I P-I-T-T my lan'lord

The BBQ Pit
#1

(Thanks, Eddie Murphy)

I’ve been living here in Central Oregon for a little over a year. We’ve been living in a rental house all that time. As a general rule, we like the house- good size yard, well maintained, in a nice older neighborhood. Heck, I even like our landlords (a married couple).

Problem the first:
They intend to move into the house on April 1st, 2006. This means that Microbug and I have to find another house by then. Houses are very expensive here- I’m kind of doubting that we’ll have the down payment for a house by that time… which means we’ll be moving into another rental house. I hate moving. I’m not really pitting my landlords for this- they want to move into the house, and it’s certainly not my place to deny them the house. I just don’t want to move.
Problem the second- and it’s a doozy:
Our driveway is about 75 feet of rough asphalt. Last year’s snows weren’t bad- never more than four inches, and although it took a while, shovelling it was actually fairly enjoyable. The rough asphalt makes it a little difficult, but I’m a tough guy- I can handle it.

Unfortunately, this year’s snows are a bit heavier… I had to shovel over a foot of snow the day before yesterday. That took me a while, lemme tell ya.
The BIG problem, though, is that our landlords changed the layout of our front yard over the summer. They blocked off the end of the driveway with a brick border and a stand of trees. I’m sure this’ll look pretty in a few years when the trees grow a bit… but right now, it makes my life a good bit more difficult than I’d like.

You see, at the base of the driveway, we now have to do a 90 degree turn, onto another fuckin’ 75 feet of driveway- UNPAVED DIRT ROAD DRIVEWAY!. This means that, when leaving the house at night, we have to make a right-angle turn while backing up. This means that, when I take out the garbage, I have to trundle the garbage can over an additional 75 feet of dirt road. This means that, when I check the mailbox at the bottom of the (original) driveway, I have to fight my way through tree limbs… or walk an additional 150 feet.

This also means that I have to shovel an additional 75 feet of driveway- unpaved, with tons of potholes. Fuck.

After shovelling the upper part of the driveway, I just didn’t have the energy to shovel the unpaved section- and I’m not really sure how I’d do it, anyway, as I’d be unable to scrape it flat. The only thing I’d be able to do try to scrape off the top couple of layers.

This morning, Microbug got stuck on that unpaved section- a foot of snow over unpaved dirt potholes’ll do that to your average front-wheel-drive Toyota Tercel, I hear. Luckily I’d already smashed my way through the four-foot tall wall of snow from the snowplow.

We’re due for more snow… it’s going to be a long fuckin’ winter. Bastards.

#2

Seems like a pretty big change in the property to make while there’s still tenants living there.

#3

hot an’ sweaty on a summer night
kill my landlord
I hear a dog barkin’
do he bite?
kill my landlord.

I feel for you. Renting can suck.

#4

No need for a down payment. I bought my house with a measly 5% down. I ended up with two loans – one traditional mortgage for 80% of the value and a home equity line of credit for the remaining 15%. This way you can finance even up to 100% of the house without paying for mortgage insurance. The intereste on the HELOC is still deductible. The only catch is that its rate is slightly higher and typically adjustable, but with some determination, it can be paid off fairly quickly. I even talked the sellers of my house to cover the closing costs, so no troubles there, either.

Just one way to get out off the rent treadmill – it’s nice to not have to deal with landlords!

#5

Why don’t you get a snowblower, or pay a neighborhood kid to shovel? :dubious:

#6

EnginNerd- well, there’s also the bankruptcy that we paid off less than two years ago. Banks don’t even want to TALK to us about financing a house until two years have passed… which is a bit silly, 'cause we don’t have any debt at all now- you’d think they’d want to get in on some of that action. And when I say houses are expensive here, I mean it- my landlord told me that in the year we’ve lived here, the value on the house has gone up over $100k. Yeee-owch. Wish I’d been able to buy a house when I first moved here.

Updike- no neighborhood kids (at all, as far as I can tell- weird, now that I think about it… but I am on a culdesac), and snowblowers are kinda pricey for someone who’s trying to save up money for a house. :dubious:

#7

Aren’t the landlords responsible for maintenance like that? They have been in every place I’ve ever rented…

#8

Maintenance like shoveling? When I’ve lived in apartment complexes, yes, shoveling was handled, but renting a house? IME, it’s always been the tenant’s responsibility.

#9

Are you rebuilding at all? Established any revolving credit? You probably want some good credit, rather than just the BK showing up.

#10

Oh, definitely. Secured creditcard, and now one a regular one through our bank that we keep paid off. We get tons of offers for creditcards now… which we dutifully shred. :slight_smile:

#11

FWIW, when my girlfriend and her husband lived in New Hampshire, they had a driveway situation much like yours. Unpaved, potholy, and very long. They never bothered shoveling at all. They would simply ram the snowbank with the front of the car until they had packed the snow down into a nice little ice driveway.

No, it doesn’t sound like an acceptable solution to me, either.