Finding The Rental

The day after our granddaughters' birthday my husband and I set out for Oregon. Our main objective on this quick trip was to find a place to rent. I had previously filled out an application so I knew we were pre-approved for just about anything they had that accepted pets.

And wanting to be totally organized about everything I went online and checked out the entire listings from the company recommended to us by our new Oregon realtor. So upon our arrival in Oregon I had a list of about 20 places. That evening I took out a map and mapped out where the rentals were so we wouldn't be driving back and forth, covering the same ground unnecessarily.

The next day we started driving by the rental properties from the north to the south. The list of 20 was cut to a list of 8. Coming from a place where all properties and yards are fenced it was surprising how many we looked at that did not have fenced yards.

Then we took a second look at the 8 places. That cut the list to about 4. We called the realty/rental office and I spoke with one of the girls about our short list. She agreed to meet us the next morning at the place that was at the top of our list.

It was a nice home on the Umpqua River. We both really liked this place but once we got inside we realized there may be some problems. The realtor said this was the first time they were renting this property so they had no history with the landlord. Once we got inside we noticed that even though it was supposedly available "now" there were still clothes in the closet and the garage was jam packed full of stuff. Also there were hard wood floors everywhere. Maybe not such a good idea with three large dogs. Plus the yard was only fenced on two sides so we would have had to rig something up to keep them enclosed.

We thought maybe we'd go look at our second choice place, more in town and on a regular sized lot (small to us) but with a totally fenced yard. The realtor got the key and met us there. It turned out to be an older but nicely kept three bedroom, two and half bath. It had an indoor laundry room and an attached garage. The backyard fence looked to be secure so we decided to go with this one. Another plus was that it was $300 less/month than the other place.

We went back to the office to sign to hold the property and give our deposit. We didn't get the key right then because we wouldn't be taking possession for another week.

The next morning we got a post office box and then swung by the Palm Harbor manufactured homes model center and walked through their on-site models. After that we decided to head on home since neither one of us was really feeling up to par then.

We got home around 10pm and we were ready to get off the road. But at least we had accomplished our main goals; to get a rental lined up and get a P.O. Box.

I'll do pictures of the rental later.