When life sucks ...

[Geoff-Allen]

Free book online? -

How To Appreciate The Simple Things In Life

Looks an interestin site ...

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Another happiness writer -

Nataly Kogan

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Interesting thread so far -

Does wisdom exist?

May post a couple of thoughts? Tiny?

wisdom Archives - Tiny Buddha

Scroll down to Jenni Young ...

 

[Trailblazer]

Hello Geoff....
Whenever I feel useless, or cannot think of anything to do, I get a bit depressed.

Me too, but I usually do not clean the house although I wish I could make myself do it. I find myself inspired by your list of things you do though. You would make a great depression counselor. I find I have to stay active physically and mentally, so I ride my bike a lot, 24 miles a day to and from work, and I go on RF and read and write, but sometimes I feel useless on RF so then I find one of our Persian cats that need grooming, there is never a shortage of those.

 

[oldbadger]

Me too, but I usually do not clean the house although I wish I could make myself do it. I find myself inspired by your list of things you do though. You would make a great depression counselor.

There are many jobs which I used to think are horrid, but now I really enjoy them. When I retired from my career in 2010 (I trained commrercial detectives and security ops) my friend gave me a job as 'carpet cleaner' in his cleaning company. I was slightly worried about such a grotty job but I didn't have to travel to Glasgow, or Plymouth or anywhere, and could always be within about ten or twenty miles from home. Within hours of starting I was interested, wanting to find out about how to remove impossible stains from carpets.... I would cut up offcuts of carpet and experiment. And as a result, for 6 years I became so well known as a carpet stain 'magician' that I was booked up for a fortnight ahead all the time. Customers became good friends. But more importantly I threw away as much social bulldust about myself as possible, and became free of the shackles of false-status and any feux-class left within me, impostors all..

And so now I do all the dirty and horrid jobs in and around our home so that my wife doesn't have to do them. And they are no longer demeaning nasties but help to fill my days up.

I find I have to stay active physically and mentally, so I ride my bike a lot, 24 miles a day to and from work, and I go on RF and read and write, but sometimes I feel useless on RF so then I find one of our Persian cats that need grooming, there is never a shortage of those.

Biking! Excellent! I have two bikes, a folder and a big heavy mountain bike and I ride everywhere on these, I have a bike trailer for carting home bags of duck feed or taking rubbish to the dump, etc, and the more that I ride these so the more healthy I feel at the end of each day. I would have dumped my driving licence at 70yrs but my wife likes me to do the driving so I have kept it.
We had a Persian cat, called 'Bashe' which means OK in either Persian or Arabic and grooming him was a massive job. So I can see how grooming Persians can fill up lots of time.
Now I have to take our two little dachshunds out each morning and afternoon, and they complain if the trips are too short so there's a load more time covered each day with those two spoiled little creatures.

Which country do you live in?

 

[Trailblazer]

There are many jobs which I used to think are horrid, but now I really enjoy them. When I retired from my career in 2010 (I trained commrercial detectives and security ops) my friend gave me a job as 'carpet cleaner' in his cleaning company. I was slightly worried about such a grotty job but I didn't have to travel to Glasgow, or Plymouth or anywhere, and could always be within about ten or twenty miles from home. Within hours of starting I was interested, wanting to find out about how to remove impossible stains from carpets.... I would cut up offcuts of carpet and experiment. And as a result, for 6 years I became so well known as a carpet stain 'magician' that I was booked up for a fortnight ahead all the time. Customers became good friends. But more importantly I threw away as much social bulldust about myself as possible, and became free of the shackles of false-status and any feux-class left within me, impostors all..

That is quite a shift of careers.... I need you here, I need you badly. Do you know what 10 cats can do to carpets? We really should have replaced these carpets before we moved in this house but we were overly optimistic. Now we have so much furniture and other clutter it would be near impossible to replace these carpets. They are pretty bad in places, not so bad in others. I figure if we ever sell the place whoever buys it will replace them. Meanwhile, I have much worse things to think about because of my rental house nightmare.

And so now I do all the dirty and horrid jobs in and around our home so that my wife doesn't have to do them. And they are no longer demeaning nasties but help to fill my days up.

You were a trainer, can you train my husband to clean house? He thinks his only job is to scoop litter boxes and take care of the cats' food and medicines. Granted, that is not an easy job but he still has a lot more time than I do because he is retired and home all day and I am at work for 10 hours four days a week and my bike commute is an additional three hours. But he has me over a barrel because he knows the cats mean a lot more to me than a clean house.

Biking! Excellent! I have two bikes, a folder and a big heavy mountain bike and I ride everywhere on these, I have a bike trailer for carting home bags of duck feed or taking rubbish to the dump, etc, and the more that I ride these so the more healthy I feel at the end of each day. I would have dumped my driving licence at 70yrs but my wife likes me to do the driving so I have kept it.

We do have a lot in common. I also do not like driving a car at all and I rarely drive the second car. My husband does all the driving in the older car which is mostly just going grocery shopping twice a week. He is in his mid-70s but he can still drive as good as always. I hope that continues to be the case because we live in a rural area so we need to have one person driving. I am 10 years younger than him so I really need to start driving more so I do not lose the skill.

We had a Persian cat, called 'Bashe' which means OK in either Persian or Arabic and grooming him was a massive job. So I can see how grooming Persians can fill up lots of time.

We worked on one cat today but we have many more cats to groom. It is a constant battle. I do not mind grooming cats when I have time but that is not very often. Between work, biking, the forum and the rental house nightmare I can barely breathe.

Now I have to take our two little dachshunds out each morning and afternoon, and they complain if the trips are too short so there's a load more time covered each day with those two spoiled little creatures.

Our cats are spoiled rotten too but we also have many, many raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks and birds that we feed and water.

Which country do you live in?

We live in the United States, Western Washington State. The climate is similar to the UK.

 

[oldbadger]

That is quite a shift of careers.... I need you here, I need you badly. Do you know what 10 cats can do to carpets? We really should have replaced these carpets before we moved in this house but we were overly optimistic. Now we have so much furniture and other clutter it would be near impossible to replace these carpets. They are pretty bad in places, not so bad in others. I figure if we ever sell the place whoever buys it will replace them. Meanwhile, I have much worse things to think about because of my rental house nightmare.

You were a trainer, can you train my husband to clean house? He thinks his only job is to scoop litter boxes and take care of the cats' food and medicines. Granted, that is not an easy job but he still has a lot more time than I do because he is retired and home all day and I am at work for 10 hours four days a week and my bike commute is an additional three hours. But he has me over a barrel because he knows the cats mean a lot more to me than a clean house.

We do have a lot in common. I also do not like driving a car at all and I rarely drive the second car. My husband does all the driving in the older car which is mostly just going grocery shopping twice a week. He is in his mid-70s but he can still drive as good as always. I hope that continues to be the case because we live in a rural area so we need to have one person driving. I am 10 years younger than him so I really need to start driving more so I do not lose the skill.
We worked on one cat today but we have many more cats to groom. It is a constant battle. I do not mind grooming cats when I have time but that is not very often. Between work, biking, the forum and the rental house nightmare I can barely breathe.

Our cats are spoiled rotten too but we also have many, many raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks and birds that we feed and water.

We live in the United States, Western Washington State. The climate is similar to the UK.

Actually your house, home and marriage all look really great, reading your post. My wife is much younger than me, and I was 70 last month, but feel healthier than in recent decades.... Lucky!
I was very lucky to meet, be with and marry my wife... I never deserved such luck.
Those carpets..... You might be able buy a vax 6151 wetndry carpet cleaner washer where you live, should cost about 100dollars. If you can get one I'll tell you how to work magic with it. Honest.

