Our Cast Alan Beverly Carlos Charlene Frank Glenn Grace Jennifer Joe John Johnny Lyle Melody Paris Phil Philip Robin Terri

More Moving Adventures My next tale continues with the grand moving adventure. Now this next bit doesn’t have that much affect on me, but I thought you might enjoy reading about the general wackiness that took place. For those who didn’t read the other story, or have a short memory, I’ll summarize the previous bit of fun. Charlene and I decided to move out the house we were renting with Charlene’s mom, Beverly. Beverly decided to use a recent windfall of $15,000 as the down payment on a condo. Her son, Alan, was going to borrow the money using his carpet cleaning business as collateral to secure the loan. Beverly made arrangements to stay in the old rental for two months until the condo cleared escrow and she could move in. While Charlene and I settled into our nice little apartment, trouble brewed back in the old rental. The property management company had required a very high security deposit, and I wanted at least some of it back. Charlene’s mom, however, wasn’t cooperating. She refused to pack her stuff in preparations for her impending move. Her view was that on moving day, Alan, and his entire work force would show up, pack her belongings, and load them on the company truck(s). She assured me everyday that Alan would also clean the entire place. After the grand dog adventure, I didn’t fall for this. I trundled my butt over there three weekends in a row and cleaned that place as best I could. Days before Beverly’s move day, she whined to Charlene that she hadn’t yet seen the condo, and there were problems with the house meeting code. She would not be able to move in on her planned date. We begged her to reconsider this deal, take the money and buy herself a nice mobile home, or at the very least, rent an apartment. We offered to help her find a nice place. No, she wouldn’t hear of it. She was going to take the condo. She managed to convince the property management company to let her stay another month since her son was a professional drug dealer – opsie, I mean carpet cleaner (don’t you just hate when you do that) they could reduce their turnaround time for the rental if he cleaned the walls and carpets. As that month came to a close, Beverly still hadn’t made it over to check out her new home, nor was it available for move in. There was some issue with the electrical, lead paint, wood rot, plumbing, and sewage systems. Since she couldn’t’ stay any longer, the plan she and Alan put together is that he and Robin would put Beverly up in a hotel for duration, while he stored her belongings in his warehouse. I used this extra month to try and do some more cleaning, but Beverly still refused to pack. I just gave up. Let them bill me, although I warned Beverly that if Alan let her down and the property management company came looking for me, I would lie, cheat, steal, and do anything I could to throw them off of me and onto her. I wish that could have been there on her moving day, I really, really, really wish I could have, but it fell in the middle of the week. Now, do you think that Alan shut down his entire business to devote his staff to helping her pack, move, and clean? As the sun set that, and after he closed for the day, Alan, Robin, Lyle, and one worker showed up. Having lost nearly the entire day, they elected not to pack, instead the loaded the truck with a shovel. I’m not kidding; they used shovels to load her stuff into wooden crates. After a few hours of loading boxes, crates, and even the truck itself with shovels of her personal effects, Alan announced they where done moving. Ever try to move an entertainment center with a shovel? How about a couch? Kind of hard, huh, so they didn’t. All the furniture stayed sitting right were it was. Bookcases, chairs, desks, bed, all of it, everything that couldn't fit on the business end of a shovel were left behind. I guess that’s why they didn’t clean the carpet, or the walls. There was too much stuff in the way. The view expressed by Alan, Terri and Robin was that Charlene and I should be made to pay for the problems we put them through. Needless to say the property management company wasn’t too happy about this stunt. They tried to come looking for me, but only found Beverly. With all the costs of moving and removing all the abandoned property, she will be paying them for a long time to come. Beverly's hotel stay turned out to be 3 months. It’s a good thing that the one Robin picked out offered more than hourly rates. They even got a room with bars on the windows facing the alley! Lucky them, huh? The only nice thing about it was the walking, umm, err, “eye candy” coming and going with their clients, of course the thugs with guns listening to rap music just down the street did make me a bit nervous the one time we visited. What about the condo you ask? Oh, yes, the condo. What a lovely place! It was built 30 years ago as low income housing. The electrical system is in such wonderful shape that if you plug in three or more appliances in the kitchen the whole house shorts out. I won’t even get into the plumbing issues. The neighborhood looks like a combat zone, with gang graffiti over every surface, including the sidewalks and bars on every window.