i want my money!

we've only been here a week and it's already happened: the first "run-in" with our new landlord. let's call her pearl.

it's kind of like dating, sort of. you hear about somebody, you meet, you court and eventually you move in. (so it's not really like dating, unless you're me, but whatever.) our relationship with pearl is actually pretty similar. we responded to an ad on craigslist, we met, we applied and she checked our references and bam! we've got a place to live. (and yes, that was an emeril-type bam!)

sweet.

or is it? i'm not gonna lie, it's a little weird living in someone's house - i feel like it's not really our place to live, we just happen to be visiting and we brought ALL our stuff. i think it's because we got the tour while all her stuff was still here and then when we moved in we had to clean a bunch of her stuff out of it.

but anyway. moving on to the "run-in."

so this week being the holiday and all, we were late in getting the rent check out to pearl. the bee and i share the responsibility - he writes the check but i have to mail it. it was due on thursday and we didn't even mail it until friday.

whoops.

i need to add, it's not like we were purposely not paying the rent - it just slipped our minds. it's a bit of a change having to make sure that our rent is in chicago by the 1st of the month as opposed to having to make sure that our rent is down the street by the 4th. besides - the bee couldn't even find his checkbook until late thursday night.

so friday morning (morning!) pearl calls and is all "...i hope i'm not going to regret renting to you guys... the lease clearly states... there's going to be a late fee.. please call me immediately..."

so we call and the bee leaves a message: "we're sorry, it was mailed today, blah, blah, blah..."

done and over, right? nope.

we get another message: "eviction starts on the 5th day..."

WHAT? ARE YOU FOR REAL? EVICTION? lady, i just moved all my stuff in here and you think you're already moving us out, are you crazy?

so we call her back and (try to) smooth things over. at the end of the conversation she tells us she feels so much better after talking to us, it's not going to be a problem, yada, yada, yada...

until tonight, when i find that she's sent me a copy of the lease via email, highlihting the portions about late fees and due dates and eviction. mmmkay... this is going to be a swell year, i can see it already. :(

i think we might mail a check for next month sometime this week, just to be sure.

and in case you're not sure about the whole pearl reference, here you go: