A funny story about moving out (better late than never)

So, this story is a little belated timeline-wise. But I wanted to wait until things were all wrapped up with our property management company back in Portland before exposing this story to the world (internet). For those of you that haven't heard it yet, it's a doozy.

About a month ago (actually, exactly a month ago yesterday) Devon and I were working hard to complete the final scrub-down of our house in Portland. Everything was packed up and crammed into cars and moving vans, and the house was looking good. As we sweated and scrubbed in the 90 degree heat, we ticked off rooms: bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, living room--DONE! We had the kitchen left to scrub, and a final zoom through with the vacuum. Devon was scrubbing the kitchen, and I was touching up a little paint damage we'd managed to do to the baseboards around the house.

Let me advise you right now, NEVER do baseboard touch-up work in a house that you are about an hour away from being DONE with. NEVER AGAIN.

I was in one of the bedrooms, scootching my way around the floor of the room on my butt, filling the little dark spots where the paint had been chipped off. Let me add, the baseboards in our house were white, so I had a can of white paint I was carrying around with me. Paint can in hand, I stood up to take a look at how things were going, and promptly stubbed my toe on the carpet and tripped. The paint can flew out of my hands, and paint exploded across the BROWN carpet and onto the tan walls. There was paint EVERYWHERE.

Based on the speed at which Devon made it into the room, the tone of my voice when I howled "OH NO, DEVON!!!!" must have been a pretty good indicator of my emotion: panic. We grabbed as many towels as we could find and started frantically sopping up paint. What in the HELL were we going to do? Not only was our deposit as good as gone, we were probably going to have to pay to have the whole damn room re-carpeted--maybe even the whole HOUSE.

We had been probably TWO hours from being done with the house, and still hadn't had dinner. The frantic brainstorming started. I encouraged Devon to start helping with the carpet rather than the walls (we had matching paint for the walls, we could touch that up later). Thinking back to what had worked best as far as getting the paint brushes clean, I told Devon we HAD to keep the paint wet. If we let it dry, there was no hope left. I grabbed a water bottle and then a bucket and started pouring water directly on the carpet. Then came the dish soap. It had worked for getting the paint out of the brushes, why not the carpet? So, with a sponge mop, a bucket of water, rags and a bottle of dishsoap, we went to work. And believe it or not, it started to come up.

We managed to get about 1/2 of the paint out that way, I think (or maybe it was just more spread out?). Devon started thinking, and remembered that she'd seen carpet cleaners for rent at Fred Meyer. At this point, it couldn't hurt. She jumped in the car, and drove out to the store to see about renting one. Sure enough, they had them. Unfortunately, they required photo ID to rent one. And hers was locked in her office at work (oh, the coincidence). She blasted home, tossed me her car keys (mine was packed with plants--no room for a steam cleaner), and I went and grabbed the machine.

I cannot BELIEVE how well it worked. It was outstanding. Emily, David, and their friend Allen came by to pick up Flymo (our hovercraft lawnmower) as I was sucking up the last of it and drying out the carpet. By that point, aside from my frazzled appearance, they swore you couldn't tell there'd been a bucket of paint spilled all over the carpet. The other awesome thing about the cleaner, is that it sucked up all the water we'd dumped on the carpet trying to prevent the paint from drying.

Devon stopped by the next day to check on things, and she said there was no sign of the disaster. Sure enough, we got our deposit back from the management company today, and it was the entire thing.

Good grief.

The moral of this story is: don't play with paint in rental houses.

"Can you come look at the house at 8:30?" "PM?! Uh... sure...."

(Caveat: The following was written and posted at about 10 pm after a crazy day of house-hunting that started at 4:00am in Portland, OR. I've decided to leave it up, crazy and disjointed as it is--it captures how crazy I felt by the end of the day!!)

When we finally got back to the hotel (to finally stay there for the night, that is), Charlie turned on the TV and John Stewart was saying something about people taking vacations.
Well, today is the first of our "vacation" days off from work for the purpose of visiting Boise and finding a house to live in.

Trivial, light-hearted fun!

Actually, we're having a lovely time together--exploring Boise, meeting people, and enjoying the 70 degree days (!!!). It's just that we've been up since 4:00 am this morning.

