My last post has us just leaving Grenada and heading for the rolling hills of Virginia all set to enjoy a peaceful summer in a picturesque and serene setting. After the drama off getting off the island...we were looking forward to a low key summer, and all of the conveniences of the States. Dishwashers, running hot water and central air were just within our grasp and we could almost taste the proverbial good life. Life however had other plans...mainly morning sickness and laziness which is why I am just now updating
After a two week tour of the eastern seaboard with John's parents, who had traveled over from Malawi, we headed for our rental in central Virginia. I should go ahead and mention, lest I sound ungrateful, that our summer was bookended by two amazing trips spent with family which I'll write about later, but sandwhiched in the middle of the ideal....was well lets just call it the bizarre. We moved into our picturesque location in Virginia and quickly realized something was a little off...mainly our landlord.
At the risk of sounding petty and like a disgruntled renter I'll spare you the details except to say if Norman Bates had a family I am pretty sure we rented from his offspring. Sparing most of the details... a few highlights were the weird dinner which had me hoping I was among the miniscule percentage of people who can smell arsenic, the creepy feeling that every time I exited my car I had a pair of trained binoculars on me, the utterly bizarre conversations and rules we had to follow, the transexual that cut the grass and just the creepy hair raising feeling these people gave off.
We lived in an stunning little corner of Virginia for 8 weeks and we have no pictures to show mainly because the experience is something we'd like to put behind us, and we pretty much had until we received an e-mail saying that a large portion of our security deposit would not be returned due to stains we put on their "brand new" couch.
We found it a bit strange that this wasn't mentioned in the walk through when we were leaving our apartment. We thought it even stranger that the "brand new"couch was never mentioned when we were asked to watch their friend's dog and asked if it was allowed on the furniture (it was), but imagine our surprise when looking back through photos they sent us of the rental unit we came across a picture of the "brand new" couch. The photo was dated 2000 and there were 5 dogs resting on this couch. We had our own suggestions as to where the stains in question could have come from after seeing this photo, but decided in the end if the Crookes (if you take away one letter, you'll have their surname) needed our money that badly it was a small price to pay to get out of our Bates like living situation. We did take issue to their e-mail saying they were disappointed in the way we had treated their property. I am disappointed in the way they conduct themselves as humans, but after spending the summer with them can't say I am surprised.
The "tiefing" didn't end in Virginia, we returned to Grenada to find our scooter had been relocated. I have to say the tiefing of the $1200 scooter didn't bother me nearly as much as the bogus fine. Hopefully whoever has our scooter needs it and if they actually got it to start, well then they probably deserve it.
Lesson learned. I'll take a Grenada tief over a Virginia Crooke any day.
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