We have to move out of our house. We received notice back in March and have until June 14th (we can leave sooner, if needed). I don’t want to go. I love this house. I love the area. I love my room and my bath. I love the view from my bed, and the sunny yard. I love the cherry trees and the grape vine. I love the gas stove and wide hallways. I love the lack of stairs and spacious bathroom. I love the configuration we’ve finally settled on, after 6 years, that gives the kids their own space to play, and the adults their own space without the children’s chaos, and gives me a designated sewing/massage/reiki/meditation/yoga/whatever space.
I love the memories we’ve made here.
I don’t love having to do so much gardening, so there’s that.
I also hate moving house. It takes energy I can’t spare. It requires mental and emotion work in the sorting, packing, and culling of my stuff. It means showering and leaving the house for viewings, climbing stairs to check out upper storeys or exit basement rooms. It means online searches, emails, and messages to landlords. It means having to explain to people why I can’t work or use stairs etc. On top of that, because it is an unplanned move, I also have the stress of needing to find somewhere for us to go on a fast approaching deadline, and that’s not easy.
We started looking at houses immediately, viewing our first only 2 days after getting our 90 days notice. Some agents/owners just don’t respond, at all, even to just a viewing request, and others give regular updates, some don’t seem to know who was at a viewing, others keep good records and follow up on missing applications.
We have looked at many that just wouldn’t work for us (what would be my room being up/down steep stairs is a big one), and have fallen in love with a few and applied for everything that we think could work (5 so far). The rejections hurt.
We still have 2 “live” applications, another viewing tomorrow, one on Monday, and another we only just enquired about tonight, but being rejected by the other 3 was hard. It’s demoralising, and scary when there are so few houses with the space and configuration to suit our needs.
We didn’t hear why they think we’re unsuitable for those 3 properties. We got no feedback or requests for more information, just “sorry, your application was unsuccessful” from two and no response from the other.
I know we’re good tenants. We are solid and reliable. We don’t trash our houses. We pay the rent on time. We even fix the easy things ourselves. If the landlord hadn’t decided it was time to move on, we would happily stay put for years.
I have been in job interviews where the demeanour of the panel visibly changed when I disclosed my illness, so it’s hard not to feel like my disability (which is obvious because I am on a disability benefit as my main source of income and I use a stick and try to avoid stairs) is the reason we’re being rejected. On a rational level, I know it’s just as likely to be the fact that we have a cat, or that were a multi-adult group rather than a straight forward couple and family, or that someone else just outshines us, but that doubt still sneaks in and I hate it.
Lorem Ipsum Life 