Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Hotel Stories: House and pet sitting situations wanted

We are officially the longest term residents of our hotel. The Kentucky family returned to their unsold home and made other arrangements for the New England job. They stopped to say goodbye. It felt like a relative telling family about their whereabouts. We too would like to move on—at least that’s what we keep saying. But the transition to another form of temporary living isn’t easy.

We have now placed ads on Craig’s List for house and pet sitting situations. Everyone tells me how wonderful Craig’s List is, and how in the first twenty minutes they sold everything they had on the list, or they obtained whatever they were looking for.

My experience on CL has not been so glowing. My first try using the site was to attempt to sell my family heirloom, black walnut dining room set. I received three offer to send me thousands of dollars if I would just return a portion of their generosity with my own check for a mere fraction of the total. These letters had that tone you know is not native to modern America, and, were obvious scams. I got a couple of queries asking for pictures, which I posted on the site with the ad, but to no avail. The dining room furniture still resides in the unsold house in IL.

I have to admit that we did get legit replies to an ad for Jay’s motorcycle. Automotive stuff and tools seem to do best on CL as far as I can see.

As for our need for a house sit, we have so far received four attempts to scam us into a credit report, several pleas for us to rent a property, with no follow up from the pleader, making this too seem like a credit report scam, since they went on and on about our financial health requirements, and did not call when we said we would talk to them. We also got a couple of Realtor replies letting us know how easy it is to get into foreclosures.

Really, do these people even READ what we post as our ad needs? Apparently not. They don’t appear to even read our email replies. It makes a person kind of testy after awhile. It seems to bring out the latent discontent of hotel life to have a potential reply for a better situation, only to see it is an attempt to take advantage of an already difficult state of being. I mean, why would people not understand that hardship is not the time to visit with more hardship? I know. It is merely human nature. I just get a bit discouraged that so many are so willing to pounce when things are already down.

We did consider trying out two week stints for vacationers, but learned that the taxation regulations in hotels change when the stay is less than 30 days. Once a resident has a 30 days stay, and it continues without disruption, the state no longer considers that a hotel stay, but switches it to a residency status. Residents don't pay hotel taxes the same as short term guests do. Well, doesn’t that say it all? We live here. Even the state agrees.

We have a library card, get mail here, and it’s getting kind of comfortable. But, that has to change, doesn’t it! We look forward to getting something other than bogus replies, and moving on to long term house sitting. Anyone? Snow Birds? Sabbaticals? Just let us know.

In the meantime, our home continues to have occasional viewers, and we continue to hope for a sale before the end of summer. But, this is August. Almost mid-August. Hope has not sprung up in vigor for quite some time now. But, nevertheless, we do still hope.

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