For Rent

Since Jake and I have bought the house, we've decided to do a little bit of shuffling. We decided to make it more of a group decision since we've all lived together for so long. Jake and I did our best to not ruffle any feathers, but we're also trying to figure out how to swing things so we don't have to make any payments out of our own pockets... at all. We want the renters of our newly acquired property to make our mortgage payments for us.

Initially Lance, Nick and Aaron were against it, but we explained to them that if we doubled people up in bedrooms then rented out the downstairs rooms we could afford to do awesome stuff to the house. As soon as we mentioned putting a fountain drink machine in the kitchen and a hot tub in the backyard, Aaron and Lance got a little more excited.

Jake and I got on KSL and bought two sets of bunk beds. We put one set in the big room that Aaron previously had to himself. He was pretty pissed about that, so Jake and I moved into Aaron's room with him so he wouldn't be forced to share a room with strangers. We moved Lance upstairs and put him in his own room since it was a little bit smaller. We told Nick that we would be putting a set of bunk beds into the other upstairs room and he would be sharing with someone. That leaves two vacant rooms downstairs.

I spent the last 45 minutes creating this detailed sketch in Paint to help you all visualize our house. I took painstaking effort to make sure this was exactly to scale... to the millimeter. That way, anyone interested in figuring out who we are can simply track down floor plans for every house in Utah and cross reference it with my super accurate sketch.

If you look carefully at the sketch, you'll see that I've labeled where we will all be sleeping. Do you see an "N" anywhere? Nope you don't. That's cause two days ago Nick told us that he was moving out. We tried to find out exactly why. Jake and I were genuinely concerned that he didn't like his new living arrangements and couldn't be bothered to argue. He told us that he'd felt like he should move back home for a while. Apparently Nick has a lot of debt that he's accrued in the last several months that he's getting pressure to pay off. So Nick decided to move back in with his parents to save some money.

Kinda sad, I know. He didn't give us any notice at all, either. He started packing his stuff up yesterday. I reminded him that we had all paid his portion of the rent for the month of February and then offered to prorate his rent for the month of March so he'd only have to pay for the first half of the month. Nick replied, "Nah. You guys will be making enough on rent from everyone else, you don't need me to pay you." I said, "Um... yes we do, Nick." I tried to explain that we didn't have any renters yet and that I needed him to at least pay us back the money we loaned him in February. He started talking about how we didn't even have to pay our first mortgage payment until April 1st so I shouldn't bug him about a couple hundred measly dollars.

I may have already mentioned in a previous post that I hold grudges. I'm a massive grudge-holder. I'm still pissed at my sister for getting into my bottom desk drawer and eating my Family Mix liquorice when I was in Jr. High School. And my issues with JTM:S is proof enough, right? Even though I hold grudges, I seldom find myself angry. I'm usually able to laugh, mock, deride, or otherwise embarrass my enemies. As a result, I rarely feel enraged. But I found myself getting pissed at Nick. He knows he owes me, Jake and Aaron money, but he refuses to pay it. What the crap?

I debated even telling this story, cause I know that there are a few people who will say "I told you so". Or, "Didn't I warn you that going into business with friends was a bad idea?" or "You totally ignored the advice of dozens of anonymous strangers who comment on your blog and now you will reap the consequences!" or even something like, "Awesome! One less person to interrupt you while you're kissing Jake, cause you're gay and like to be gay and your gayness is so gay it strains the boundaries of gayness in the gay community, you gay person." But, we didn't go into business with Nick. He just happens to be one of our tenants.

Calvin