Moving, Beefs and Revenge

As if I didn't have enough on my plate already, I just finished moving to a new place.

This house is twice as big, the rent is almost the same, and it's a MUCH better landlord situation.

For those of you following my blog since Day 1, you may already know my in-laws have been my landlords since we moved to Idaho.  We lived rent-free while we got back on our feet, and for that I'll be forever grateful.

But the situation felt a lot like Everybody Loves Raymond for a while.  They'd stop by without notice and let themselves in.  Sometimes leaving us scrambling for clothes (we're not always 'presentable' thankyouverymuch).  Rent went from an acceptable amount to WAY too much, but I paid it happily because it felt like making up for those rent-free months.

The house was falling apart.  Leaky roof in the garage, meaning storage was limited.  Holes in the rotting back deck, which they refused to fix.  I can't tell you how many times my foot would make/fall-though a new hole and I'd be limping for days...

Months of passive aggressive back-and-forth's later, they finally tell us it's time to move out.  They used the 'we're trying to sell the house so we want it empty' excuse, but I think it was more about us complaining about their BS and not taking their shit anymore...

So we moved.  Cleaned out the old house from top to bottom, making it much cleaner than when we moved in.

But part of me wants to have the last laugh.  It's family, so I have to be careful, but I have considered 'revenge' things to do to the house.

Like poking holes in all the hoses.

Putting flash cotton under the stove's burners.

Putting an ad in the local newspaper:  "Free gardening tools and furniture!  Go to __________, the doors are unlocked.  Help yourselves!" and see what happens.

But what got the most laughs from the wife and I was a little plan called "revenge of the beefs."

There is a crawl space under the house filled with cobwebs and dirt.  Every winter I'd have to crawl under there to turn off the backyard water so the pipes don't freeze.  Every spring, turn the water back on.  I hate enclosed spaces and the cobwebs make me fearful of spiders (which freak me out) so I hated doing this.

I'm tempted to buy a 20lb tube of ground beef and put it down in that crawl space.   Cover it in sawdust so it isn't visible, and just let the meat rot and permeate though the house.  It'll smell like a dead body in about 2 weeks....

All the holes in the back deck?  The holes that tried to swallow my foot?  BEEF.

The leaky spot under the garage?  The one that we didn't know about until the first storm, ruining clothes and boxes and end tables?  CRAM THE LEAKY HOLES WITH BEEF.

Well, you get the idea.

About $50 in ground beef could turn into a lot of fun.  Too bad the house will have trouble selling, since that 'rotten beef' smell is hard to get out...