Watching Paint Dry

In February of 2020 I sanded and stained the back deck and bought some new outdoor furniture. I was on the fence about whether I was going to rent the property again. This house was always meant to be a country retirement destination. In the meantime I was renting it for extra income to help fund each new round of improvements. I had just had a fantastic experience with the previous tenants. They were a wonderful family. I’d come up on the weekends and we’d work on little garden projects together. Eventually they had their third child and moved on to buy a larger home of their own. We’re still in touch. It was the kind of arrangement I was looking forward to replicating with new tenants, but I wasn’t in a rush about it. A neighbor recommended friends who were looking for a rental. I ran their credit history, income verification, and background checks. They were solid. In March of 2020 they moved in.

We all know what happened next. Covid lockdowns, social distancing, masks… People in the city insisted that I stay away from the county. People there might not be as vigilant as city people and no one wanted me to bring back the virus. When I communicated with friends in the county they made it abundantly clear they didn’t want city people coming around bringing city cooties to them in the countryside. My new tenants were ambivalent and said I was always welcome.

I had a gardener for a decade who would come by to cut the grass and such. He died which reinforced the idea that Covid contact was genuinely risky. Getting a new gardener was basically impossible during the pandemic. There were lulls and flare ups with the virus. Each time I thought we could get back to normal there was a new variant and my friends read me the riot act. I made the decision to stay away for the duration and trust that my new tenants would manage on their own. They paid their rent on time every month and the neighbors all said they were quiet and pleasant.

Those renters just moved out a few days ago. February is the tail end of winter in Sonoma. Spring is a couple of weeks away. I joke that I bought a half acre garden surrounded by vineyards and orchards that came with a free house. I’ve always been very keen on building up the soil and cultivating as much as possible. I arranged for professional pruners to stop by to assess the fruit trees, vines, and general garden situation before I even arrived at the house for the first time in years. I was eager to get back into the swing of things.

Walking around the garden gave a hint as to the condition of the interior. The landscape had clearly been neglected. The shed was in disarray and the tools were scattered around rusting in the rain. The outdoor furniture was funky.

Everyone has a different personal standard of cleanliness and organization. My Danish mother-in-law has a house so clean you could perform surgery on any surface without fear of infection. My Japanese father-in-law doubles down on the organization. No one can touch anything unless he’s there to supervise. I’m from a family of Brooklyn Sicilians. We’re a little Italian, a little Greek, a little Arab… Pick an empire and they probably stopped by at some point over the last 2,000 years. We don’t live up to the Calvinist standard, but we’re not too bad with the housekeeping.

My tenants? Oooof. I looked around and wondered if they had been part of a hostage negotiation or if the Feds had whisked them off into the Witness Protection Program. I don’t think it ever occurred to them to clean any part of the house - ever. They left dirty dishes in the sink, laundry inside the washing machine, food in the fridge and cupboards, and furniture scattered about. I don’t think they understood the concept of removing the fluff from the dryer lint screen. Were they bad people? Drug addicts? No. They just had a different standard.

There had been hints of this when the chimneysweep I hired to clean the wood stove each year sent this photo. The lady of the house was keen on seasonal decorations. I had to send her text messages explaining why covering a wood stove with highly flammable stuffed toys, paper Halloween ornaments, and electric string lights was bad. Bad and wrong. Bad and wrong together. It’s a miracle the house didn’t burn down.

At first I thought there was an electrical problem because half the light switches in the house didn’t work. Then I realized the bulbs had burned out and no one had bothered to replace them. This was particularly weird because I left a case of new bulbs in the garage and pointed this out to the tenants when they moved in. When the sun set on the first evening I was cleaning I realized both the front and rear porch lights only half died. They’re LEDs and in their failing state they were strobing like a 70s disco. I don’t understand how anyone could live with that flashing, particularly when changing the bulbs took me less than a minute.

They had installed an air conditioner in the window next to where their bed used to be. The thin plastic side wings weren’t even pretending to keep the cold and damp out of the room in winter. The wind whipped right through. It just didn’t occur to them to remove it when the seasons changed - or when they moved out.

When I had the windows replaced I didn’t skimp. They’re solid wood, double glazed, with aluminum skins on the exterior, and tilt-in for easy cleaning. They cost $1,000 each a number of years ago. They were part of my energy efficiency plan along with generous amounts of insulation. The air conditioner completely undermined all that for no good reason. It took me five seconds to remove it and start washing the windows.

I decided to break down the restoration into small manageable pieces so I wasn’t overwhelmed by the entirety of the task at hand. I’m going room by room, one at a time. I thought I could clean and paint one bedroom in a day. Instead, it took three. At this rate the house will be clean and fresh in a month. Then I’ll be able to turn my attention to the exterior which needs a power washing and paint.

I need to make something clear. As I watched the paint dry I realized these aren’t the worst tenants I’ve ever had. As I already mentioned, they always paid their rent and never bothered the neighbors. Everything that’s wrong with the house can be fixed with soap, bleach, elbow grease, and paint. Fifteen years ago I would have lost my mind over this sort of thing. But now I understand it’s just part of the deal that comes with being a landlord. You have to take the rough with the smooth.

I’m now back at the same point as February of 2020. Do I rent the property again or keep it as my part time country home? This time there’s no hesitation. I’m leaving it vacant so visiting friends can come and enjoy it as I spend my days puttering in the garden. Call it a kind of early semi-retirement. If I happen to find the absolute perfect renters or really need the extra money I can always revisit the option in the future. But for now, it’s off the market. Sonoma has a critical housing shortage, but that’s just not my problem to solve.