We heard through word-of-mouth that the house was available for rent. The homeowners/landlords were super nice. All of the details fell into place perfectly and just in time. We started packing. We set appointments for services like cable and Internet and set dates for switching the utilities to our name. I shopped around for, and purchased, furniture to fit the rooms. Family members and friends looked through pictures and drawings of the floor plan. We hired the movers – set the date, address, price, etc. We were beyond excited for this new place to call home and the countdown was at T-minus 5 days…
And then the phone rang.
It was last Saturday morning and we were two hours southwest of Kansas City on our way to a high school friend’s wedding in Independence, KS. I had this horrible feeling that something was wrong the second Caton answered the phone...
The house is no longer up for rent. We’re moving in FIVE days and we have nowhere to go. How do you move when you don’t know where you’re going?
There were a couple “mmmhmm’s”, “ok’s”, and a “no, we don’t have a backup plan”… that was it, the house was gone, and we had nowhere to go in five days. As hard as it was to make this decision, we turned around and headed back to KC. We had to gather our thoughts, get a hold of our emotions and figure out Plan B. We had no idea if our current apartment had already been leased out for next month. We had no idea if there were other houses available for us to move into in five days. We had no idea what to do next. Caton made some phone calls on the drive home and the decision was made before we hit the driveway: We have to find another house by Sunday night…
AND WE DID!
After 24 hours of countless searches on the computer, tons of phone calls and seven walk-through’s, we found another house to rent and we could move in Friday! As relieved, thankful and excited as we were, we were equally annoyed, frustrated and exhausted with how things happened and how we were treated, that we had to miss our friend’s wedding and the thought of all the things we had to do on top of what we already had scheduled for our original move. We had completely put a halt on packing to determine whether we had a place to go and if we were going to be move at all. We canceled appointments that we had set super far in advance so we got services like cable and Internet and utilities the day we wanted them (you know me, super Type-A!). We came seconds away from just eating a down payment we had already paid for a huge desk and credenza that we bought to fit perfectly in the so-close-but-no-cigar house (but later decided to go ahead with the purchase and cross our fingers and toes that it will fit somewhere). We deleted the pictures and threw away the drawings of the floor plan and where we wanted to place our furniture. We changed the address with the movers. We had to force ourselves not to think about the house-that-wasn’t and pretend like it never existed in the first place. Our countdown was now at T-minus four days…
I’m sure many of you have questions and I promise we’ve heard them all. WHY DID THEY DO THIS? Why didn’t we yell and scream? Why didn’t we cuss and call them names? Why didn’t we take their offer to have them move in with relatives so we could still move into the house? The answer to each of those questions is the same: we’re not those kind of people; that’s not us and we don’t want to start acting like that now, just because things didn’t go our way. Now don’t get me wrong, we still feel mad… pissed off… fired up… you name it, we probably feel it and we probably will for quite a while. We weren’t just renting this house, we were talking about renting-to-own this house – to make it ours and to turn it from a house to a home. And this rent-to-own option was presented to us, with open arms. We were starting to fall in love with it as much as the current owners did, and then it was just gone.
Despite being put through one of the longest, most emotional and stressful weekends of our life, we are the ones that ended up on top. (I know, that’s what she said.) We found a bigger, better house. We found a more desirable neighborhood that is still in our top pick area, Prairie Village, of KC. We grew as individuals and as a couple and beat yet another hurdle of many that we will come across in our life together. We got to see prayers answered right before our eyes. We still get to be together with a roof over our heads. We don’t have to live with any of the guilt or regret for how things went down. We are the lucky ones…
This wonderful Thanksgiving week has been filled with packing, packing and more packing… along with thinking about all of the things we’re thankful for this year! We can’t wait to share our new house with you. I will be putting up lots of pictures: before, during and after the move; our furniture in the apartment and now how it is set up in the house; the new pieces we acquire; the projects I have been working on and those that are still flying around my head as ideas and dreams. I CAN’T WAIT!!! We hope/plan to live here for a couple years before we venture out and buy our own first home together, but we couldn’t be more excited for this huge stepping stone to get us acquainted to the neighborhood and overall amount of space a house will offer.
Whew! It’s time to get back to packing so we can enjoy our Turkey Day and get ready for MOVING DAY!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
