Come On, Eileen!

Recap: Our first offer on a house was accepted, and it was below asking! However, we met the seller at one of the inspections and were worried about her mental status moving forward.

Once the inspections came through, we submitted a request for repairs. At this point we knew we would have to replace the floors due to the rot from Eileen’s plants. We had someone come out to look at refinishing them, but it didn’t seem like that was an option. The inside and outside of the house desperately needed to be repainted; however we knew this was a cosmetic ask. Our top priorities were the roof work and the dry rot, the pool filter, and the floors.

After some back and forth we ended up caving and not getting as much in repair concessions as I would have liked. Flanners said he was willing to negotiate more and harder for us, but we also didn’t want to run the risk of losing out on the house. It seemed Eileen and the seller’s agent put up a firm boundary, and likely because we were getting the house below asking. All the documents were signed, and we were set to close a few days before my birthday at the end of May.

Eileen was going to utilize a 2 week rent buy back. Because neither she nor her agent had completed or cleared the city resale report—which is a requirement in this town—we were in the unique position to accept a deposit from her for her 2 week rent buy back, in which we’d return it upon completion of the resale report. This ended up being a saving grace down the road.

We gave our landlord official notice that we’d be out mid-July. We would have about 4 weeks of a vacant property to make all the repairs we wanted. Mrs Dr Greys Anatomy and I continued life as normal, she took me to Monterey California to celebrate my birthday—and we did Carmel-by-the-Sea and the 17 mile scenic drive through Pebble Beach which was absolutely gorgeous. During this time we kept going to open houses to find inspiration for our home, and to reassure us that we made the right decision.

At one of the open houses, they had a rectangular tile floor that we really loved. We hadn’t considered tile floor at our home but were now very interested in pursuing this as an option. During the roof repair we were able to have some vendors come out and give us quotes. We got a few for the tile floors and painting the inside, outside, and cabinets. We knew our wish list would go over our renovation budget, so our top priority was the floors. We ended up finding this gorgeous tile floor that is imported from Italy. The company was able to install it before we moved in and for less than the local companies.  The paint quotes we got were insane ($15,000 for the inside and another $15,000 for the cabinets!!), we opted to paint the inside ourselves and maybe hire out someone to paint the tall ceilings. Mrs Dr Greys Anatomy decided she could do the cabinets after watching a few YouTube videos. The cabinets deserve their own blog post…or two. Stay tuned.

The backyard renovations would come during the fall when it was cooler, and our bank account was replenished. With some family help, it seemed like we were going to be able to have our cake and eat it too with this house!

The two week rent buy back ended up being a huge damper on our repair and renovation timeline. We were told we could coordinate one, maybe 2, visits for repairs and bids while Eileen was still living in the house. This wasn’t a problem, especially because on our 2^nd visit for bids it appeared Eileen was mostly moved out and was not living at the house any longer; however, we still had to give her notice to enter the house, grab the cabinets for repainting, etc.

Eileen and the Mrs seemed to have a good relationship and exchanged numbers. Eileen’s daughter is a physician with the same company the Mrs works for, so I think respected her quite a bit. It appeared that communication would be easier if we talked with Eileen directly rather than through our realtors. Eileen mentioned how she was stressed about having to sell the fridge and the washer and dryer. Normally those convey with the house, but we had to buy both our own fridge and washer/dryer for our rental property and were planning on keeping them. We’ve taken meticulous care of our washer to ensure it doesn’t get mildewy. We told her it was not a problem if she had to leave them—we could always sell or give them to the new set of tenants at our previous rental. We checked Craigslist and she was asking an exorbitant amount of money for her used fridge and washer and dryer…but also some other pieces of furniture as well. While she had moved out for the most part, she had left some pieces of furniture that she was trying to sell. Why she didn’t have her movers take everything and try to sell it from her garage I’ll never know.

