Currents

Sometimes it's hard not to be carried away by strong currents. Two of the the strongest local currents around here, unaffordable housing and an unforgiving employment market, are presently threatening to sweep my husband and I away. How so? We learned about a week ago that the owner of our rental house needs to sell. Our lease is up soon anyway, so, although we don't relish the idea of finding other housing, we were at least somewhat mentally prepared to conduct another housing search soon. As it turns out, we only have about a month to find another place and get ourselves moved. No, the owner hasn't sold the place already. It's not listed yet. But I learned that, as tenants, we will very soon be expected to have work crews in the house at all hours, will have to keep the place extremely clean on a DAILY basis, so that it can be shown at any time, and that we'll have to keep our house rabbit, who currently enjoys the better part of a room to herself, confined to her cage for days at a time, so that she doesn't "disrupt" the staging of the house. We will not be compensated in any way for our trouble, however. It's just the way it goes.

In all candor, I think that sucks. In three days I'll resume what is, to me, a very stressful job, whose most demanding season falls between late September and early December. If last year was any indication, my evenings will soon be comprised of me hiding out, choosing not to answer the phone, and trying hard to insulate myself from the world. I'm an introvert who happens to work with very demanding, needy people who are frequently in some throes of a crisis. I don't begrudge my clients their difficulties. Not at all. I just happen to really need a lot of downtime in order to recover from being in an intense, people-centered mode for most of the day. My husband is in a similar situation, only he has to talk to people about money, so, his conversations are arguably even more intense than mine.

There is absolutely no way that either of us will be able to devote time every day to making the house spotless for potential buyers. It's not going to happen. I also don't have time during my day to check my home voice mail for messages from real estate agents wishing to show the house. Finally, I don't really need to have people rifling through my (admittedly rented) closets and drawers. As tenants we have very few rights in this matter. Given our limited power we have both decided to just move as soon as we can to avoid as much of this chaos as possible.

Unfortunately, finding housing in a college town with one of the few remaining inflated real estate markets is truly challenging. Since we can't afford to buy anything we'll be competing with students for a roof over our heads. Rental properties around here are, by and large, poorly maintained, dismal structures that seldom allow pets and not infrequently involve weekend telephone calls to the police. We were very fortunate to find this place and don't kid ourselves that we'll find anything else as nice that we can afford. To be brutally honest, I nearly end up in tears every time I think about this housing current that keeps us in a very uncomfortable (metaphorical and often literal) place.

I should mention that both my husband and I have "good" jobs. We work in higher education. But our combined salaries are not enough for us to own a home and rents on properties that are barely decent are on the rise. We've been trying to leave the area for more than a year now, but nothing ever seems to pan out. We're stuck. It sucks.

I can't help but feel that if we had a local community land trust in our area, and if the real estate were owned by people who actually intended to make their homes here (instead of speculating with the property), we might have a shot at staying here and making a life for ourselves. As it is, that is unlikely to happen. And frankly, not having a stable home life is tearing both of us up inside. We're one part of the ugly side of speculation. What about people who don't have jobs that even come close to paying a living wage? Imagine what our truly poor neighbors are up against. No one should have to struggle to keep a safe, reasonable roof over their heads. It's shameful.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to put both of my blogs on hiatus until we can sort out our living situation. I'll be back when I can be.