Thursday, May 27, 2010

Stressed for no reason and the dishonesty of Provo landlords

I'm easily stressed (to some degree). Even though we're in Egypt another three months (one month down!), I find myself incessantly worrying about what happens when we get back to Provo. Where are we going to live? and where are I going to work? are the two main questions constantly streaming through my brain. As far as an apartment goes, we're thinking about Wymount. I never really wanted to live in BYU-style housing again, and I don't like the location of Wymount, and Melissa/Casey/AB aren't there, and it's a little pricey for what you get. But... benefits include you can do the contract online, pay your rent from your BYU financial center, only pay $100 deposit and not worry about getting cheated out of your money.

Which brings me to why Provo landlords are dishonest: TPM took 95% of our deposit, and then charged us extra for "unpaid rent", which we did not think we had to pay, and then charged us a $50 late fee on top of the unpaid rent and on top of the $50 late fee they already took out of our deposit for April rent. I didn't think our April rent was late... but maybe? Sometimes we had others drop it off for us, and I can't remember if that was the case for April or not (I had bigger things going through my mind then, like packing for Egypt). They also took $100 for a "get out of contract" early fee, which is lame since we found someone to move in after us. And $91 for carpet cleaning. They just suck you dry, these Provo landlords. And they can because we let them. They hold our credit scores in their bony little fingers.

Which brings us again to a job: Anyone know of a place I could work come August? I have a Bachelor's degree. I have bakery/ice cream experience. I can recite all 50 states in alphabetical order. Surely SOMEONE wants me and will offer above-minimum-wage pay and some decent hours. Because we will be... kind of strapped for cash seeing as how we'll have none. Maybe another student loan and food stamps will be in order if I can't find a job? I don't know. I really don't want to have to work full-time or even some-time but I'm thinking that I want decent health insurance and financial security for the years until Tim is done with school and we figure out the next step.

On a less stressful note: I can't do anything about any of this for the next three months so I should RELAX while I have the chance and just hang out with this little guy:


On the Metro

6 comments:

  1. The carpet fee is legit. It is lower than I would expect it to be.
    Mum

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  2. I hear you about the landlord thing... I really liked our landlords in Orem but when we moved out they charged us $150 so their son could come clean the carpet, even though my mom has a nice carpet shampooer and would have come and done it.

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  3. Betsey.....cleaning would not help that carpet! It was beyond hope.

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  4. It's not just Provo. We got ripped off by our nice old lady landlord in Long Beach. Try to fight it. I wrote a strongly worded letter to our landlord in Provo, something to the effect of, "We have moved, and we are not paying you any more rent in spite of our contract." And we never heard from them again.

    Live in Wymount if you can. And put together a really good resume and start networking to find a job. Good luck.

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  5. we hate provo landlords too. and carpet fees are such crap, in our first apartment they didn't even clean the carpets between tenants and they still tried to charge us! (they didn't get away with it though). we rent from friends and it is the best thing ever. the rent is higher than the average provo apartment but the apartment itself is not average at all and they always give us back our full deposit. the back of the house is opening up in august....just saying :).

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  6. were i work might be hiring then just depends on the turn over which always seems to happen at that time good job pays well (i make around 600 a week) :) its good ol customer service with good benefits. Also i have friends that rent out a house with a basement apt. I think it might be available come August for pretty cheap...let me ask them for you its just one bedroom
    TPM CHARGED YOU WHAT!! dang when we left our first place we only got charged a $60 carpet cleaning fee got everything else back..New Mexico freaking screwed us over and wont even give it back to us and I just have no energy to fight with them

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