His Happy Home Includes a Landlady
When I accidentally let it slip in a column (OK, maybe it was two) that I have to vacate my rented townhouse early next year, who would have suspected that readers would take such an interest? Perhaps they were touched to learn that during one of the biggest run-ups in housing prices in modern times, I’ve been renting for 16 years. Perhaps they were amused. Some appeared to be gloating.
I’m a proud man, but was I secretly hoping that the columns would result in someone offering me a free condo? Maybe ... but it never happened, and I made peace with that. Instead, I settled for readers’ free advice.
So far, the advice is breaking down this way:
Buy! Rent! Buy! Rent! Buy! Rent!
I’ve narrowed it to those two options, but which one to take?
Despite out-of-sight Southern California home prices, the lure of ownership is powerful. What man wouldn’t want a little patch of ground to call his own, where he could build a life, start a family, hang some pictures, till some ground, raise some livestock and help settle this great sprawling country of ours? Maybe in a place like Huntington Beach or Fountain Valley but freeway close?
To that end, I met with a real estate agent and a mortgage lender last April. Does it signify anything that I haven’t met with either of them since? Is that because, right about that time, a reader wrote in to say, “I am in the [housing] industry, and I don’t even want to buy”?
Still, I’ve been leaning recently toward getting off the rental train, so much so that a few weeks ago I began playing phone tag with the Realtor.
The gods took that as their cue to toy with me, instigating a couple of mishaps in the last two weeks at the homestead. First, a sister who was visiting took a late-night bath in the upstairs bathroom. The next morning, we awoke to find the bathroom rug saturated and the floor sopping wet. Downstairs, directly beneath the tub area, water had obviously been dripping overnight onto the kitchen floor. Instinctively and without wasting a second, I secured a large pail to catch the water.
Stumped, I then remembered exactly how I’d handled just such emergencies over the last 16 years: by calling my landlady.
Like a wolf on a rabbit, she sprang into action. The next morning, a handyman showed up and fixed the problem -- something to do with something or other in the tub. Did I understand what it was? Of course not. So what? I didn’t have to pay for it.
A day or so later, I couldn’t help noticing the downstairs toilet flicker wasn’t flicking properly. I depressed it, but nothing happened. Then I got depressed. What to do? Of course, call my landlady -- even if it was 9 p.m.
She talked me down, telling me at one point to “take a deep breath.” She told me to call a handyman. Instead, I kept monkeying with it and, within a few minutes, it seemed to work. That was a week ago; since then, I’ve relied exclusively on the upstairs bathroom.
This has left me rethinking everything. Am I homeowner-ready? Do I know how to fix anything? Do I want to pay a handyman every time something goes wrong? Do I have the mental toughness to ride out the occasional but inevitable breakdowns and repairs that confront homeowners?
The answer to all those questions is no.
I’ve made a list of all the things my landlady has repaired or replaced during my tenure: water heater, dishwasher, siding, garage door opener, blinds, closet doors, faucets, shower.
That sounds like a lot of homeowner headaches. What if the housing market crashes after I get in? Which, of course, it will.
I’m starting to wonder how much I really need that little patch of ground to call my own.
Dana Parsons can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.
parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.
