Rent, Renting, and Renters

October is turning out to be a rough month and it hasn't even started yet.

I mailed our October rent check to San Diego about 8 or 9 days ago. Our landlords (heheh) left us their forwarding address so that I could do so. However, they didn't get the house they were told they were getting (base housing can be like that) so they have a different address. I didn't find this out until today so I mailed a nice-sized check to perfect strangers. Yes. I put a stop payment on it this morning and paid $29 to do so. Now, there is no way that they are getting rent on time this month.

That's not even the worst thing about October and rent. Our renters e-mailed me and asked if it was okay if they pay their rent on 10/10. Well, no it's not but what can I do? If I say no and they pay me, the check will undoubtedly bounce. It will also whittle away at what little bit of neutrality we have between us since last year's rent check bouncing fiasco. Which leads us to the fact that she started pulling this crap the same time last year which is making me wonder if I'm going to have another round of bounced checks on my hand again this year. The really sad thing is that the Mister and I have already started to sock away some money just in case she does. Yeah, yeah. It's easy enough to say that I should make her move out but the thing is, legally, I can't do that. She has to fail to pay her rent four times in a 12 month period before I can even start eviction proceedings and then, as I've been told by a lawyer, Vermont judges aren't inclined to evict people, especially those with kids, in the winter. She has my ass (sorry) in a sling and she knows it. That's why she bounced three months worth of checks last year and then started paying her rent on time. Furthermore, if we evict her, who the hell is supposed to pay the mortgage? We can't afford to pay a rent and a mortgage and live at the same time. Also, if we were to sell right now with the market the way that it is, we'd probably take at least a $40,000 loss. I don't know about you people, but that's nothing to sneeze at in my book. This is why we didn't boot her and put the house on the market this past spring like I had originally planned to do.

I hate rent, renting, and renters. All of it sucks. All of it. Do I get to blame this on the sad state of our economy?