 

[Trailblazer]

Actually your house, home and marriage all look really great, reading your post. My wife is much younger than me, and I was 70 last month, but feel healthier than in recent decades.... Lucky!
I was very lucky to meet, be with and marry my wife... I never deserved such luck.
Those carpets..... You might be able buy a vax 6151 wetndry carpet cleaner washer where you live, should cost about 100dollars. If you can get one I'll tell you how to work magic with it. Honest.

You sound like your luck has not been half bad. My house could use a bit of work and cleaning but that can always be taken care of when I have time. I am lucky to have a house like it and my husband and a lot of assets and financial resources but that is a double-edged sword because the rental houses are what cause me the most grief. One of them is stable right now and I have a good tenant but the other one is a nightmare. It needs work and I need a new tenant, but not until I resolve legal issues with the present tenant. Essentially, I can have no life as long as this is going on, so here I stand at the computer waiting for calls from three different attorneys.

I too have been very healthy and I think a lot of it is the exercise I get, the bike riding and the walking. I need to get my husband to do some biking because he has high cholesterol. Mine is a little elevated too but that is because I do not have time to change my diet right now. I will be forced to though because my husband has been told he needs to change his diet.

Thanks for the tip about the carpet cleaner. I will look into it as soon as I have time.

 

[oldbadger]

You sound like your luck has not been half bad. My house could use a bit of work and cleaning but that can always be taken care of when I have time. I am lucky to have a house like it and my husband and a lot of assets and financial resources but that is a double-edged sword because the rental houses are what cause me the most grief. One of them is stable right now and I have a good tenant but the other one is a nightmare. It needs work and I need a new tenant, but not until I resolve legal issues with the present tenant.
Essentially, I can have no life as long as this is going on, so here I stand at the computer waiting for calls from three different attorneys.

I hope you can resolve these difficulties soon, and not return to any like them ever again.
You mentioned before how different my working life has been, at one moment a qualified adult-teacher delivering training to commercial detectives etc, and the next a local carpet cleaner. Actually....... I only had one career, teaching, practice and journalism within the security and investigation services. My career ended when I retired and I walked away from it and never looked back.
When my father retired from his high-pressure job he became a part-time gamekeeper, and my part-time job became carpet-cleaning in the same way. I didn't need the money, but the interaction with people and the job was just the facilitator. I even gave that up in 2014 when my wife became very ill and was hospitalised for many weeks.

I wouldn't presume to advice the neighbour next door, and certainly not a person thousands of miles away such as yourself, but I do think that if one is secure enough in wealth for day-by-day basic comforts, yet hounded unnecessarily because of efforts to make yet more money, that one good action for quality of life could be to stop doing it, and walk away, and never look back, such as eventually selling up superfluous properties getting off the money train. We sold up an extra property 14 years ago, gave lump sums to offspring, and invested in some gold coins and stopped giving a fig for how our resources might rise or fall. We laugh when precious metals go down in value as our calculators tell us how many thousands of pounds we lost in a morning, or made in an afternoon...... we let go of worries like that a long time ago.
Once we had left the rat race we just didn't have to care about what we are losing because of inflation.

I too have been very healthy and I think a lot of it is the exercise I get, the bike riding and the walking. I need to get my husband to do some biking because he has high cholesterol. Mine is a little elevated too but that is because I do not have time to change my diet right now. I will be forced to though because my husband has been told he needs to change his diet.

My wife has severe IBS and must be careful about what she eats, and so I eat what she eats, which makes cooking and shopping easier.
Talking of bicycles, my mountain bike is a great big heavy steel lump weighing 19kg and my mates (who have ultra-lite models) keep telling me to buy a decent bike. The reason why I don't is that I don't have to worry about anybody wanting to steal it when I'm in a shop, and the whole idea is for me to take physical exercise on it. I have promised my friends that the day somebody is so unfortunate as to steal the thing I will buy a super-bike, but all the bike thieves around here must be very well clued up on bikes... !!!!
I'm stuck with it........ forever!

Thanks for the tip about the carpet cleaner. I will look into it as soon as I have time.

Because of those years cleaning carpets ours are fairly clean!!!!
Just like that boxer suggested on the radio, I do try to make every task, however miserable and mundane, an enjoyable experience. It really does work.

 

[Trailblazer]

I hope you can resolve these difficulties soon, and not return to any like them ever again.
You mentioned before how different my working life has been, at one moment a qualified adult-teacher delivering training to commercial detectives etc, and the next a local carpet cleaner. Actually....... I only had one career, teaching, practice and journalism within the security and investigation services. My career ended when I retired and I walked away from it and never looked back.
When my father retired from his high-pressure job he became a part-time gamekeeper, and my part-time job became carpet-cleaning in the same way. I didn't need the money, but the interaction with people and the job was just the facilitator. I even gave that up in 2014 when my wife became very ill and was hospitalised for many weeks.

I wouldn't presume to advice the neighbour next door, and certainly not a person thousands of miles away such as yourself, but I do think that if one is secure enough in wealth for day-by-day basic comforts, yet hounded unnecessarily because of efforts to make yet more money, that one good action for quality of life could be to stop doing it, and walk away, and never look back, such as eventually selling up superfluous properties getting off the money train. We sold up an extra property 14 years ago, gave lump sums to offspring, and invested in some gold coins and stopped giving a fig for how our resources might rise or fall. We laugh when precious metals go down in value as our calculators tell us how many thousands of pounds we lost in a morning, or made in an afternoon...... we let go of worries like that a long time ago.
Once we had left the rat race we just didn't have to care about what we are losing because of inflation.

My wife has severe IBS and must be careful about what she eats, and so I eat what she eats, which makes cooking and shopping easier.
Talking of bicycles, my mountain bike is a great big heavy steel lump weighing 19kg and my mates (who have ultra-lite models) keep telling me to buy a decent bike. The reason why I don't is that I don't have to worry about anybody wanting to steal it when I'm in a shop, and the whole idea is for me to take physical exercise on it. I have promised my friends that the day somebody is so unfortunate as to steal the thing I will buy a super-bike, but all the bike thieves around here must be very well clued up on bikes... !!!!
I'm stuck with it........ forever!

Because of those years cleaning carpets ours are fairly clean!!!!
Just like that boxer suggested on the radio, I do try to make every task, however miserable and mundane, an enjoyable experience. It really does work.

Thanks for you well wishes. I hope your wife is doing better now.

I hope I have finally learned my lesson not to rent to people who are questionable. My gut feeling was right as usual but I took a calculated risk when I rented to this man. Then as soon as he got a lease signed he started lying to me and trying to manipulate me. It has been that way ever since. My part is that I should not have let him talk me into renting from him before the repairs were made to the house. I was overly optimistic that I could get them completed a lot sooner butit did not turn out that way, so he had a reason to complain. On the other hand, he signed a lease saying he accepts the house in its present condition. If it went to court I do not know what would happen so I am trying to avert that.

I am not really sure why I keep the two rental houses, given all the grief they cause me. I think I like the challenge but at times like this I do not like it at all. But when I have a good long-term tenant who pays the rent on time it is pretty easy to manage. Another reason I keep the houses is because I am insecure about money. I do not need the money because we hardly spend any money except on the cats, I just figure more is better. We were also quite poor when I was a child so that could be part of it. Later in life, my mother was quite insecure about money even though she had plenty of it so I think I took after her. We also have a lot of stocks and bonds but I do not keep track of them since I have a certified financial planner. They have accrued a lot of value since the market has gone up but of course that could change at any time. I rarely think about it. If one has real estate and other assets they can worry all the time or just decide not to worry. I worry now only because I am afraid of this tenant, what he might do. He is unstable emotionally and he is a narcissist.

