Yeah, I've Got No Title For This

While I was in yoga class tonight, my phone was blowing up. Just after I got through getting totally relaxed, I checked my messages, and saw that I had repeated phone calls from both my husband and my landlord.

Yep, that's right, landlord. We're in our mid-thirties and renting because we already own a house, in Florida, that we didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of selling when my husband's job brought us to Arkansas in the summer of 2008, when the real estate situation in Florida was pretty much in drug-addict-without-a-decent-vein-left rock bottom. So we moved to Little Rock and rented a house, praying that we'd be able to get decent tenants who would care for our home in the Sunshine State. Our prayers were pretty much answered -- we got semi-decent renters who pay on time, even though they lowballed the hell out of us because they knew we, like every other homeowner trying to shift a house at that time, were desperate.

Flash forward a bit. We found a great house to rent in Little Rock, only to find out less than a year later that our landlord wanted to move back in. We scrambled around to find a new rental home, but finding a decent place to rent for a decent price in this town is hard. We looked at lots of places that would have been fine to buy, because if we owned them, we could have made the cosmetic changes necessary to make them livable. It was astounding, however, how many people wanted to charge an arm and leg in rent for a home with six inch blue shag carpeting, mirrored ceilings and flame stitch wallpaper who were, of course, more than happy when we asked if we could paint and update, but who seemed stunned, stunned, I tell you, when we asked for a slight reduction in the rent because with those simple changes we'd be increasing their home's value by, oh, $50,000 or so.

But one day, I got lucky and found a most decent house for rent on Craigslist. Though it was slightly over our budget, it needed no work, and it was in a great neighborhood. The lady who owned it was moving to California, and didn't want to bother putting it on the market in a downturn. She really appreciated that we were just like her -- forced to move to a different state while at the mercy of renters. She knew that we understood. She knew that we cared.

So flash forward just nine months more. We've enjoyed renting this home, even though we think it has some pretty serious structural deficiencies. We've had to have some repair work done (on her dime, of course), but it's always been handled promptly and with as little interruption to our life as possible. And the finance thing has been tough for us, but we've dealt. Our tenants in Florida don't come close to covering our house note with their rent each month, but we've sucked it up and paid our mortgage there, all while keeping up with our rent here. It's a stretch. It hurts. I've thought a million times about how freeing it would feel if we just let our house in Florida go, but you know what? There's always a little voice in my head that says "Good people don't do that."

So back to my el fuego phone. My landlord only called once, and didn't leave a message. But my husband had called repeatedly and left messages. So his was the call I returned first. When he answered, I quickly said "Hey, before I forget, our landlady called. Did she call you?" His answer was "Well, I guess that explains it." You see, while I was at yoga, a real estate agent knocked on our door. He told my husband that our house is in foreclosure and that it's going to be put up for auction really soon. He actually pulled up the friggin' Pulaski County records on a computer to prove it.

#*$@ me.

My cool, calm and collected husband had already taken a deep breath and called my dad to talk to him about the situation. They're all thinking straight and shizz and making plans. Here's my first thought as to plans: RUN FOR THE HILLS, WE'RE SCREWED!!!!!!! For some bizarre reason, I've researched this very situation before, and I know tenants basically have no rights whatsoever when this type of nonsense goes down.

In the meantime, I make my husband call the landlord back (when in this type of situation, it's best I play ostrich, because when I get mad, my home training goes out the window). You know what she did? She lied. She told him she'd only called because she's considering putting the home back on the market, and she'd like to give us first dibs. As if. This place is flood-prone. It's about to float off its foundation. We don't want to buy an overpriced ark. When pressed, she mentioned the words "short sale." She never confessed that she's in foreclosure. And you know what makes me angriest? She's no worse off, financially, than we are. She actually gets more toward her mortgage each month that we do towards ours, and yet we somehow still manage to pay ours. She even tried to bring up the fact that she's on a fixed income and is on a pension. WELL GUESS WHAT, LADY, WE'RE ON A FIXED INCOME TOO. I don't see a raise in either of our salaries any time soon, so for all intents and purposes (yes, people, that's the correct phrase), we're also pensioners. It just makes me furious that we've been financially strapped now for almost two years because we believe in holding up our end of a bargain, and she just can't be bothered.

But as angry as I am right now, I'm actually a bit happy. This house we're living in is too expensive. I've been thinking lately about how wonderful it would be to not have to pay this much in rent. I've got dreams and plans, and they don't involve paying over 50% of our income on housing costs. I don't know how we'll ever find another home as large as this (we like our space) in a decent neighborhood for any less, but a girl can dream. And I can fortunately stay a bit dissociated from this situation. I can breathe. I can meditate. I can pray. I can let my husband be the calm spokesperson. I can call my dad for advice, and I can call my landlord and give her another chance to be truthful.

And I can listen to what Lil' Goldfish was singing as I just put him to bed:

"I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..."

Yes baby, we are. No matter what happens, we're happy. Because I love you, and you love me. And that's what matters.