Gardener Included

When we made the decision to rent our current place, it was after we'd looked at probably 5 or 6 other houses. Our criteria were relatively simple: safe neighborhood, fenced in yard, no really big dogs in the neighboring yards, not near a school or church (traffic).
Every place we looked at had fencing falling down, including this one. Every house we looked at had a large dog in the next yard, some of which were busily engaged in trying to dismantle the fencing (which they had nearly done in a couple of the places), including this one.
But by the time I drove all the way up to El Dorado Hills to look at this place, we had a good grasp on the typical rental yard size, and it seemed to go down as the size of the house went up. The biggest house we looked at, in Roseville, had the smallest and most useless yard. One of the reasons I sold my condo was because we wanted a house with a yard, for our dogs (very tiny dogs, 13 pounds and 8 pounds) .
And this house had YARD. Man, did it ever. The front yard was about twice as big as the entire yard of the McMansion in Roseville, and it had a walkway meandering through it and a little alcoved patio just Bistro table sized and perfect for sitting at and watching the neighborhood. The backyard was like a park, complete with trails and a little bridge, and a small barn-like outbuilding that we later discovered had power and lights.
So, it was easy to ignore the big dogs in the yard behind the house, because there was a little ditch and a gravel drive between the fence and the main yard, and the rear fence was very sturdy and reinforced with heavy metal posts as well. The side fencing needed some repairs, which we figured we could easily do. Our main concern was the extensive gardens and landscaping, because I have a bad back and bad knees (I used to ski and mountain bike) and Sig has two fused vertabrae in his neck and isn't supposed to be doing much lifting and hacking. But, according to the property management company, "Gardener included" in the rent.
So, we jumped on the rental and felt pretty good about it. And we didn't expect any gardeners to show up until later in the spring, when it stopped raining. But spring turned into summer and we still didn't see any gardeners, and the pathways were beginning to get over-run with vines and bushes. One of the trees appeared dead, and there were several large, heavy branches hanging over the rear patios (there are four patio areas at this house and one deck off the upstairs master bedroom). The rose bushes were going nuts. There isn't any lawn at this house, a great blessing that I have come to really appreciate, but things were growing in the multiple flower beds that I wasn't sure were supposed to be growing there. So, we called the property management folks and asked when, exactly, the gardeners were scheduled to begin.
And a day or so later, the owners of the house showed up. THEY were the gardeners. And they're very nice people, but they're not spring chickens, either. Their first "gardening" went well enough, and we found out which plants were good and which were unwelcome, and how to turn on the irrigation system, and that the tree I thought was dead was always the last tree to leaf in the spring. Sig felt very uneasy with the owners working outside while we sat inside playing computer games, so we had to go out and "help". A few months later, they came back and we all raked and blowed the leaves into about 25 large yard leaf bags, and they cleaned the gutters. This spring they came back, and did some weeding, and they were going to fix the trellis that had fallen over the shed door due to the weight of the roses on it. They said they'd be back in a couple of days, but they never did come back.
By now, we had purchased a wide assortment of clippers and trimmers and trowels and shovels and rakes and brooms and a wheelbarrow and a leaf blower. And we just hacked the roses down so that we could get into the shed, and let them kind of fall to the side. It isn't quite as lovely as the heavy spray of flowers over the shed door, but it's a lot less deadly. Sig had mentioned mulching the large side yard that's outside the side fence. There are several neighbors facing that yard, and their yards are very tidy. The side yard looked kind of desolate and forsaken. The landlord told Sig that the ivy that was growing in the front/side yard would eventually work its way around and that mulch wasn't needed.
So, Sig went to Home Depot and bought mulch. He bought over 30 large bags of redwood mulch. He didn't know that it would be cheaper to just order a truckload of the stuff to be dumped. He's from New York City, for pity's sake. The side yard looked great when he had finished, and the neighbors made a point of telling him so. "We didn't want to wait for the ivy to cover it", he told the neighbor. "I've lived here for over 15 years and the ivy has NEVER covered it", the neighbor replied.