It sounds like you are content in retirement. Many of my friends on other forums are retired and have been for a long time. All of them are agnostics and atheists who I have had longstanding relationships with. They are all men, as I tend to get along with men a lot better than women, given I was closer to my father than my mother. He was also an atheist.

I often wonder what it would be like to be retired but that is as far as it has gotten. I have over 40 years working for the government, mostly as a cartographer. I am of age to qualify for my state pension and social security and Medicare but I feel uncomfortable burning the final bridge. My husband retired about three years ago and he is 10 years older than me so I feel like if I do not retire soon he could be gone before I ever do. Right now all my energies are devoted to the tenant issue and the rental house repairs so I cannot think about anything else, except the cats.

It sounds like you are a people person, an extrovert. I am really not much of a people person and I am an introvert. If I retired I cannot see myself wanting to go out and socialize. I might start going to Baha’i activities but that would not be because I like socializing but rather because I feel I should be doing something for the Faith, aside from posting on forums. I have not attended any Baha’i activities in many years. I do not feel like I have much to offer the other Baha’is so that is one reason I don’t go. The other reasons are rather personal.

My friend at work keeps telling me I should get a better bike, an electric bike, but I don’t really want one because the main purpose of having a bike is to get exercise. I ride a mountain bike but it is not big and heavy. I have another bike that is brand new that I have never even ridden. It would probably be easier to ride but I just haven’t bothered to take it out of the garage. There is always something else I have to do.

I do not mind doing housework when I am doing it but I never have the time. I have to choose what I will do with my time because I have so little of it and I prefer forums to household chores, most of the time....

 

[oldbadger]

Thanks for you well wishes. I hope your wife is doing better now.

I hope I have finally learned my lesson not to rent to people who are questionable. My gut feeling was right as usual but I took a calculated risk when I rented to this man. Then as soon as he got a lease signed he started lying to me and trying to manipulate me. It has been that way ever since. My part is that I should not have let him talk me into renting from him before the repairs were made to the house. I was overly optimistic that I could get them completed a lot sooner butit did not turn out that way, so he had a reason to complain. On the other hand, he signed a lease saying he accepts the house in its present condition. If it went to court I do not know what would happen so I am trying to avert that.

I am not really sure why I keep the two rental houses, given all the grief they cause me. I think I like the challenge but at times like this I do not like it at all. But when I have a good long-term tenant who pays the rent on time it is pretty easy to manage. Another reason I keep the houses is because I am insecure about money. I do not need the money because we hardly spend any money except on the cats, I just figure more is better. We were also quite poor when I was a child so that could be part of it. Later in life, my mother was quite insecure about money even though she had plenty of it so I think I took after her. We also have a lot of stocks and bonds but I do not keep track of them since I have a certified financial planner. They have accrued a lot of value since the market has gone up but of course that could change at any time. I rarely think about it. If one has real estate and other assets they can worry all the time or just decide not to worry. I worry now only because I am afraid of this tenant, what he might do. He is unstable emotionally and he is a narcissist.

It sounds like you are content in retirement. Many of my friends on other forums are retired and have been for a long time. All of them are agnostics and atheists who I have had longstanding relationships with. They are all men, as I tend to get along with men a lot better than women, given I was closer to my father than my mother. He was also an atheist.

I often wonder what it would be like to be retired but that is as far as it has gotten. I have over 40 years working for the government, mostly as a cartographer. I am of age to qualify for my state pension and social security and Medicare but I feel uncomfortable burning the final bridge. My husband retired about three years ago and he is 10 years older than me so I feel like if I do not retire soon he could be gone before I ever do. Right now all my energies are devoted to the tenant issue and the rental house repairs so I cannot think about anything else, except the cats.

It sounds like you are a people person, an extrovert. I am really not much of a people person and I am an introvert. If I retired I cannot see myself wanting to go out and socialize. I might start going to Baha’i activities but that would not be because I like socializing but rather because I feel I should be doing something for the Faith, aside from posting on forums. I have not attended any Baha’i activities in many years. I do not feel like I have much to offer the other Baha’is so that is one reason I don’t go. The other reasons are rather personal.

My friend at work keeps telling me I should get a better bike, an electric bike, but I don’t really want one because the main purpose of having a bike is to get exercise. I ride a mountain bike but it is not big and heavy. I have another bike that is brand new that I have never even ridden. It would probably be easier to ride but I just haven’t bothered to take it out of the garage. There is always something else I have to do.

I do not mind doing housework when I am doing it but I never have the time. I have to choose what I will do with my time because I have so little of it and I prefer forums to household chores, most of the time....

Thankyou for the trouble that you took in writing that post.

I hope you can sort out that bad tenant so that you can move on.

No, neither my wife nor myself are socialisers. Although we like people well enough, we are focused into our own home and pets, and don't go to parties etc unless we really have to.

You mentioned stocks and shares and that made me think of my late father. He had lots of friends who boasted about how they all took 'lump sums' and 'half pensions' when they retired, because they could make more money on the Stock Market with the lumps than the other half of their pensions. They boasted huge successes, so of course he opted for a lumpsum with half pension. Even back then I knew that he should not, but I was a thick kid and his friends were high flyers.
What he didn't realise was that he was not a stocks/shares specialist and so he needed to instruct a broker. When he lost value in shares the broker still earned for his time, when he gained value in share sales his broker earned a %, plus the Inland Revenue took a %, plus he needed an accountant for an annual return. He would have needed NONE of this if he had just taken full pension, and only later did he see the folly in following advice from wise guys.
We don't bother with the stock market or anything else, and although we could work our funds more successfully we don't lose any sleep over this because we don't need the funds or what they could make.

I keep looking at electric bikes, the temptation of being able to cycle much much further, and making all the hills go away is just so attractive. But my friends have had constant trouble with their electric bikes, going wrong, getting stolen, costing lots, and they getting lazy...... if I ever buy another bike it will be when mine gets nicked by some unwise person who thinks that it looks expensive, and then I'll buy a carbon fibre folder weighing about 8kgs so that I can carry it onto buses when I get lazy!!! We get free bus passes here in retirement.
Money..... BTW, I have a rich friend who owns a huge house overlooking the sea etc and bundles of money...... well, he's such a scrooge that I think he suffers from an mental illness, for instance he insists on sitting in the dark and reading with a torch, not realising that torch batteries cost more than mains lighting and he won't listen. On very cold days, instead of turning on a fire he uses his bus pass to travel all round the place on a heated bus. Rich people who are frightened about money must suffer from an illness, I reckon. Adrian (here on RF) specialised in mental healthcare and he might know more about all that.

Yes, my wife was saved by some very clever doctors at Kings College Hospital London in 2014 and is ok now, although she has to have a full checkup every year.

 

[Trailblazer]

Thankyou for the trouble that you took in writing that post.

I hope you can sort out that bad tenant so that you can move on.

No, neither my wife nor myself are socialisers. Although we like people well enough, we are focused into our own home and pets, and don't go to parties etc unless we really have to.

You mentioned stocks and shares and that made me think of my late father. He had lots of friends who boasted about how they all took 'lump sums' and 'half pensions' when they retired, because they could make more money on the Stock Market with the lumps than the other half of their pensions. They boasted huge successes, so of course he opted for a lumpsum with half pension. Even back then I knew that he should not, but I was a thick kid and his friends were high flyers.
What he didn't realise was that he was not a stocks/shares specialist and so he needed to instruct a broker. When he lost value in shares the broker still earned for his time, when he gained value in share sales his broker earned a %, plus the Inland Revenue took a %, plus he needed an accountant for an annual return. He would have needed NONE of this if he had just taken full pension, and only later did he see the folly in following advice from wise guys.
We don't bother with the stock market or anything else, and although we could work our funds more successfully we don't lose any sleep over this because we don't need the funds or what they could make.

