See ya, Temporary Rental!

It turns out our vacation rental for temporary housing was a lemon! We confirmed with a realtor it was basically one step up from Section 8 housing. Once we learned that piece of information, everything we were experiencing made sense. And we were very motivated to leave. Problem was that we paid for a whole month upfront and only spent about 12 nights there. Of course, the hosts had a very strict refund policy. They are basically absentee slumlords. But I was determined to get my money back. The description of the rental was extremely misleading and we led with that argument, but that wasn't enough. We were only offered a 50% refund for the unspent nights. Umm, no. I want all of my money. Fortunately, we noticed there were no smoke detectors or a fire extinguisher in the unit. (For the record, I wouldn't normally start a sentence about the lack of smoke detectors and a fire extinguisher with the word fortunately...) They specifically mentioned in the post there were smoke detectors. Yeah! We led with the argument we were misled by the post again, but this time it was highlighting fire safety. And I may have cited Chapter 9 of the International Fire Code, which Guam adopted in 2009, to make my point. Both fire extinguishers and smoke detectors are required for a vacation rental or residential rental. Cha-ching! We got a 100% refund for the unspent nights, as we should have.

We moved into our permanent housing with nothing... We only have clothes, some random kitchen items and food for Henry - We thought we would be in a rental until our household items arrived, and we were told there was a space limit on things we could include in the air shipment (incorrect) so we don't have a lot of everyday stuff. We bought an air mattress, sheets and some cheap pots so we could squat in our permanent housing until our belongings arrived. It gets better. We don't have hot water. Thank goodness we have power and water. We really would have been squatting if those were not available. But it is worth it. We are so much less stressed in this house. Even Henry is happier. He has a hop back in his step. We were getting a little worried about him in the rental.

Cooking is a huge challenge. I have a great kitchen, but nothing to cook with! It's extremely frustrating. We don't want to buy anything because we already own everything we need. But it is all on a ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean right now. And we have no idea when we will get it. It is scheduled to arrive in Guam on March 1 - great! But I have no idea how long it will take to clear customs and then get delivered to us. I'm stuck with the cheap pots, but I have already ruined the biggest one. It caught on fire while I was using it on the stove. We are down to 2 pots. Ha!