Then, early this summer we went out into the front yard and pulled out a lot of creeping, tangled prickly things and dried weeds, and discovered the front yard irrigation tubing and fixed some of it. And that was pretty debilitating, to tell you the truth. We were pretty gnarly that day.
And today, I went out to do a little "spot" weeding and discovered that a large evergreen bush on the side yard was growing down so far into the roadside ditch that it was impeding the flow of the run-off. The main street into our neighborhood is along that side yard, and all the run-off goes down that ditch. I had to pull out mats of weeds that were growing in it, and then Sig came out with the power trimmer and we hacked and pulled and cursed and sweated and finally got the damn drainage ditch clear.
And yesterday, Sig fixed the front door. The landlord had attempted to fix it a few months ago, but his repair job only lasted a week or so. The front door is very nice, a big double door with a thumblatch handle that you depress and pull to open the door. Only, the latch was broken. So, even if the door was unlocked, you couldn't open it from the outside. It bugged Sig to no end that he had to keep letting people in the door. We decided to just fix it because the last time the landlord had not really fixed it, and he'd been here for hours. Sig bought an entire new kit for the door, with deadlock and handle and knob. All we needed was the handle, but they don't sell just handles. You have to get the whole enchilada, and it isn't cheap.
We also have ductwork that periodically becomes detached from where it is supposed to be, and the two front (west side, with really big windows) bedrooms get no cooling at all. We didn't realize this until a relative came to stay with us just as the summer was really heating up. And we also have periodic problems with mineral deposits in shower heads and the kitchen spray faucet. I really suspect that the hot water heater is getting ready to go belly up. And the garage has a horrible odor. When we first moved in, we thought it was probably from a dog that was probably kept in the garage. It's not. We don't know what it is. There's a crawlspace next to the garage -- which is where the handyman who came out to "fix" the ductwork went. ("I have to come out here a couple times every year. They really need to just put in new ducts," he told Sig.) If you leave the door from the garage to the den open, it will stink up the den. There's a pantry off the den that smells very faintly of the same odor.
If this was my house, I'd either fix these things -- and in the case of the ductwork, for sure I'd fix it -- or I'd deserve to live with them. But it's not my house. Sig feels that we should just go ahead and hire a landscaper. But we can't afford to do that, which brings up rant #2 for the month of September: when we first moved in here, we were saving about $500 a month. Now, we are unable to save anything. Zilch. We are racking our brains trying to figure this out, and the only thing we can figure is that gas, food and utilities must have gone up. We don't eat any different than we always have, and nothing else has changed. A year ago, I wouldn't have batted an eye about hiring a landscaper. But after wrestling with the household budget for the last 3 months (when I first started noticing that money was leaving faster than it was arriving) it's obvious that we don't have any money to waste on someone else's house, and that perhaps one of the reasons we aren't able to save money any longer is because we are spending it on fixing the house, fixing the yard, and tools for fixing the house and the yard. For a house that isn't ours.
So, I'm kinda peeved at this notion that renters are evil people who will tear up your house and who will make neighborhoods deteriorate. I'm sure that some renters are like that, but in my experience, and this is not the only landlord/tenant situation I've been in, the problem lies more with the OWNER. They usually don't want to pay anything out to maintain their rental property. They no longer take pride in it. They resent you if you call them to report a problem. They want the monthly rental check, and otherwise they want to forget that the house or apartment exists.
I love the yard here, and we aren't strictly speaking playing "by the rules" either. I have a young family member staying with us (we have 3 bedrooms) so that she can afford to attend college, and we didn't bother to notify the property management company or get permission from the owners. We figure the owners aren't going to care, as long as we're quiet and clean. And the property management company would only want another $50 to run her credit, which is silly, since her income has nothing to do with us renting this house. I hate moving, and it's expensive to move. You never get your full deposit back, no matter how clean you leave a place, and before you even get your partial deposit back you need to pay your new landlord a deposit and first month's rent. It's very expensive to move when you're renting. It was my goal to ride out the housing storm in this house, for the duration.