Learning by Fire

I wrote last week on The Rumor Forum about my woes subletting a still unfinished house, and have been doing some thinking. The long and short is that we’ve lived there for about 5 months now, and the remodeling has fallen horrendously behind schedule. And the natives are getting restless (as should be expected).

Things certainly haven’t improved since then. Granted, a lot has been done on the house – my landlord came and spend the majority of the day Saturday working to whittle down the to-do list – but the main thing remaining, the carpet in the living room upstairs, still isn’t done. Yet another contracted carpeter has been unable to finish the job, so my landlord plans on doing it himself, hopefully this week. But one of the guys now owes me two months rent and refuses to pay, at least until the landlord personally apologizes and admits to not keeping his word on several counts – something I agree he should do, but my tenant is certainly not going about this in the most Christian-like way.

And last night another one of the guys came to me wondering what exactly my situation would be if he decided to move out (bad). And since we originally agreed to sign the leases “when the house is done,” we’re in a really messy situation.

After a couple candid talks with these guys, I have to admit now, that I have gone about this in the wrong way. I played the middle man too well, trying to remain on neutral ground with both the landlord and the tenants, and now the guys seem to have no qualms about bailing out on me if things aren’t fixed now. I guess I should have sided more with them and put the fire to the landlord as hot as they put it to me. It’s just terribly frustrating, because I don’t agree with any of their decisions (“Let’s just not pay rent and send him a message”).

What I’ve discovered about myself in this is how non-confrontational I am. Which is a strength in that wrongs done to me roll right off my back. But it’s a tough lesson that not everybody is like that, and when I stand to represent someone, I need to understand not only how the situation rubs me, but how it grinds against them as well. And I would be very wise to tuck this lesson away now that I’m single, because it most certainly will present its ugly head again once I’m married. And since I care more for my future marriage than I do for this house, my costly lesson may be coming at a greatly discounted rate.