We went to test out interior paint samples and left Eileen some cherries and apricots we picked that weekend. We texted her and didn’t get a response. We were really worried about her given her health history and the amount of stress she must be under with moving. It wasn’t until the last day of the rent buyback where we finally heard from her “Okay it’s all yours!”

She asked if we wanted any of the furniture that was left at the house to which the Mrs responded we did not and had flooring people coming so we did need it cleared out that day.

“Fine” was the last text we received from Eileen.

Eileen’s last day of the rent by back was 06/11 and on 06/12 we were having the floor guys come and rip up the old flooring. We were on a pretty tight timeline, trying to get everything done before our move in date. I went to Costco, bought a hand truck, thinking we would need to move the washer and dryer to the garage. Well, we get to the house and see the fruit we picked for Eileen still on the kitchen counter…okay, so she hasn’t been by at all for the last few days…and we saw all of the furniture she didn’t sell on Craigslist.

• 2 desks
• A sofa
• A sofa bed
• A bunk bed
• A Rug
• A dresser
• Dining table and 8 chairs
• A bookshelf
• A very large bookshelf
• Various cords
• An ironing board
• A mounted TV
• Brooms, toilet plungers, and other miscellaneous items

The water softener that was supposed to be removed to clear the city resale report was left in the middle of the garage. The garage was also filled with miscellaneous items—glass panes, metal rack, paint cans, cleaners, dog supplies. The one thing she didn’t leave but was supposed to: the garage door opener and keys.

She managed to sell the fridge, but the washer and dryer were still there—probably because the washer was filled with mold. There was no way we could sell the washer to anyone. We took pictures, texted Flanners who was unfortunately out of town and didn’t have any cell service, and we got to work.

In any other situation, we could have hired movers or waited for Flanners and Eileen’s agent to have someone out to remove the property she left; however, we were on a tight schedule and needed the place empty for the flooring.

Mrs Dr Greys Anatomy and I weren’t really surprised this happened. Eileen ghosted us the few days before her move out and every time we went to the house it was clear she was not active there. Her one word “Fine” was clear she was giving us the middle finger and not going to resolve any of this.

We scrambled for tools and about 6 hours later had all of Eileen’s junk in the garage. This was after we both worked all day…and both had an early morning the next day. We emailed Flanners and he and his team coordinated having the junk removed from the garage. Successfully completing this task just the two of us energized me and gave me a false sense of confidence—we didn’t need a man. We could do these hard things all by ourselves!

The pictures really don’t do it justice. She left SO much for us to clean up.

A few days later we got a message “Hey, did you ever return Eileen’s deposit?” To which we almost responded, “You’re joking, right??” Under the advice of all our friends we wanted to keep the whole deposit! What kind of person does that! We ended up sending Flanners an itemized bill—including our hourly rate, working after hours, the hand truck, and a “connivence fee” which was my daily rate—as it took me a solid day to coordinate this between the real estate agents and get quotes from junk removal companies—and we sent the rest of the deposit to Eileen. We didn’t want to create more drama for Flanners by holding the entire deposit–we really do like the guy.

We truly thought that was the end of Eileen…but she sent 3 separate packages to the Denali house. The first set, the floor guys brought in for a few days, thinking they were our packages. After she contacted Flanners asking about it, we made the trip up to take the packages back outside for her. We left all her packages outside and she wouldn’t come pick them up for weeks at a time. I forwarded her mail, but it made no sense that she was still having packages delivered to OUR house…and these were things from Amazon and Wayfair, so she was definitely moved out by the time  she bought them and they shipped. Flanners could sense we were irritated and put his foot down with the seller agent and Eileen, informing them that we weren’t a post office and wouldn’t be responsible for her packages anymore. I’m sure he said it more tactfully than that–these are my words, not his! Thankfully we haven’t seen once addressed to her since.

Moral of the story, don’t offer sellers a rent by back, but if you do…be sure to get a deposit, especially if there are a few screws loose in the head.