PREVIOUSLY IN THIS JOURNAL: The cute little old lady who rents the mother-in-law addition on our house so that we can make the mortgage payment is going to move to Turku at the end of the month, but we were inundated with a surfeit of potential replacements as soon as our SIL posted on FB about it.
Some of the hopefuls were Ukrainian refugees and one of the parties of Ukrainian refugees were about to become homeless, which at least enabled us to select on the basis of greater need. This family of Ukrainian refugees is six people though, which seems excessive for a tiny one-bedroom flat (51 square meters, which I think I remember was 540-something square feet?). Okay, only two of the people are adults - sisters-in-law - and the rest are their children, the youngest 3 and the oldest 12; and granted, the combined mass of these four children is definitely considerably smaller than the combined mass of our four pets and MIL's entire household's worth of junk, so we were definitely more cramped in that flat than they will be. Possibly much quieter though.
We showed it to them and they were still, understandably (since they have no other options), eager to make it work, so we agreed and now we have a sort-of arrangement (no signed documents however). Our current little old lady swears she will be gone by the 29th, and we will call them the moment they can start moving in. In the meantime, we have to compile a list of things we can contribute to their household (spare kitchen table and futon, some dishes, tragically no kitchen implements because we already donated all of those to the local charity shop last fall).
Now the big worry is that we still have to contact the other 6 parties and let them down nicely, although at least it's easier to do this in favor of homeless Ukrainian refugees.
In anticipation of today's meeting, even though we really only HAD to show the addition, we cleaned the entire downstairs of the house pretty thoroughly, in case we invited them in. As it happened, we didn't, but this is the cleanest the downstairs has ever been, I think - we've cleaned the normal rooms properly before, but until now we always had inescapable piles and stacks of MIL's stuff we hadn't got rid of yet and it was never possible to completely clean out under the stairs. But we actually cleaned EVERYTHING (downstairs) now! We're down to two cardboard boxes of Stuff to Sell that don't fit in a closet! Wax even emptied the bathroom sink trap, which was full of hay and bunny fur from rinsing out the bunny water bowls, and I emptied and reorganized the little shelves on the kitchen side table, and we beat all the rug runners and oiled the butcherblocks and even hung art in the hallway (although it still doesn't have its floor or trim and we still have several walls needing resurfaced).
1. Tristana helping Wax clean the sink 2. Our Agent Cooper print by my friend Ella (and Snookums) 3. Snookums and the kitchen floor with a rug we paid too much for but it was so pretty 4. Rowan and Tristana communing in the redecorated livingroom 5. Inspector Japp exploring the redecorated livingroom for the first time
More complete photojournalism is provided here by![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waxjism.
Oh, and just... to preserve them for posterity... here are the two most amazingly bad bits of advice we've received regarding this situation:
Some of the hopefuls were Ukrainian refugees and one of the parties of Ukrainian refugees were about to become homeless, which at least enabled us to select on the basis of greater need. This family of Ukrainian refugees is six people though, which seems excessive for a tiny one-bedroom flat (51 square meters, which I think I remember was 540-something square feet?). Okay, only two of the people are adults - sisters-in-law - and the rest are their children, the youngest 3 and the oldest 12; and granted, the combined mass of these four children is definitely considerably smaller than the combined mass of our four pets and MIL's entire household's worth of junk, so we were definitely more cramped in that flat than they will be. Possibly much quieter though.
We showed it to them and they were still, understandably (since they have no other options), eager to make it work, so we agreed and now we have a sort-of arrangement (no signed documents however). Our current little old lady swears she will be gone by the 29th, and we will call them the moment they can start moving in. In the meantime, we have to compile a list of things we can contribute to their household (spare kitchen table and futon, some dishes, tragically no kitchen implements because we already donated all of those to the local charity shop last fall).
Now the big worry is that we still have to contact the other 6 parties and let them down nicely, although at least it's easier to do this in favor of homeless Ukrainian refugees.
In anticipation of today's meeting, even though we really only HAD to show the addition, we cleaned the entire downstairs of the house pretty thoroughly, in case we invited them in. As it happened, we didn't, but this is the cleanest the downstairs has ever been, I think - we've cleaned the normal rooms properly before, but until now we always had inescapable piles and stacks of MIL's stuff we hadn't got rid of yet and it was never possible to completely clean out under the stairs. But we actually cleaned EVERYTHING (downstairs) now! We're down to two cardboard boxes of Stuff to Sell that don't fit in a closet! Wax even emptied the bathroom sink trap, which was full of hay and bunny fur from rinsing out the bunny water bowls, and I emptied and reorganized the little shelves on the kitchen side table, and we beat all the rug runners and oiled the butcherblocks and even hung art in the hallway (although it still doesn't have its floor or trim and we still have several walls needing resurfaced).
1. Tristana helping Wax clean the sink 2. Our Agent Cooper print by my friend Ella (and Snookums) 3. Snookums and the kitchen floor with a rug we paid too much for but it was so pretty 4. Rowan and Tristana communing in the redecorated livingroom 5. Inspector Japp exploring the redecorated livingroom for the first time
More complete photojournalism is provided here by
waxjism.Oh, and just... to preserve them for posterity... here are the two most amazingly bad bits of advice we've received regarding this situation:
- One of Wax's middle school classmates: "Homeless Ukrainian war refugees? No no, don't rent to foreigners. You can't trust them. I know a guy who rents and he has a policy of never renting to foreigners."
(There is still some slight friction between us because Wax did not respond that her wife is a foreigner, although obv they have been told before.) - My former career adviser, likewise after being told about the Ukrainian refugees: "Renting is good though... try to make a little profit, save a little money!" Mmmmh, yeah, we're not trying to make a profit on the homeless war refugees, my dude.
