Four months, down...how many to go?
Seanie's brother moved out of the duplex at the beginning of April to his new place, a rental belonging to Seanie's mom. He's not far away, just on the other end of the Willow Glen neighborhood. When he and his wife left, not all of their stuff went with them. He has been storing multiple vehicles, some lawn furniture, and a lot of miscellaneous stuff on the duplex property.
It's not entirely his fault. When his mother's previous tenant moved out, she found out that he'd left parts of the property in pretty bad shape. In fact, Jared and Erin had to spend a month or two just doing repairs on the house before they could move in. Worse, the garage was completely trashed. The foundation had to be replaced, the door had to be removed and a new one installed, and the walls needed repair. For all I know, in fact, the entire garage may have been rebuilt from the ground up. Until the construction is complete, Jared can't move his cars and his stuff.
The work is being done by a contractor who rents property from the Buckleys, but this isn't as beneficial as it sounds. True, he does the work and the cost is applied towards his rent, so it doesn't cost the Buckleys any money. But the contractor does the work only when he has money to hire men, so it gets dragged out a LOT. A project that normally would take a few weeks has now stretched on for four months, with no end in sight.
It's really frustrating because Seanie and I really need the garage space for storage. Our home is cluttered and so full of stuff that it's difficult to clean, and making one room presentable means moving piles of things into other rooms and closing the doors. We can't have people over because it's too embarrassing with the mess everywhere, but without sorting space it's hard to see what we have.
I know that decluttering shouldn't be so hard (you just gather up your stuff and throw away the things you don't want anymore) but if we had the garage, we could do simple things like move seasonal decorations into storage so that our linen closet doesn't have to be filled with Christmas ornaments and Halloween-themed dishes. If all the blankets could be in the linen closet, than my clothes would fit in my closet and wouldn't block my bookcases and my books wouldn't be piled on Sean's desk in the office. It's a cascading effect.
Some people are rolling their eyes at this and saying, "So why don't you just get rid of the stuff you don't need?" We are moving to that point, but it's hard to know what to get rid of when you aren't sure what you have in the first place.
I just wish that Jared can move his stuff out before winter comes and the rain hits. It would be nice to be able to sort things out while the sun's shining and the weather's pleasant.
It's not entirely his fault. When his mother's previous tenant moved out, she found out that he'd left parts of the property in pretty bad shape. In fact, Jared and Erin had to spend a month or two just doing repairs on the house before they could move in. Worse, the garage was completely trashed. The foundation had to be replaced, the door had to be removed and a new one installed, and the walls needed repair. For all I know, in fact, the entire garage may have been rebuilt from the ground up. Until the construction is complete, Jared can't move his cars and his stuff.
The work is being done by a contractor who rents property from the Buckleys, but this isn't as beneficial as it sounds. True, he does the work and the cost is applied towards his rent, so it doesn't cost the Buckleys any money. But the contractor does the work only when he has money to hire men, so it gets dragged out a LOT. A project that normally would take a few weeks has now stretched on for four months, with no end in sight.
It's really frustrating because Seanie and I really need the garage space for storage. Our home is cluttered and so full of stuff that it's difficult to clean, and making one room presentable means moving piles of things into other rooms and closing the doors. We can't have people over because it's too embarrassing with the mess everywhere, but without sorting space it's hard to see what we have.
I know that decluttering shouldn't be so hard (you just gather up your stuff and throw away the things you don't want anymore) but if we had the garage, we could do simple things like move seasonal decorations into storage so that our linen closet doesn't have to be filled with Christmas ornaments and Halloween-themed dishes. If all the blankets could be in the linen closet, than my clothes would fit in my closet and wouldn't block my bookcases and my books wouldn't be piled on Sean's desk in the office. It's a cascading effect.
Some people are rolling their eyes at this and saying, "So why don't you just get rid of the stuff you don't need?" We are moving to that point, but it's hard to know what to get rid of when you aren't sure what you have in the first place.
I just wish that Jared can move his stuff out before winter comes and the rain hits. It would be nice to be able to sort things out while the sun's shining and the weather's pleasant.