I keep looking at electric bikes, the temptation of being able to cycle much much further, and making all the hills go away is just so attractive. But my friends have had constant trouble with their electric bikes, going wrong, getting stolen, costing lots, and they getting lazy...... if I ever buy another bike it will be when mine gets nicked by some unwise person who thinks that it looks expensive, and then I'll buy a carbon fibre folder weighing about 8kgs so that I can carry it onto buses when I get lazy!!! We get free bus passes here in retirement.
Money..... BTW, I have a rich friend who owns a huge house overlooking the sea etc and bundles of money...... well, he's such a scrooge that I think he suffers from an mental illness, for instance he insists on sitting in the dark and reading with a torch, not realising that torch batteries cost more than mains lighting and he won't listen. On very cold days, instead of turning on a fire he uses his bus pass to travel all round the place on a heated bus. Rich people who are frightened about money must suffer from an illness, I reckon. Adrian (here on RF) specialised in mental healthcare and he might know more about all that.

Yes, my wife was saved by some very clever doctors at Kings College Hospital London in 2014 and is ok now, although she has to have a full checkup every year.

Even though it takes some time, it is never any trouble to write to people I like.
I have made a lot of friends on these forums and since I do not go out to make friends it is nice to have online friends. I find that I gravitate towards people whose beliefs differ from my own, or agnostics and atheists. I have certain issues with Christians so it is very difficult for me to relate to them, unless they are very liberal. I have one Baha’i friend that I keep in touch with via e-mail, but other than that I do not have any Baha’i friends online or in real life who I have personal contact with. After many years of conversing with one of my atheist friend on e-mail and forums, he still chides me about Baha’i but he recently decided he might be a deist because he thinks if God exists God does not help people in any way. I do understand how he feels as I am not convinced of the personal God concept who watches over me and answers prayers.... Maybe He does, maybe he doesn’t, that is all I can say.

I will be on pins and needles till I sort out the rental house nightmare. My goal now is to get the repairs done and then I will decide what to do with the house. I finally found a good contractor and he will begin work this week. I do not know what that tenant is going to do, he is a loose cannon. My husband went over to the rental house today to post the two-day notice that the contractor will be entering the house to do the repairs and he saw that there was a trailer on our property and there was a water line running from our well to that trailer. That could be the tenant in there or it could be someone else he knows. We will know more about what is in the house when the contractor comes on Friday.

I do not know where that tenant thinks he is going to go, given nobody rents to two time sex offenders who have two charges of molesting children. I took a chance on him and you can see where it got me. He lied to me and tried to manipulate me from day one. I have a record of all of that in voluminous e-mails that went back and forth between us since last January, so if he tries to take me to court I have a story to tell... I don’t know if judges bother with all those details, I will find out later if need be.

I already found a nice middle-aged couple who is very interested in renting our house but I need to discuss it with them. We had a middle-aged couple renting that house for 5 ½ years prior to the present tenant and they were good tenants except that they got way behind on the rent. I let them stay with the promise to pay me back but they still owe me $6700. I am giving them a chance to sign a stipulation agreement and pay a little each month till it is paid back, but if they try to elude me I will have to go to court for a settlement and send bill collectors after them. They just did not have the money to pay the rent because he lost his job and she got cancer, so they were struggling, but it is not justice for me to have to absorb their debt just because I have a lot of money and they do not.

I have never understood what kind of enjoyment most people get from socializing. I find it very boring because the trivial things most people talk about are very boring. My husband and I do not socialize because we are focused on the home and the cats. He says he would like to go to Baha’i activities but I am not stopping him, so I don’t really think he has any burning desire to go. Someday if I ever retire I might go to Baha’i activities because otherwise I would see no people except when I go grocery shopping, and that is not really healthy to be that isolated. As it is now I am at work 40 hours a week so I am around people all day, so I don’t want to see people outside of work, but if I retire that will be a whole different scenario.

We inherited stocks when my mother-in-law died in 1989 and we put it in an account that was managed by a CFP (certified Financial Planner). He was just starting his business back then and we were one of his first clients. We still have him as our CFP and I would trust him with my life. He looks out for us and all his clients, he is as honest as the day is long and very competent. I would never try to manage a stock portfolio on my own or buy and sell stocks. It was kind of stressful thinking about the market when it was going up and down, and our CFP has suggested that we convert to lower risk stocks given my husband is retired and I am close to retirement. He suggested I do that back in 2011, but I decided to take a chance and keep the higher risk stocks and as a result we made a lot of money since the stock market went way up. I am not sure I want to continue in the high risk now because I do not need the money and I could lose money if the market drops.

I do not know what you mean by half pensions. Since my husband and I work for the state we get a state pension which is a percentage of our salary multiplied by how many years we put in. I do not know how it works in the private sector, some companies have pensions and some don’t and they all calculate differently.

We are pretty wealthy by most standards but I still worry about money. I am very frugal but it is more because I do not like material things than that I am afraid to spend money. I used to worry a lot about how much we spend on veterinary bills and the electric bill for heating the house, but I have gotten over worrying about stuff like that. Our electric bill is very high because we have central heat, even though we keep the house pretty cool. We used to heat the whole house with a wood stove at the first house we lived in, the one that is now a rental, and that was a lot cheaper, although it got difficult for my husband to chop wood and build fires, especially because he has severe asthma. After we moved out of that rustic house to where we live now we felt like we were living in a luxury resort with all the amenities...

It is nice to have a comfortable home but I do not get any happiness from anything material and my husband is the same way. I could not care less about having a new car like most people. Our two cars are 1986 and 1999 models and we got them used many years ago. I just do not enjoy material things. Stuff is just stuff. I cannot understand why people even care about having material things. Sure we have the three houses, but those are investments. People and animals are what matter, not things. I love nature and animals and that is about the only thing in this world that I enjoy, besides traveling, which I do not do anymore owing to our life circumstances. However, I do hope to travel again someday. It is good to travel to other countries and see how other people live. I went to New Zealand back in 1980 for six weeks and maybe I will even make it to the U.K someday.

I am staying away from the electric bikes for now because it would just complicate my life. Given how complicated my life is already I am trying not to add anything more. Besides that fact, I like getting the exercise biking affords. There is one big hill I have to traverse on my commute to work and back but if I am too tired, I get off the bike and walk. We have very good bus service here and so I can always put my bike on the bike rack on the bus. I have a free bus pass because I work for the state government. Senior citizens pay less for the bus but it is not free. We also have a Dial-A Ride service for people who are disabled and cannot take the city bus for any reason. It comes right to the front door.

I am happy to hear that your wife got better... Good doctors are always to be appreciated. Many years ago, I was saved by some good homeopathic doctors. I never had any physical illnesses but I had a severe depression back then.

 

[Trailblazer]

@ oldbadger

oldbadger said.... Will you have another after this one?
Do you need another after this one?
Will you seek another after this one?
The questions apply to both 'another life' and 'another tenant'.

If you don't have to rely on tenancies for an income, then best to do something else, maybe?

I will no doubt have another tenant after this one but it will ONLY be after the house has been repaired and everything is working perfectly because I do not want any more problems like I have now. I let that tenant move in before the repairs were completed and the Lease says he accepts the house in its present condition, but I never would have rented it before repairs were complete if I had known what would happen. First, I did not know how long it would take to get all these repairs done, and second I did not know the tenant was going to complain from day one and threaten me with inspectors and attorneys, not to mention asking for things that I am not required by law to provide. He is a licensed contractor so if I had been willing to hire him for the work none of this would have ever happened but there is no way I was going to hire him since it is always a bad idea to hire a tenant and besides that his bids were over three times as much as other bids for the same work, and he said he would be saving me money. Maybe he thinks I cannot add two and two. I am not an idiot.

