided us with deposit slips for) closed. Opps, guess telling your tenants isn’t important huh? Oh, and I recorded the face to face conversation for our records ;-P

So, yeah. We’re not evicted over nonpayment of rent and we are still waiting to see if we’ll get out of this lease. We did look at the red farmhouse over the weekend and liked it, we are not pleased with the lease terms presented to us though.

Turns out that landlord works out of the barn on the property, has an organic vegetable garden they’ll be tending to on the property and they also want a hefty, per pet rental fee in addition to a pet deposit tacked on to the rent. Oh and the house smells of major of pet urine already which worries me and they won’t be replacing the pissed on carpets, just shampooing them. Yuck!

We are still looking for the right home but at least we have managed to get several grownup things checked off the to-do list these days. Hopefully finding a new place is the next task we are able to cross off, luckily we still have some time to shop around.

Crap N is going to be home soon, I need to whip up something for dinner now. Nothing is defrosted yet!

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Wanted to take some time to give you the weeks highlights… For starters, we found Boner in Maybelle’s section of the rabbit cage earlier this week. Boner + Maybelle = little rabbit babies= craptastic!

Somehow he managed to dislodge the wire cage separator that is his floor and he squeezed down there to “hug” and cuddle with her. Now we are watching for rabbit pregnancy signs and Boner has been migrated to his own homemade rabbit hutch.

She is surely pregnant since female bunnies “release an egg after being exposed to the male” unlike a human woman’s ovulation cycle. Additionally she may even be carrying multiple litters since they were together for so long and we didn’t know about it.

Looks like she’ll have those babies in about 30-34 days if she is indeed pregnant and we can expect anywhere from 1-16 babies depending on her actual breed and size (which we aren’t sure about) and we’ll have to keep each of those babies separate from each other (since sexing young bunnies is difficult) shortly after birth to avoid more unwanted pregnancies. They can start to breed as early as 12 week old! Like I said, super craptastic huh?

Our Eureka Altima Vacuum (that we got a little over a year ago) melted itself this week rendering it completely useless now. We’ve contacted Eureka about the apparent product defect and are awaiting a response. We may have to buy a new vacuum soon…

The packing and home hunting madness has begun! Still have not heard from the mortgage people about our application but we are looking at both rentals and possible purchases right now to cover all bases.

Next month is my birthday and we are celebrating by taking another trip to Tennessee to see our midwife, Pamela, at The Farm. I am so obviously pregnant now and can’t really believe I could deliver Tater in as little as 18 weeks. I’ve got some major tailbone pain and also some major pelvic pressure from my growing bump, other than the growing pains I feel good.

Oh, if you are interested in reading more about home birth stuff let me know, I just read two really great articles in Mothering magazine that I scanned and can email you if you want!

Tater is still as active as usual, I even got a cool video of my belly jiggling around as a result of her kicks and punches for the sake of memories, fun!

Our bedding set for Tater just shipped so we are anxiously waiting for it to arrive via UPS and can’t wait to see it! We got our wishlists updated for everyone who has been hounding us (see the links on the side bar of this page under the baby widget), now we just really need to get busy with moving before she comes!

Oh and nope, we still have no name ideas.

We are looking at more rental and contract purchase homes this weekend in addition to doing our grocery shopping and Wii Playing, we also plan to pack, clean and organize like crazy!

What does your weekend have in store?

The post Weekly drama recap… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

N called the landlord over the weekend about it and their response was “well, we’ve been busy and we figured it was returned to you already”. She then said once it was returned to us we could “drop it by some store of theirs” or she could come by and pick it up from us.

Yeah, you are going to have to come by and get it from us since your laziness is not our issue. We sent the letter off to you like we are legally required to and you were too lazy to claim the dang thing, not our issue!

So like I said it has been 18 days since we sent our letter and rent off and the landlord doesn’t seem to have any desire to get it. It is still sitting at the post office and a notice was left at the landlords residence to come claim it.

This raised some questions for us so we looked at county records and found that our landlord owns 38 other houses (not including this one) just within this county. Oh and the house we are living in is worth about $80,000, they are charging us $875 a month and are making killing.

Well no wonder they don’t care about cashing our rent check, they have tons of money coming in from us and other sucker renters! Now N thinks they are acting unresponsive and avoiding our communications because they know they are caught and have wronged us.

Like I said in a previous post, I am fairly certain we have a mold issue just based upon the home’s age and the leaky basement issue. Our basement is finished, here have a look:

I think the electric heater/ fireplace thingy gives the decor age away don’t you?

Then there is the wood siding and the indoor/ outdoor carpet that is water stained from our recent floods.

Check out the green cabinets! Those scream 1970 to me.

So I am wondering… If all the decor and “finishing” in the basement is that old and there is such a big leak issue down there. How many years of mold growth do you think there are? It is kind of scary to think about.

We are certain there is mold growing because we have all had some odd respiratory issues since moving here, including the pets. You know allergies, sinus issues and even bloody noses. Generally nasty stuff!

That is why we sent out the certified letter outlining our concerns about their “lack of disclosure” on the flooding issue. We also mentioned the fact that the moisture from the leaks is impossible for us to fully clean up since the basement is finished and that they need to provide us with a means to clean up the soaked carpet each time the basement floods (aka a carpet cleaning machine or dehumidifier).

Seems like we covered all the bases right? Too bad they have not claimed the letter from the post office and they intend on leaving it unclaimed until the letter is returned to us…

I am not sure what to do next. We did just spend $50.00 on 4 do-it-yourself mold test kits so we’ll have proof of the mold soon but we can’t really afford an attorney to sue them. Is that the only way to take action on this?

—————–

Updates: There have been updates regarding this landlord saga, you can see them by checking out the following posts.

1. Slumloards, credit scores and a prenatal chiropractor [in a pear tree]…
2. In Indiana breathing mold is okay but home birth is not, just an FYI.

Related post search results can be viewed here.

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So, today I spent several hours over at the old place cleaning things, making repairs and generally just tying up loose ends. In the past we have been hit with ridiculous cleaning fees, “pet odor” charges and what not and we are responsible pet owners so this makes us mad.

Our animals are well behaved, clean (no they don’t pee or poo all over the house) and we take great care in keeping our rental homes tidy and in good condition so when we get charged for supposed pet damages we know we are getting screwed.

We have found that being very diligent about cleaning the old place before move out and also demanding a final walk through with the landlord before relinquishing keys often prevents those “pet damage” fees and charges because the landlord has to notify us then and there of the things they are charging for.

Anyway, I decided to use up the bleach today to clean the crap out of the house. A strong, lingering beach smell should subconsciously alert the landlord that we did clean the place right?

I used bleach to mop the bathroom floors, to sponge off the spots on the walls, to wipe the blinds down, to clean the fridge & dishwasher and anything else that appeared dirty. I wore my bright yellow cleaning gloves and walked through the house with my bucket of bleach water just going to town on anything that appeared dirty.

Tomorrow the carpet cleaners will be doing the carpets there and we will tackle the stove, wax the wood floors and do the last min cleaning of the kitchen and anything else that needs work.

We are officially out of there and I am actually really glad. We have a bigger living space now, the house retains heat so we are anticipating lower gas bills, we have a set 6 month lease so we wont have to show the house or worry about being given 30 days notice to vacate… All in all it’s seems to have worked out okay for us.

Now we just have a TON of unpacking to do and we need to settle in.. I am taking my time with it though!

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