She continues.

Husband and I have been living in a relatively nice neighborhood, on the fringes of the nice part, for a couple of years now. And we have the worst real estate luck ever, so far. The first place we lived was student housing at Georgia Tech, and I think my living room currently is larger than that entire apartment. The fire alarms went off incessantly. Part of the building flooded (but not our part, thank goodness!). We could have no pets aside from the fish, and one of those nibbled the others to death and lived for a full two years off the life essences of the fish he consumed.

Next, we moved into a loft at Studioplex, which was great, and full of artists (the complex, not the loft), and affordable, and in a great location, etc. We didn’t do so hot with the open floor plan, but it was great! We didn’t need to move! Except that the building went condo and we had to go, anyway. We did get our deposit back, plus some money to move with, but still. It sucked.

And then we moved to the house we’re in now. We looked around, and this one was three blocks from the loft, and it was cute and old and relatively spacious and had the tiniest kitchen known to man. Since then, we’ve had half-working outlets, fleas, and so many squirrels. Oh, the squirrels. It has gone into foreclosure because the owner stopped paying the rent (Salim Dabdoub, wherever you are, I wish to punch you in the nose), and so yesterday we got the official eviction notice from the new realty company.

And here’s where the luck appears to change, somewhat. The realtor also sent along an agreement for us to sign that if we are out by the second week in August, he’s going to pay us to leave! Like, a decent amount of cash, even! And since we’re planning to be out when he wants us to be out, it’s like we get paid for doing nothing extra. Which is cool. He was unaware of the squirrels, though. I called him to ask about the form we were signing, and then casually inquired as to how much the house would be going for (since the husband and I know each and every thing that is wrong with it currently.

New landlord jokingly wonders if we’d like to buy it ourselves.

“No,” I reply, “not a chance.”

He laughs, wonders why we don’t want it. He doesn’t know about the squirrels yet.

“Well, to be honest, we aren’t in a place right now where we can deal with everything that needs to be fixed,” I explain, hoping that he pushes further and asks, so I can tell him about the squirrels.

“Like what?” Innocent question. I am secretly jubilant.

“Well, for one, the house is full of squirrels.”

“Squirrels? Like in the attic?” Still, he doesn’t understand.

“No, everywhere. In the attic, in the walls. I think I heard one in the dining room ceiling the other day. Or at least I think it was a squirrel.” And I really did. It was scratching and making the cats crazy.

“Oh.”

And that was pretty much it. There are many more things that are wrong with it, but I didn’t have time to go into them at that point. We’re going to get the check-in list from the previous property manager and send it to the new realtor, so he knows what we found when we moved in.

And to illustrate just how teeny the kitchen is, Jennie came over last night and we had Welsh rarebit, cooked at the kitchen table, IN A FONDUE POT. Not in the kitchen (though I did use the toaster in there).

I cannot wait to be out of there.

(In more positive news, I have finished turning the heel on the pink sock, and am now doing my gusset decreases! Jennie knit her Jaywalker sock too tight, and then bound the top bit off to make a lovely wristlet, and then started again, at a much better gauge.)