It has been a nightmare and it is not over yet. The good news is that I have a LegalShield membership so I get free advice from attorneys and one free document review and one free attorney letter per case. The bad news is if the tenant took me to court I would either have to pay an attorney or represent myself. So far all I have gotten from his attorney is a demand letter with all kinds of lies he told his attorney and ridiculous demands. I have a telephone consultation with my LegalShield attorney on Friday, so he will probably write a response letter to the demand letter.

I do not need the income but if I can get a good tenant it is the prudent thing to do, as opposed to leaving the house empty or selling it. It is a good investment property and many people always want to rent it because it is so unusual and in the country on acreage on the river. When I had good tenants it was stress free but unfortunately I had one bad tenant for every good one. The key is not to be in a hurry and to carefully screen the tenants and get character references. I did that this time but my mistake was renting it before the repairs had been made.

As for another life, I will have another one after this one whether I want it or not. That is not something I have any control over. I cannot say that I need an afterlife but God must think so or else there would not be one. There are times when I wish this was the end and there are times when I am glad it isn’t, it depends upon my mood and what I am going through. One thing I do know, I am glad that the afterlife will be spiritual and not material, because that will get rid of all the problems I have here, since they are all related to the material world. The most disconcerting thing about the afterlife is our lack of information about it, because I have never been much for the unknown. That is why read books written by mediums who communicate with spirits on the other side. I don’t care if other Baha’is choose to remain ignorant and take their chances, I am not one to take chances. I need to know more than Baha’u’llah has revealed so I can better prepare for the afterlife as eternity is a long time.

How about you? How do you feel about the “possibility” of an afterlife? Didn’t you say that you went to a spiritualist a couple of years ago? You can tell me about that experience if you feel comfortable doing so.

My husband and I have had this agreement for many years that if he dies first and I try to communicate to him through a medium we have a secret that only we know. If he comes across with that secret that will be confirmation.

oldbadger said.... Back in the day I often served Court Process Docs on Tenants for 'Landlord-Action' solicitors and so I learned how expensive it is to remove a bad tenant.

It can be expensive to remove bad tenants if they refuse to vacate, if you have to hire an attorney. I only had to evict one tenant and I did all the paperwork myself. I only had the attorney come in for the one hour hearing so that only cost me $200. I won the case and got a judgment against the tenant but I never collected because she did not have a job so I could not garnish wages, and because I was afraid of retaliation. All the other bad tenants I have had left when I told them what would happen if they didn’t leave. They were smarter than the one I evicted because she now has an eviction on her record.

oldbadger said.... But after retirement when I worked for my mate in carpet cleaning I was always visiting properties both during and after tenancies. The Letting Agencies charged property owners a heavy % of incoming rents but they were professionals at Letting-Management and Tenant-selection, etc.

But I also often visited properties where landlords had avoided such charges by not using agencies. Bad Tenants hunt out such property owners, and once into Lets they can withold rents, knowing that the legal system will take many many months and £thousands to evict them before leaping into the next tenancy, and of course they can show fat deposits and first payments at the next Lett because they never paid a penny for months before that. Then they run the next landlord in to the ground. And when they do finally get evicted there is the cost of clearing up........ I specialised in saving only carpets........ the whole bill could be large.

You are right that bad tenants seek out property owners instead of renting through property management companies, because they know there will be strict rules through property management companies and there is no bending the rules. However, that does not mean all tenants that rent from homeowners are bad tenants.

oldbadger said.... I think I may have a good idea of what kind of hell you are going through. I am so very sad to see that you are being so badly upset by your particular situation. Some folks cannot empathise with Landlords because they think that Landlords must surely be rich, but I know that retired couples have been buying a second property with their retirement annuities for letting out because there is no other way to work the money for an income. But of course a bad tenant can rip that all to pieces......

And blooming lawyers (and bailiffs) feast on all this...... as you certainly know.. Please, please just get clear of all of that asap, and you'll be able to breath again.

Thanks so much for your empathy. Often I do not get much empathy from Baha’is because they just write it off to “tests and difficulties” for which I should be thankful because they help me grow stronger. Now, that might be true, but that does not mean they are not painful, and enough is enough... Of course it is easy for people to say these things since they have not walked a mile in my moccasins. Sadly, many religious people are lacking in compassion. They either say suffering is good for you or they say that if I had more faith in God I would not suffer. It is not a coincidence I gravitate towards non-religious people for friends.

Just because we have more money than the tenants does not mean that they can rent our house and live for free. I had a tenant at my other rental that was about $11,000 behind in his rent, that was about a year’s worth of rent, and once that debt got that large I was faced with evicting him and cutting my losses or waiting to see if he would pay up. Talk about risk taking! Everyone told me I should evict him before it got any worse but I thought he was very honest and that he would pay as soon as he got the money (he needed clients for his business) as he had promised to do.... so I waited. Just call me Job because that is how much patience I have. Anyhow, he finally sent me $5000 in two installments and now he has been keeping up on rent for the most part, he is only about a month behind. Had I evicted him, I would be out $11,000. People can hardly believe this story because it is so rare that a tenant would make good, but I had another tenant in a similar situation who owed me three month’s rent and paid all of it as soon as he got the money from her new job.

It is true that attorneys make a lot of money off of these cases but many attorneys are caring people who really want to help their clients. Of course they make good money but that is why they went to law school all those years.

 

[oldbadger]

@Trailblazer ...... Wow! Thankyou for the care and trouble that you took to explain all to me.
I don't know how you do it..... pressures, stresses and strains such as you have described would be far too much for me or my wife to bear...... they would surely crush us.

Several members on this forum are very poor, through disabilities and various circumstances, and I can remember when some members from all around the world sent one member paypal gifts to help out, because he had been turned out of his home. But reading of your property difficulties it might well be said that richer people can actually endure as many stresses, but obviously for different reasons......

Yes...... On Monday October 16th 2014 I went to a Christian Spiritualist chapel for healing. Back in the early 60's I had accompanied my grandmother to this same chapel after her husband died, and in 1991 I returned after my first wife died. And so I knew of the place, so tiny and tucked away out of view that even some nearby residents didn't know about it!

For several weeks I had been undergoing an emergency lung cancer investigation which involved about 11 different tests, scans, xrays, biopsies etc and the results would be available on Wednesday October 18th when my wife and self would meet with the respiratory consultant. My lungs had been filling up with fluid and my GP, a respiratory specialist himself, had entered me into this procedure. We were prepared for the worst because there didn't seem to be any other diagnosis than cancer. And something just kept telling me to go to this chapel, which I did.

The Healer was a youngish woman wearing heavy gothic-style makeup. She worked at the wedding shop down the road. She wore platform shoes with amazing high heels and had hair so long that it reached to her waist. She wore black. She had been night-clubbing during the previous weekend..... I knew all this because I listened to her conversations with her friends who were there at the chapel.

I didn't know that she was a healer until she invited me to take a special seat. And then she placed her hands on me. And the heat from her touch was amazing. Two weeks later , she gave me healing again and this heat was not present again, only on 16th.

After this healing my breathing became more easy, and on Wednesday 18th the consultant looked surprised as he told us the all the results had come back negative for cancer. Wife and self just sat still in mute silence, looking at each other. The consultant said that he needed to send me for circulation and heart investigation straight away, but all those tests came back negative as well. Everything was negative.

Other things started to happen after this. For about 45 years my knees had been very painful, I couldn't kneel down for long because standing up was painful and my knees would swell up with fluid etc. Walking down hill could be dodgy. After 16th October my knees got better. Now I can do standing knee bends, stand up on my bike pedals when cycling uphill, kneel down without any pain.

