October 2022 Island Trip – Day 1

The goal of this trip is to get the house leased (and Stella winterized), though I have my doubts this will happen. I built a website for the house and let three select groups know about the house’s availability. The website hits have been impressive, but the only contact has been the daughter of my former property manager. She comes with a service dog, who I met today. The idea of a service dog gave me pause (paws?) on my stance of ‘absolutely NO DOGS.’ What if the perfect tenant has a service animal that happens to be a dog? Do I say ‘No?’ I can because I’ve made the ‘no dog’ statement. These folks are willing to write into the lease that they will be responsible for any damage the dog might do. And the law in our state stays I cannot charge an additional deposit for a certified service animal. I am left wondering about the viability of a lease clause that puts the onus on the tenant for their pup’s damages should they not have the resources pay for or fix any damages. I listed the house on Zillow’s rental board late this afternoon. There is little competition, and what’s there make this property look like a bargain.

I arrived shortly 11:30ish, unpacked the car (didn’t need to bring the truck), and hopped on the mower. It took less than 2.5 hours to mow the entire place. Thank you October! Yeah, there’s a little line trimming and, push mower work to do, but fall catch up is a piece of cake!

Mid-afternoon my appliance hero arrived and we got the old oven out of its cabinet. No rat nests!!! Just spider webs. We used the old appliance dolly and walked the new oven down from the lower barn to the house. It’s not a short walk… He’s going to try and pick up a flexible gas line in town, as the new oven’s gas intake is in a completely different place than the old oven’s, and if it’s not available, order one online. No oven swap in a house this old is 100% smooth. I’m going to list the old oven on a few Island centric Facebook boards for free. It works fine.

The cabinet shelf above the oven was expired due to water infiltration. I need to find a piece of 3/4” plywood to replace the shelf. I’ll mine the wood pile in the upper barn tomorrow.

I got to spend a little bit of time with my neighbor to the east. We’re gonna do sushi Friday night.