Yesterday... a re-cap

I drove far away to get 2 parking decals: $50.00

Since the Post Office was not helpful and the HOA could not tell me what mail box was mine, I put my key in all of them till one opened. (I had an hour to kill anyways waiting for my locksmith.) While hunting, a man on the HOA board told me he could look up my unit and tell me which was mine. I later found out he lives on the other side of me. He came back as I found it, figures…

My friend’s dad gave me a great deal on re-keying my place. He re-keyed 4 locks, gave me 4 keys, and had to re drill the door jamb hole for the lock because it didn’t close right… took him around an hour or so, but he only charged me $70.00 (he didn’t charge me for the re-drill of the hole, or fixing my hinges on my door, or the full price he normally charges just for the locks and the like.) Friends are nice =) I’m also keeping his son afloat every month by paying for piano lessons from him. I like his family. They are good people. =)

On my way out I caught my downstairs neighbor… who is also on the HOA board. She’s really nice and an early bird and that is lovely since we both get up at 4 or 5 in the morning (so does the other guy on the HOA board behind me).
Apparently the place was a rental unit… and at one time, 8 kids were living in there with their mom… That’s where the patio damage came from. It’s not termites; the kid took a knife to it and started hacking away at the wood. There is apparently no need for me to submit a request to fix my balcony—it’s already in the repair line up, but the HOA can only afford to do one at a time and mine won’t be done by the time I move in as some are in really bad shape. But our association is the only one in the neighborhood with reserve money and not in debt. They have never had a special assessment ever… and the neighborhood I almost bought a place in has had 2 in one year. Glad I moved down the block.

I also found out that my HOA does not enforce the BBQ rule so I can have one!!! Sweet happy day! After the 8 people in the one bedroom thing, the next renter was a nice guy who one day after still paying his land lord rent every month got a notice to leave in 30 days as it was being foreclosed upon… what a crappy landlord not to tell him all that!

All in all, it was a very productive day, considering I worked 8 hours too!

Surprisingly, I was worried who or what my neighbors would be like, but they are amazing! I’m so thrilled! I have happy vibes.

I’m going to spend Sunday cleaning my condo (it’s dirty) and begin to buy things to start my projects. I can’t put in the wall AC unit until it’s approved by the association, so I’ll measure the existing one, snap its photo, and look for its replacement.

Hopefully this weekend I’ll:
• Clean my condo so I feel okay sitting on the ground.
• Buy my 2 ceiling fans and the remote units for them incase boyfriends daddy can install them.
• Buy the drain cleaner for the bathroom sink and get rid of the slow draining drain.
• Buy and install my second cheap smoke detector for the living room (and put it far away from the kitchen).
• Schedule a time for Home Depo to come measure my kitchen (its free for October) and give me price estimates.
• Decide what type of flooring I want in the kitchen/dining room/living room so I can pick paint colors soon.

I’m also getting a $700 check back from escrow. $500 hold, plus money back because we closed on the 29th—a few days after the day we planned so I had to pay less!!!!!