I started to have dreams about small successes..... I dreamt that I found a ladies Cartier Watch at a boot fair for £6 and the next day that happened, for exactly £6.... ridiculous ! Other dreams involved purchases of expensive swarovski figures for next to nothing, all which happened, and then one night as I lay awake I thought I would test all this nonsense ... could I find a Mans Cartier watch for silly money at the next boot fair that I went to...... a hopeless chance...... I did, for £5 I purchased a Cartier Tank Basculante watch, it was dirty and would not work and the seller thought it was useless. Withing a few hours I had it shining and working.

This kind of thing has just carried on for the best part of one year. All manner of surprises, and I don't know why, they have just occurred. But I won't try the lottery here. I don't believe in millions of unreasonably poor folks putting money in so that one of them can be unreasonably rich...... no... I won't bother with that.

Was it the healer? I'm open minded, but I can tell you one thing. I couldn't give a fig about anything now apart from just being with my wife and pets and enjoying each hour of each day.........

I will bathe in the waters of Fate for the rest of my days...

 

[Trailblazer]

@Trailblazer ...... Wow! Thankyou for the care and trouble that you took to explain all to me.
I don't know how you do it..... pressures, stresses and strains such as you have described would be far too much for me or my wife to bear...... they would surely crush us.

Several members on this forum are very poor, through disabilities and various circumstances, and I can remember when some members from all around the world sent one member paypal gifts to help out, because he had been turned out of his home. But reading of your property difficulties it might well be said that richer people can actually endure as many stresses, but obviously for different reasons......

Yes...... On Monday October 16th 2014 I went to a Christian Spiritualist chapel for healing. Back in the early 60's I had accompanied my grandmother to this same chapel after her husband died, and in 1991 I returned after my first wife died. And so I knew of the place, so tiny and tucked away out of view that even some nearby residents didn't know about it!

For several weeks I had been undergoing an emergency lung cancer investigation which involved about 11 different tests, scans, xrays, biopsies etc and the results would be available on Wednesday October 18th when my wife and self would meet with the respiratory consultant. My lungs had been filling up with fluid and my GP, a respiratory specialist himself, had entered me into this procedure. We were prepared for the worst because there didn't seem to be any other diagnosis than cancer. And something just kept telling me to go to this chapel, which I did.

The Healer was a youngish woman wearing heavy gothic-style makeup. She worked at the wedding shop down the road. She wore platform shoes with amazing high heels and had hair so long that it reached to her waist. She wore black. She had been night-clubbing during the previous weekend..... I knew all this because I listened to her conversations with her friends who were there at the chapel.

I didn't know that she was a healer until she invited me to take a special seat. And then she placed her hands on me. And the heat from her touch was amazing. Two weeks later , she gave me healing again and this heat was not present again, only on 16th.

After this healing my breathing became more easy, and on Wednesday 18th the consultant looked surprised as he told us the all the results had come back negative for cancer. Wife and self just sat still in mute silence, looking at each other. The consultant said that he needed to send me for circulation and heart investigation straight away, but all those tests came back negative as well. Everything was negative.

Other things started to happen after this. For about 45 years my knees had been very painful, I couldn't kneel down for long because standing up was painful and my knees would swell up with fluid etc. Walking down hill could be dodgy. After 16th October my knees got better. Now I can do standing knee bends, stand up on my bike pedals when cycling uphill, kneel down without any pain.

I started to have dreams about small successes..... I dreamt that I found a ladies Cartier Watch at a boot fair for £6 and the next day that happened, for exactly £6.... ridiculous ! Other dreams involved purchases of expensive swarovski figures for next to nothing, all which happened, and then one night as I lay awake I thought I would test all this nonsense ... could I find a Mans Cartier watch for silly money at the next boot fair that I went to...... a hopeless chance...... I did, for £5 I purchased a Cartier Tank Basculante watch, it was dirty and would not work and the seller thought it was useless. Withing a few hours I had it shining and working.

This kind of thing has just carried on for the best part of one year. All manner of surprises, and I don't know why, they have just occurred. But I won't try the lottery here. I don't believe in millions of unreasonably poor folks putting money in so that one of them can be unreasonably rich...... no... I won't bother with that.

Was it the healer? I'm open minded, but I can tell you one thing. I couldn't give a fig about anything now apart from just being with my wife and pets and enjoying each hour of each day.........

I will bathe in the waters of Fate for the rest of my days...

I do not know how I endure all I endure and still retain my sanity. This latest tenant nightmare was the final straw. If I even stop to think about this tenant I become homicidal so I have been trying to keep my mind otherwise occupied so as not to think. He is indeed an evil person, a liar and a manipulator, a narcissist of the worst sort. He even told my husband once that humans are nature bad and there is no hope for humanity. That was of course his projecting his own character onto all of humanity. Of course that came up because my husband always has to discuss religion so he brought up Baha’i.

I consult with another attorney tomorrow and I am really worried. I have no idea what is going to happen. Evil people beget evil deeds.

Wow! Thanks for sharing that beautiful story. That made my day and it is certainly a lot more interesting and inspiring than my tenant stories.

Usually people who have stories of healing like that have a God involved and I am reticent to believe those but I think that it is possible that there are people who are spiritual healers. If people are healed that way I also think that it had something to do with the power of God that often works through people. Of course nobody could ever prove that, but they cannot prove that spiritual healers effected healing either. It becomes a matter of faith for those so affected.

So you had a lot of breathing difficulties but were never actually diagnosed with lung cancer? However, if you were having an emergency lung cancer investigation it must have been serious with cancer highly suspect.

My husband smoked from his teenage years until he was about 50 years old and he now has severe asthma. It is probably because of his smoking, since he never had asthma as a child. Anyhow, he never got emphysema or lung cancer but he has severe asthma. He uses Ventolin inhalers and a nebulizer machine as well as a steroid inhaler. We have not really tried any alternative treatments except for homeopathy but he did not continue with that.

What happened with the spiritual healer is not exactly the same but it is somewhat similar to homeopathic medicine.Homeopathy works on the vital force but since homeopathic remedies have no molecules of any substance in them they are not something that scientist can isolate and analyze and prove. Thus scientifically inclined individuals think that any healing that occurs has to be a placebo effect. I do not believe that because I not only underwent treatment for over 10 years, I studied homeopathy for about four years. So I know how it affects a cure and why it does.

I did not have anything happen to me as dramatic as you experienced but I had a dramatic improvement in my mental-emotional symptoms over a period of many years. For the five years prior to homeopathic treatment I was on various antidepressant and anxiety drugs but they never really helped me. I was thus in very bad shape when I finally discovered homeopathy and underwent treatment. I believe it saved my life, so much so that I decided to study it and use it as an adjunct to my Counseling psychology practice.

Unfortunately, a second career never came to fruition because of circumstances in my life at that time that precluded my changing careers. Then after that I lost my long held cartography job and was catapulted into a lower level position owing to state budget cuts and it took me eight years to finally get a job back in my field. During those years we were very poor, barely making ends meet. We had to breed the Persian cats on a small scale just to claim them as a business and sell a few kittens per year. We ended up keeping many of the kittens so that is why we had so many cats. We only have 10 Persian cats now, but for many years we had twice many cats as we have now.

Now I understand more about you I can understand why you said “I couldn't give a fig about anything now apart from just being with my wife and pets and enjoying each hour of each day.........” I feel the same way except I kind of sort of also give a fig about the Baha’i Faith and God too..... some days, but not always. I guess I have to say that what I care most about are the cats and people although there are some people I could certainly do without.

 

[oldbadger]

I do not know how I endure all I endure and still retain my sanity. This latest tenant nightmare was the final straw. If I even stop to think about this tenant I become homicidal so I have been trying to keep my mind otherwise occupied so as not to think. He is indeed an evil person, a liar and a manipulator, a narcissist of the worst sort. He even told my husband once that humans are nature bad and there is no hope for humanity. That was of course his projecting his own character onto all of humanity. Of course that came up because my husband always has to discuss religion so he brought up Baha’i.

