Homeless Homeowners

The week of August 22-August 26 I was in Urbana, finishing up last minute research items with Beth, running errands, and preparing for the final move back to the east coast. After attending a research symposium on August 26th I got into my pre-packed pint-sized car and drove from point A (Urbana, IL) to point B (Columbus, OH) shown on the map below. Aside from passing six cop cars in Ohio, the drive was largely uneventful and took about 4.5 hours. I picked David up at the airport in Columbus, we drove another hour or so, and then stayed the night at a La Quinta in Mansfield, OH.

The next day we continued on from (roughly) point B to point C (Somerville, MA), sharing the road with all of the electric trucks heading east in preparation for hurricane Irene. On the trip we listened to music, played the "alphabet game" (which I won simply because David forgot we were playing), and stopped only once for food and gas. We pulled into our driveway around 7pm after a quick stop at Whole Foods for dinner ingredients (chicken caesar salad and corn on the cob).

Even though I have now officially moved to Boston, and David is a homeowner of a house that has TWO apartments, we are currently "homeless". We have rented the upstairs apartment (4 bedrooms) to Christine and 3 girls she met on craigslist (who all seem super nice). The downstairs apartment was previously rented by an older woman whose lease rolled past the purchase date of the house and then she continued on as our tenant on a month to month basis with a lease ending no later than August 31st. Even though we've made it clear from the start (and in the lease) that she cannot continue living there past August 31, she is still living there. It seems that she is having a very hard time finding a place to live, especially considering she is looking so late and has several "criteria" (e.g., cats, smoking ok). I spent about a week trying to help her look for places (she doesn't have a computer), and then had to go back to IL. Susan then continued this job for another week or so, and is now helping out more "leisurely". We unfortunately had to start the eviction process as the lady wasn't really making any moves to get out of the apartment quickly.

In the meantime, we have hired a lawyer to help with the eviction process and have found temporary housing elsewhere, thanks to Dan (David's coworker). Dan and David worked out a temporary sublet agreement, Dan moved in with his girlfriend and David and I have moved ourselves and a few of our things into Dan's place in Cambridge. We considered moving to Andover, but this could go on for several months and so we wanted an option that was closer to the house (so we could work on the garage) and to Christine (who just started her job at the Beverly School for the Deaf and is living in the upstairs apartment) and Katie (who is now living in Porter Square and going to Harvard for grad school).

Kitchen of Cambridge Apartment

Living Room of Cambridge Apartment

We have moved all of our furniture into the basement of the house, all of the clothes that need to stay out of a musty environment but that we may need later into Katie's basement (which is nice and dry), and any other clothing type items to VT. We are settled into the Cambridge apartment, and I have "worked from home" for several days here. My first trip to Seattle will be next week (Mon-Fri), then in the middle of October I go to CT and MN for two different conferences, and then at the end of October I've got a trip planned to IL to work on some experiments and meet Nathan. Aside from not living in our own home (oh, and the fact that I had to spend 6 hours over two days at RMV to get my license and registration) everything is going pretty smoothly!