Of course the day started E-A-R-L-Y in Portland this morning. Even the cat, known for his 7-am-on-a-Sunday-good-morning-walk-up-your-body-and-lick-your-forehead, seemed to think this was a little extreme (he was the last one in the house to get up this morning, and when I fed him, he kind of stumbled into the living room--because that's what he was "supposed" to do--and then spent a while looking at his food in a confused sort of way). We had a gorgeous and amazing flight from Portland to Boise. I forget how much I enjoy flying! As we climbed out of town, we were moments away from identifying my house from above when we broke through the clouds and into clear, sunny skies.

It was breathtaking. Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Jefferson and the Sisters, and possibly even Baker (though, we weren't entirely sure about that one) were all rising above the clouds. I've never taken pictures from a plane before, but I think I got some nice ones today despite the fuzzy, blurry airplane windows.


In addition to the mountains, it was amazing to see how the clouds ended abruptly at the Eastern edge of Mt. Hood, and kind of poured into the valleys and into nothingness.


(In the picture above, from left to right: Mt Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams)

(Above: Mt. Adams in foreground, Rainier behind.)

After we landed in Boise and picked up our rental car, we set out immediately to meet up with a rental management representative and check out a house. And so began our day. We had three appointments lined up to see houses even before we arrived. Aside from a brief interlude in which Charlie took a brief work meeting (and I went to Starbucks and searched for more houses) it was all houses all the time. Back and forth across Boise I-can't-tell-you-how-many-times.

In the end, the tally has us at: 5 houses toured, one house rented away before we could view it, and countless houses visited from the outside and either rejected or added to the "emergency back-up" list. We have three applications in-hand that we intend to complete this weekend, all three of which are for places with their perks, their quirks, and that we all love a little already. We'll see. Once our brains are feeling a little less loose and wiggly in our skulls (aka, tomorrow!) we'll be figuring out our game plan and lining up a few back-up apps.

Boy. Are. We. Exhausted.

I have to say, we've sure met some lovely people along the way today--everyone has been so kind and so friendly. I really think that we're going to enjoy living here. If for no other reason than that Boise is such a trusting place!

TWO of the appointments for houses we had lined up in advance for this trip involved landlords who left the doors unlocked (or told us, raw strangers from the internet, where the keys were hidden)--when I asked the first leasing agent about the car break-in rates in the neighborhood (a valid question, I thought, given he busy street close by, and our experiences with petty crime of that nature in Portland!), she looked at me as if I'd just said something truly appalling. It took her completely off-guard, "I don't keep crime statistic rates on my properties." But I love how trusting and sincere Boise seems. That said, I don't plan on changing my habits of locking doors any time soon!

Anyhow, we had some fun checking out rentals today, so I'll leave you with a couple funny shots.







(And no, ye curious minds, Charlie didn't actually use the toilet in the picture above.)

Returning to the city of trees.

Contemplating how much browner it will be in Boise this trip than it was on our last (just shy of three weeks ago).

Temperatures are supposed to be in the 70's and upper 80's. Excellent house-hunting weather if I ever saw any.

In advance of our trip, I wanted to share another gem with you from the great Craigslist search of 2008.

The posting title reads: "$850 / 3br - Enchanting 3br 2ba w/ AC,Washer& Dryer included, built in wine rack (Boise Area)"

Take a moment and imagine what you picture an "enchanting" house to be. For some it might be a river view, for others s fireplace and jacuzzi tub. Here's the ad.

Perhaps I'm being a little hard on ol' Boise, but, for me, this ad demonstrates two examples of things that do not scream "enchanting:"

1) Rent to own because of pending foreclosure.
2) Taupe.

Though, I suppose if I were to REALLY utilize that built-in wine rack HARD, anything could eventually become "enchanting" enough....

Cross your fingers, we have four appointments set up for walk-throughs (of exceedingly enchanting houses, of course!).

More updates from the road to come!

For Rent: BIG YARD.

Half of the fun (or frustration) of moving is browsing through the FOR RENT ads on Craigslist. Doing so can give you a real sense of the place you're moving to, and sometimes, a great sense of the people who live there.

I ran across one the other day, that, while not IN Boise (in a nearby city), I hope exemplifies the sense of humor of the average Idahoian (Boisian? What will we call ourselves?).

In particular, the picture of "Junior" (or maybe that's Fido?) and the emphasis, nay, insistence on a bonfire really tickled me.

I've PDF'd it so we can enjoy it forever, since Craigslist postings tend to expire.

Here's the link: House for Rent