I consult with another attorney tomorrow and I am really worried. I have no idea what is going to happen. Evil people beget evil deeds.

Oh dear...... I can only hope that the rewards and any profits from your rental business do help to make all that trauma worthwhile. You meet with another attorney tomorrow...... that does look as if previous lawyers may have been unable to help? In any event, good luck.

Wow! Thanks for sharing that beautiful story. That made my day and it is certainly a lot more interesting and inspiring than my tenant stories.

Usually people who have stories of healing like that have a God involved and I am reticent to believe those but I think that it is possible that there are people who are spiritual healers. If people are healed that way I also think that it had something to do with the power of God that often works through people. Of course nobody could ever prove that, but they cannot prove that spiritual healers effected healing either. It becomes a matter of faith for those so affected.

A matter of faith? Maybe not so. I forgot to tell you that my late wife was afflicted with the most dreadful Grand-mal (tonic clonic) epileptic seizures and other kinds of fits as well. In 1973 I went with her to meet Harry Edwards of Leatherhead, Surrey, England, a well known healer. My wife was a Bahai and told Mr Edwards that she had only come as a result of my pleading with her to make that visit, but that she had no belief in it whatsoever.
Mr Edwards explained that it did not matter whether she believed or not because he was not a faith healer, just a healer.
After meeting with him she did not have any seizures of any kind until about circa 1975 or thereabouts (I forget now), and when I tried to make contact for a second visit I was told that Mr Edwards had just died.

That, of course, was another reason why I went to the Chapel last October.

So you had a lot of breathing difficulties but were never actually diagnosed with lung cancer? However, if you were having an emergency lung cancer investigation it must have been serious with cancer highly suspect.

Indeed, true..... but things looked very bleak, and my wife googled the symptoms with bleak findings.

I reply to the rest of your post later....

 

[Trailblazer]

Oh dear...... I can only hope that the rewards and any profits from your rental business do help to make all that trauma worthwhile. You meet with another attorney tomorrow...... that does look as if previous lawyers may have been unable to help? In any event, good luck.

When life sucks is certainly a good place to be posting all of this...

Unfortunately, my appointment with the attorney got cancelled today because he incurred a serious back injury so he will be out of the office for a while. I was assigned another attorney and I have a consult on Monday morning. This is just dragging on and on.

I am a member of the Washington Landlord Association so I get free advice from them, but I still do not know what I am going to do about the letter I got from the tenant’s attorney. Today I called another agency called Landlord Solutions and the president of that agency is supposed to call me back.

I also found out that the Tenant had hired a home inspector to look at the house. Mind you, home inspectors are normally hired to inspect a home that is for sale, not to look at a rental. I don’t know what that narcissistic tenant thinks he is going to accomplish. The law is the law and a rental house does not have to meet the same standards as a house for sale. The hundred-dollar question is what standards it has to meet in order to be considered habitable. So far, nobody has been able to answer that question, not even the attorneys I have spoken with.

A matter of faith? Maybe not so. I forgot to tell you that my late wife was afflicted with the most dreadful Grand-mal (tonic clonic) epileptic seizures and other kinds of fits as well. In 1973 I went with her to meet Harry Edwards of Leatherhead, Surrey, England, awell known healer. My wife was a Bahai and told Mr Edwards that she had only come as a result of my pleading with her to make that visit, but that she had no belief in it whatsoever.
Mr Edwards explained that it did not matter whether she believed or not because he was not a faith healer, just a healer.
After meeting with him she did not have any seizures of any kind until about circa 1975 or thereabouts (I forget now), and when I tried to make contact for a second visit I was told that Mr Edwards had just died.

That, of course, was another reason why I went to the Chapel last October.

When I said it was a matter of faith all I meant was that since it cannot be proven how people get healed it is not scientific. I did not mean it does not work. I wish they had faith healers in the United States. Maybe they do, but you never hear about them and I would not just go to anyone since I am sure many are fraudulent.

Of course you know that Baha’is are told to consult competent physicians so maybe that is why your first wife did not believe in a faith healer. Many Baha’is do not believe in homeopathy either and that is their own loss.

I am sorry you lost your first wife. You and your wives seem to have had your fair share of health problems. It is no wonder that you would trust what you found has worked for you. After five years on antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs that did not help me, I finally turned to homeopathy and I have never regretted it.

 

[oldbadger]

When life sucks is certainly a good place to be posting all of this...

Unfortunately, my appointment with the attorney got cancelled today because he incurred a serious back injury so he will be out of the office for a while. I was assigned another attorney and I have a consult on Monday morning. This is just dragging on and on.

I am a member of the Washington Landlord Association so I get free advice from them, but I still do not know what I am going to do about the letter I got from the tenant’s attorney. Today I called another agency called Landlord Solutions and the president of that agency is supposed to call me back.

I also found out that the Tenant had hired a home inspector to look at the house. Mind you, home inspectors are normally hired to inspect a home that is for sale, not to look at a rental. I don’t know what that narcissistic tenant thinks he is going to accomplish. The law is the law and a rental house does not have to meet the same standards as a house for sale. The hundred-dollar question is what standards it has to meet in order to be considered habitable. So far, nobody has been able to answer that question, not even the attorneys I have spoken with.

I'm trying to fit the pieces together.
Evil wicked narcissistic tenant.
Caravan on driveway.
Building works continuing.
Evil tenant consulting lawyers and writing letters.
No available lawyers to assist you.
Nobody seems to be able to tell you exactly what to do.
Nobody knows what is reasonable. (The civil law is based upon reason)
All this causing your quality of life to be below zero.
But you will not seek contented harmony in your life but suffer bad nights and worse days, going on.......... to scrazzle that wozzlejerk in his own attorney soup.
Fair enough.

I never realised how dreadful it is, being rich in property.

When I said it was a matter of faith all I meant was that since it cannot be proven how people get healed it is not scientific. I did not mean it does not work. I wish they had faith healers in the United States. Maybe they do, but you never hear about them and I would not just go to anyone since I am sure many are fraudulent.

Of course you know that Baha’is are told to consult competent physicians so maybe that is why your first wife did not believe in a faith healer. Many Baha’is do not believe in homeopathy either and that is their own loss.

Yes, but after seeing Mr Edwards she didn't have any seizures until after his death.
Harry Edwards was a famous healer here.
I'm open minded..... but I would return to that chapel, yes I would.

I am sorry you lost your first wife. You and your wives seem to have had your fair share of health problems. It is no wonder that you would trust what you found has worked for you. After five years on antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs that did not help me, I finally turned to homeopathy and I have never regretted it.

True...... to all points.
And I certainly don't trust modern medicine absolutely.
My late wife was prescribed anti-seizure drugs during pregnancy that caused dreadful disabilities in our third child. There were thousands of such cases but our health service covered up the situation for over 40 years until last October. I don't auto-trust anybody.
And our family doctors' diagnosis and treatment for diabetes kills thousands each year, which is why specialists are trying to develop an online programme app for GP guidance and to save many lives.
So I chuckle when the scientists scrag the spiritualists.

 

[Trailblazer]

I'm trying to fit the pieces together.
Evil wicked narcissistic tenant.
Caravan on driveway.
Building works continuing.
Evil tenant consulting lawyers and writing letters.
No available lawyers to assist you.
Nobody seems to be able to tell you exactly what to do.
Nobody knows what is reasonable. (The civil law is based upon reason)
All this causing your quality of life to be below zero.
But you will not seek contented harmony in your life but suffer bad nights and worse days, going on.......... to scrazzle that wozzlejerk in his own attorney soup.
Fair enough.

I never realised how dreadful it is, being rich in property.

