The Weekend in Review

My weekend was interesting.  As I posted on Thursday, I had a mini family crisis and was asked to help out one of my elderly aunties.  Her son decided to walk away from his house rental, avoid his responsibilities of rent payment under the guise of no landlord repairs, and leave all his furniture (actually his mothers) and some of his own personal possessions in this house.

I got to my aunts house on Friday around 11 am. She was already, or had been, overly agitated.  My cousin showed up at noon with the U Haul.  We spent a few hours re-arranging some space in the old granny apartment for the furniture and things that were coming back to my aunts house.

We got to the house my cousin had been renting.  To say it was a mess is to be nice about the state in which he left the house.  Lots of food left in the cupboards and fridge, a load of laundry in the washing machine that had never been put in the dryer and was smelly and moldy, the house looked it had not been vacummed in months, the bathroom gross, and in the pile of mail in the mail box, disconnect notices for the electric and cable for non payment and overdue notices for the oil and phone.  My cousin opened her brother's mail. She is shameless.

My cousin and I came armed with cleaning supplies, garbage bags, mop, broom and a vacuume.  It took us the better part of Friday and Friday night to sort through the kitchen, clean it, clean the bathrooms,sort through the linens-what was clean, what was not.  Since we still had electricity, we did a lot of laundry.  The linens, like almost everything else in the house, were given to my cousin Sam by his mother. We wanted to bring them back to her.

When Sam got this house about 10 months ago, my aunt bought him cleaning supplies, a mop, a broom, a vacuume, new curtains, things for the bathroom. She also gave him a bunch of furniture from the granny apartment and bought him a new TV.  I found the cleaning supplies in a hall closet, pretty much untouched.  I'm guessing Sam did not clean, looks like the latest girlfriend at least did the bed laundy and cleaned the toilet.

By Sunday, we had the house in OK shape. My cousin got another relative to help us load the truck with the heavier furnutre, we had piles of garbage neatly bagged in the garage, the house vacumed and swept, the floors washed, and a photographic record of the damage to the house.  My cousin is dealing with the landlord over the non payment of rent, the damage, the forged signature, etc.  She was to meet him yesterday at the house to do an inspection and to talk about the next steps. We know none of the security deposit is going to be refunded. Sigh, my Aunt put in a fair chunk of change for that too.  We did get back to my aunts house, unloaded the truck, put furniture back in the granny apartment and the garage, and lectured my aunt of exactly what ENABLING is and how she still is enabling her 38 year old son.  The women in my family of a certain generation are very good at that. Notice how absent  the men in my family are from this situation?  Grr, my female cousin did strong arm two of our other male cousins to help load and unload the truck. Despite being 5"4' on a good day, she can be very formidable.

What did Sam take from the house? Most of his clothes, his computer (but he left his printer), his gaming system (but left a bunch of games), and probably a few personal possessions.  What did he leave, all of the above, plus his printer, some computer games, a ton of food, a ton of toiletries, his mail, and god knows what else.  Where is Sam now? Supposedly living with his new 25 year old girlfriend, who supposedly has a job and a nice apartment.

My cousin paid for the hotel both nights, it was just easier for us to stay locally to the house than to drive the extra hour each way to my aunts, she also paid for our lunches and dinner-take out Thai food one night, pizza and beer the next.