It Happened: We Have to Move by April 1
posted at 12:34 pm
on Jan. 23, 2012
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The house that Susie and I have been living in for the past 2.5 years, the one that’s been for sale for the past six months or so, it finally sold. And the new owner has decided that he wants us out.
So, yeah.
In B.C., you can’t kick out a tenant for no reason, and you can’t raise the rent by more than 3% or so. The new owner has to continue to rent to us; rather, he can only ask us to leave for a few reasons: if he’s going to renovate so much that it’s unliveable; or if he’s going to demolish it AND he has the permits and everything ready to do it; or if he is going to put himself or a family member in the house.
That’s what he says he wants to do: have his son move in.
I find that a little hard to believe—that someone would pay the price that this house was listed at, just so that their son has a place to live… but that’s what we’ve been told. I’ll be watching to make sure that they actually do live in the place.
He takes possession on February 1, and then we get two months notice from that day. So April 1 is our last day in the house, unless we move out sooner, which I honestly hope we can do. Carpe diem, etc. etc.
We don’t have to pay our last month’s rent, which is nice. Packing up all our stuff, though, that’s going to be a drag.
We would really like to find a house over in East Van, near Commercial Drive. The shops and businesses are great; it’s close to downtown; we know lots of cool people in the area. I don’t know how many will be available, but fingers crossed.
Man, I love semi-colons; it’s obscene how often I use them.
We’ve known, basically, that this would happen. From the day we moved in several years ago, we knew our time in the house was limited. Originally, we thought it would only be a year. It turned out to be much longer, but the writing was on the wall.. because we can basically write anything on the walls that we want 
I’ll miss having a crazy amount of space—the basement room that was huge and empty that you could exercise in, the number of bedrooms, the long hallways. I’ll miss the huge yard that my Scout friends and their families came and camped in several summers in a row.
I’ll miss the real fireplace, and the gorgeous hardwood floors, and the kitchen cupboards with the musical handles that remind me of my grandmother’s house.
I won’t miss the sketchy back steps that are falling apart, and the smokers from the BC Cancer Society who came over to the end of our back driveway to chat and puff and leave their butts on the ground. And I won’t missing having a landlord who doesn’t speak English and doesn’t know anything about the house. I won’t miss the scary parts of the basement, or what it filled with once upon a time.
But most certainly of all, I will miss the good memories, people coming over, parties and video games and drinks and dinners. BBQs and takeout and doing crafts. A lot of years of memories.
Thanks, house.
