Rent.

No, this isn't a musical. Settle down.

So... as of January, I've been renting my old house out to a former employee. I did this out of desperate necessity. Obviously, not ideal circumstances. Since January, I've received two months of rent. I'm still waiting for April, May, and June - soon to include July.

This would be fine if the damn electric company had terminated my account one of the five times I asked them to do so. Well, they finally did. This month. How lovely. So... I've got another massive electric bill to pay. I'm very excited.

I would subtract that from the rent I'd collected so far, but $0 minus $700+ is still $700+ in the hole.

Yeah. My financial situation is inspiring. But, it gets better. I left my phone in my jeep yesterday evening when I got home from work, so I missed my grandmother's call. It's land tax time again. How exciting. I can't wait for that bill to make it through the mail system and into my hands. Again, I would subtract that from the rent I'd collected so far, but -$700+ minus maybe another $600+ is a very painful $1300+ in the red.

Someone should kill me. I bet it would cost alot less. Bargain assassinations. I'm going to Google it. Oh, how completely unsurprising. Assassinations are much cheaper if you have them done in Mexico. I guess it's time for a roadtrip.

To summarize, renting the house has cost me about $1400 for 6 months.

Wait a minute. What happened to the rent from the two months I did receive? Oh, that went to paying off the previous electric bill which was just as massive. October, November, December, and January are the worst months for electric bills, by far. I still have the previous land tax bill to repay to my grandparents.

A wise man - who also happened to be a complete asshole - once told me that if I ever found myself in a hole, the best way to get out of it was to stop digging. Of course, I'd then push him into it and fill it back in. I mean, who wants a giant hole in their yard and some know-it-all asshole standing there looking smug? Not me. Unfortunately, I'm not the only one digging this hole and I stopped digging nearly a year ago. There may be hope, though.

I talked to the renter a month ago to find out if there was any chance in hell of ever seeing some money from him or if I should just evict him. He assured me he had every intention of paying and that money would be forthcoming and soon. Well, that worked out very well. Anyway, I just had another chat with my tenant. I'll hold by breath until this Friday. That's as much patience as I have left.

I mean, I understand we all have problems and shit happens and things fall apart. However, I got bills to pay on top of the house bills to pay. I just got my Jeep back from the shop and I still think there's something seriously wrong with it - something completely different that's just as seriously wrong with it, to clarify. I could also use an eye exam so that I can see things singularly instead of in multiples of two or three depending on distance. Whatever. I lost where I was going with that. Oh, we all got bullshit expenses and living costs money. So, that said... I can empathize to a degree, but I got no sympathy for anyone that can't step up and take care of business. I think I've demonstrated a fair degree of patience up to this point, so it's out of my hands after Friday. I can't help anyone who won't help themselves and I defintiely won't help anyone who won't help me back.

I totally understand why my grandmother was so eager to wash her hands of the whole messy situation. I got enough stress without the house bullshit to deal with. Seriously. Also, I don't need help accumulating more debt. I have more than enough and I was making great progress with that. But... yeah. I don't need more ways to spend my paycheck. It's stretched as far as it will go already.

I'm hoping it works out and my tenant makes an effort - some effort, any effort at all would be great at this point - to pay his rent and help me with that growing pile of savage bills.

Damn. No wonder my landlord fucking loves me. I pay that shit no less than a week early. I'm like clock work - easy money.

[/freak out and sigh]