The House Story

Ta-Dah! Here's our home for the next two years! Isn't it cute? We thought it was too when we picked it out and signed for it on May 28th. Fast forward to July 1st, the glorious day that we get to sign the real lease and pick up the keys! We were excited to get into our own home again.

So there we were, sitting in the waiting area of the housing office, waiting to be called in for our appointment. There was another family there and Sammie played on the floor with two of their three children. A lady peeked her head out the door and asked us what address we were signing for. "1155 Remagen" we replied. But then the family sitting across from us with the three children said, "That's the house that we are here to sign the lease for." A-w-e-s-o-m-e. I had actually predicted this situation when we signed up for the house on May 28th. The guy (we'll call him T) did not seem to know what he was doing when he was helping us. He kept asking the other people that worked there what he needed to do next. Obviously he didn't do something right. Jim even called and stopped by the housing office a few times to make sure that things were still good for us to move into our house and to see if we could get in a few days earlier if it was ready. Apparently the other family also called and checked on "their house". The funny thing is, is that no one in the housing office seemed to catch that two families were signed up to get the same house. How does that happen? This is their job!

So we sit there twiddling our thumbs while the lady in the back frantically tried to figure out how this had happened and what could be done about it. Long story short, we signed for the house on May28th and it was accidentally left on the Available Housing List. The other family signed for it on June 4th. We ended up with the house because we signed for it first. But this poor family, we felt so badly for them. They had been living in Army Lodging for a month with their three kids waiting to move into this house. We, on the other hand, were able to live comfortably with family for the last month. They probably drove by all the time to check it out, just like we had been doing. The other family did get another new house, it was just a duplex while ours is a single family. They were really bummed out. But we found out a few days later that God miraculously opened up a single family home for them late one evening when someone else backed out of it. God is good!

Okay, back to us. I go with my brand new keys to look at the house. And it is a mess! It had not been cleaned at all. Dirty carpets, dirty bathrooms, dirty fridge, it was just gross. And here I was with movers coming the next morning. Since Jim is doing in-processing, it was up to me with my two sleeping daughters in the car to get this fixed. I managed to find "T" (remember, the nitwit who can't cross a house off the list?) and told him of the predicament I was in. "Oh" he replied "They didn't turn over the house yet." No concern, no Oh my gosh this should not have happend, Nothing! So I stand there while he calls the head of the Cleaning Up the Empty Houses crew and they rush to start patching up nail holes and painting a little in our house that afternoon. At least they cared. And did everything they could to clean our house right away. We did try to have the movers show up a day later, but the next time they could make it out wasn't until July 13th.

We tried not to be stressed that evening although the house still needed to be cleaned from top to bottom and the carpets needed to be cleaned all before we could move into our house. And the movers were coming the next morning between 8 and 9. Okay, so I've rambled on long enough and it has all worked out just fine. The super cleaning ladies started at the crack of dawn and finished up while the movers started unpacking. We had the heavy furniture all moved into the house and everything else put in the garage all before the carpet guy came and steam cleaned the floors. We had to wait until that evening to do anymore unpacking or furniture moving in, but at least the house was all cleaned and all our stuff got delivered! God worked it out for us.

We had our parents come at different times to help us watch the kids and move/unpack our stuff. They were all a big help! Thanks parents! We still have plenty of unpacking/organizing to do, but at least we are in our own house again. :) And here is a sweet pic of my little Reesie-piecie. She's happy to finally have an exersaucer to hang out in again.