I do have an attorney who is going to assist me but I am not sure if she will tell me exactly what to do. Nobody seems to know what makes a property uninhabitable so it might come down to my hiring a home inspector to come and assess the condition of the home. That is what the tenant apparently did so I do not think I can fight this unless I have my own report. I thought I could rely upon a building contractor to tell me what he considers habitable as far as mold goes but he does not have the same qualifications as a home inspector. I will be asking the attorney these questions on Monday.

The civil law regarding Landlord/Tenant requirements for both sides is specific in some regards but it is nebulous in others. For example, it says that I must commence repairs within 10 days of receiving a letter from the tenant requesting repairs but it does not say how long I have to make the repairs. Getting bids from contractors (which I did even before the tenant moved in) is considered commencement of repairs. The law also says that if a landlord cannot make the repairs due to lack of funds the solution is for the tenant to repair and deduct that from the rent but they cannot deduct more than a certain amount and my repairs are far over that amount.

Other solutions for the tenant are to wait for the landlord to make repairs or break the Lease which he is allowed to do. So the fact that I offered the tenant a no-fault agreement to break the Lease one month after he moved in and he decided to stay is not my fault. Can he blame me because he stayed and paid rent and now expect me to refund that rent? It does not make sense that he could blame me but I will allow the attorney to answer that because I do not know the answer.

Yes, it is dreadful to have to deal with people like this tenant and attorneys but I am now settled into it and I know what I have to do and am doing it. I am distressed off and on, but usually only when I am at an impasse or I am at work and it is interfering with my ability to function. I find it very difficult to be around other people so I am usually a lot better on the three days I am off work.

I have not lost any sleep yet. It is the unknown that is so disconcerting, living with the unknown. But all of my life is like that so the only solution is just to live in the moment and try not to think ahead except to plan for what I have to plan for and do what I have to do each day... Everything else will happen in due time whether I plan ahead or not. As long as I know I am doing everything I can do that is all I can do.

Yes, but after seeing Mr Edwards she didn't have any seizures until after his death.
Harry Edwards was a famous healer here.
I'm open minded..... but I would return to that chapel, yes I would.

That is interesting. Was it the fact that he was still alive that prevented the seizures or was it that she kept seeing him? Did she have to see him often to keep the seizures from reoccurring?

True...... to all points.
And I certainly don't trust modern medicine absolutely.
My late wife was prescribed anti-seizure drugs during pregnancy that caused dreadful disabilities in our third child. There were thousands of such cases but our health service covered up the situation for over 40 years until last October. I don't auto-trust anybody.
And our family doctors' diagnosis and treatment for diabetes kills thousands each year, which is why specialists are trying to develop an online programme app for GP guidance and to save many lives.
So I chuckle when the scientists scrag the spiritualists.

I tend not to trust conventional medicine but I have lightened up on that some in recent years. It has its purposes and uses so we just have to be careful what drugs we take. If we do not absolutely need drugs I do not think we should take them. The doctor wants my husband to take a statin drug for his cholesterol but I am not going to let him take it until he has first tried to lower his cholesterol with diet and hopefully exercise.

I think most people are really gullible and they believe everything the doctor tells them without question. Then they call us gullible because we use homeopathy or spiritual healers. The thing is that homeopathy and spiritual healers cannot cause any damage so the worst thing that can happen is that they do not cure. The worst that drugs can do is cause damage, sometimes permanent damage.

 

[oldbadger]

I do have an attorney who is going to assist me but I am not sure if she will tell me exactly what to do. Nobody seems to know what makes a property uninhabitable so it might come down to my hiring a home inspector to come and assess the condition of the home. That is what the tenant apparently did so I do not think I can fight this unless I have my own report. I thought I could rely upon a building contractor to tell me what he considers habitable as far as mold goes but he does not have the same qualifications as a home inspector. I will be asking the attorney these questions on Monday.

The civil law regarding Landlord/Tenant requirements for both sides is specific in some regards but it is nebulous in others. For example, it says that I must commence repairs within 10 days of receiving a letter from the tenant requesting repairs but it does not say how long I have to make the repairs. Getting bids from contractors (which I did even before the tenant moved in) is considered commencement of repairs. The law also says that if a landlord cannot make the repairs due to lack of funds the solution is for the tenant to repair and deduct that from the rent but they cannot deduct more than a certain amount and my repairs are far over that amount.

Other solutions for the tenant are to wait for the landlord to make repairs or break the Lease which he is allowed to do. So the fact that I offered the tenant a no-fault agreement to break the Lease one month after he moved in and he decided to stay is not my fault. Can he blame me because he stayed and paid rent and now expect me to refund that rent? It does not make sense that he could blame me but I will allow the attorney to answer that because I do not know the answer.

Yes, it is dreadful to have to deal with people like this tenant and attorneys but I am now settled into it and I know what I have to do and am doing it. I am distressed off and on, but usually only when I am at an impasse or I am at work and it is interfering with my ability to function. I find it very difficult to be around other people so I am usually a lot better on the three days I am off work.

I have not lost any sleep yet. It is the unknown that is so disconcerting, living with the unknown. But all of my life is like that so the only solution is just to live in the moment and try not to think ahead except to plan for what I have to plan for and do what I have to do each day... Everything else will happen in due time whether I plan ahead or not. As long as I know I am doing everything I can do that is all I can do.

Ouch......... many types of mould can be very very dangerous to folks. The property does seem to need work to it.
I guess that's why the tenant has placed a caravan on the driveway and linked it for water.
Obviously I don't know anything about it, but the problem is that if this whole situation was shown to other folks (who don't know anything about it either) then the general consensus of opinion could easily switch in favour of this nasty, narcissistic evil tenant. You could be seen as a comfy, wealthy, property owning landlord who doesn't offer customer service or customer care to tenants, and if this tenant gained the favour of any officials or courts then he could seek for local newspaper coverage of the situation as he has seen it.

Look, there is probably a Bahai Local Spiritual Assembly within 50 miles of you......... that's a group of people who you might listen to because you are a Bahai. That's nine people who are detached from your situation and might be more able to give advice from a lay viewpoint. Obviously I would seek advice from friends of my own, but if you don't much trust people then that LSA might be valuable for you? And you might listen to it?

Sometimes, when folks are hellbent on to something, they cannot be advised other than by very very very close friends, relatives etc, and even then such advice could possibly break friendships if the person involved doesn't hear what they want to hear.

That is interesting. Was it the fact that he was still alive that prevented the seizures or was it that she kept seeing him? Did she have to see him often to keep the seizures from reoccurring?

My wife met Mr Edwards once, and never again. She never had any kind of seizures for a couple of years, and when they returned, on seeking Mr Edwards again, I discovered that he had just died. That's all I know.

I tend not to trust conventional medicine but I have lightened up on that some in recent years. It has its purposes and uses so we just have to be careful what drugs we take. If we do not absolutely need drugs I do not think we should take them. The doctor wants my husband to take a statin drug for his cholesterol but I am not going to let him take it until he has first tried to lower his cholesterol with diet and hopefully exercise.

I think most people are really gullible and they believe everything the doctor tells them without question. Then they call us gullible because we use homeopathy or spiritual healers. The thing is that homeopathy and spiritual healers cannot cause any damage so the worst thing that can happen is that they do not cure. The worst that drugs can do is cause damage, sometimes permanent damage.

Whether seeking cures from spiritual, homeopathic, lay or scientific sources, medicine can be a bit of a lottery. I know...... I visit my son's grave twice a year to tidy it, and but for medicine's mistakes (dishonestly covered up) he would probably be a middle age man with grand-kids by now. I'm not angry any more, I just take doctor's claims against all but their own abilities with a pinch of salt now. I've never met with a poor doctor, either...... they do enjoy their incomes!