Moving…. again….

     Well, here we are, moving again. After 16 months of being in our terrace house we have decided to move on. There have been a lot of pros and cons about our place but the cons out weighed the pros. There are a lot of stories I could tell but this post would get very long, kind of dark and would probably tick off some people. So I’ll try and keep the post light hearted in fear that the lady across the street could read this…. Whatever.

      The location of the house and the yard have all been great perks to where we live. The unpaid water bill and HOA bill by the landlord, the broken water pump, the 3ft of standing water in the attic, the roof leak and water damage and also the electrical issues are just the icing on the cake of things that have gone wrong.  I keep thinking to myself ” I don’t own this place” and “it’s not our responsibility to fix this.”  I never thought it would be so hard to go back to renting a house, it was so easy in my 20’s to not give a shit.  

       The biggest kicker of why we are moving is because the landlord is trying to sell the house AND he never told – shocker!

       When we were having the water leak issue the landlord scheduled for someone to look at the roof, what he failed to mention is that it was also a house viewing. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had carpenters, a realtor and two buyers in our home. When Scott questioned one of the guys he answered “I’m with the carpenters” (suspicious, I know). When the carpenters went to the roof to look at the leak and the other three made their way to the bedrooms to peak around, Scott questioned what was going on. Scott asked them again who they were, he said they were “friends of the landlord.” Scott, in his polite voice, asked them to leave the house. The lease requires 2 DAYS advance notice for intent to sell and to schedule showing appointments to which we can say yes, no or propose a time more convenient for us.

       We didn’t think too much about it and just wanted the leak to be fixed before we left Penang for Christmas. However, it takes very little to annoy me so out of curiosity I started to look at places for rent in Penang. Bored one night scrolling on my phone looking at rentals and houses for sale in Penang, what pops up???? Correct, it was our house. Ohhh was I ticked off. We understood more clearly that the “friends of the landlord” were a realtor and potential buyer. The landlord was selling the house without our knowledge and trying to sneak house showings.

      In our lease agreement, if our house sells we get two months notice  to find another place live.  Two months isn’t a lot of time when you have a dog to think about. The new owners could potentially sign a new lease with us but we didn’t want to take the chance. We decided to get serious about looking for a new place and when we got back in January we found a realtor.

     Good news, we have found a place to live and I will do some follow up posts on that shortly.  I first need to remind everyone that there are pros to this place. I can’t say enough, of how grateful I am that I came here with a roof over my head and the support of Scott’s company. We have so many friends and memories to cherish and that is the biggest pro of living here. 

A quick note from Scott:

     Lest you all think we misjudged the sneaky showing, I’ll share another story. We had a panel breaker that started to trip for a section of breakers that handle the refrigerator, stove, oven, and outlets and aircon in the living room. We contacted the landlord’s agent to schedule an electrician to repair. And…. drumroll… in addition to the electricians car, 2 minivans and two cars were all parked in the middle of the street blocking access to 6 homes on our end of the street. You guessed it – another surprise showing on the back of a service appointment. I asked Ryan not to allow them entry until I got home about 5 minutes later. The landlord came to help facilitate and arrived just before I did. I share all that to add in the fun fact that the landlord showed up in a purple Lamborghini. Please consider all the stories Ryan has shared about this rental experience in the context of a landlord who rolls up in a purple lambo! 

Hope to keep you updated soon!

Sending love from Penang,

Scott, Ryan & Kova