The worst part of moving to Dhaka has easily been getting our house ready to rent.
Seriously, what a pain in the ass.
I used Angie’s List to find most of the contractors, and almost all of them were pretty good. Here’s a list of everything we did to our property:
- Repaint entire interior
- Repaint exterior door frame and foundation
- Power-wash, sand, repaint deck
- Power-wash all walkways and driveway
- Reinstall toilet
- Replace toilet seat
- Snake bathtub drain
- Repair leaky faucets outside and in bathroom sink
- Redo water connections for shower
- Replace washing machine tubing
- Cap dishwasher output valve and remove connection
- Repair drywall in master bedroom
- Caulk bathtub
- Caulk kitchen sink
- Remedy leaking problem in bathroom and bedroom windows
- Caulk exterior bedroom windows
- Replace deck railing
- Replace deck stairs
- Weed garden beds
- Replace mulch in garden beds
- Fumigate interior and exterior
- Steam-clean carpets (still to be done)
The items in bold we did ourselves, and it probably doesn’t look like a lot. But I power-washed, sanded and repainted the deck all by myself. It was mind-numbingly terrible and only confirmed that I really hate painting. The worst part about all of it was that I skipped FACT training so I could spend a few more days in the office and then finish the deck. So every time I talked to Nate he’d tell me what a great time he was having, when I was not exactly having fun working on the deck.
The deck, partially painted.
The painting company I used for most of the interior work was less-than-stellar. They were supposed to come on a Monday several weeks ago to paint the entire interior. Monday came and went; they never showed up. Finally they came on Friday, the same day as my mother-in-law’s retirement party, and the day before our going away party. They worked from 8 am until 6:15 pm, and left absolute destruction in their wake. We got to the retirement party late and stressed out, and then had to go home to clean all the floors, which were a mess. On Sunday the painters showed up at 8 am, when we were still asleep. They scrapped most of the paint off the floor, in addition to the floor finish in several areas. They also primed a wall in the kitchen that needed primer before being painted, which the original painted neglected to do. A few days later the company owner came back (again) when I sent him an email telling him he needed to fix the floors where they’d ruined the finish. At this point, I got a pretty surly. But after threatening him with a bad Angie’s List review, he started responding a lot more quickly and was more courteous.
Ultimately, the painting that needed to get done got done, with Nate and I painting the trim, doors, basement, and doing ceiling touch-ups. In fact, I think Nate is at home now painting what’s left of the basement.
One of the most noticeable changes was the new toilet seat. I never had to hear the toilet seat slam down after that. And I did it myself!
The one thing we just don’t have time to do is steam-clean the carpets. Our property manager said he has a company who does it inexpensively, so we’ll just have them do that after we’ve moved everything out.
It’s too bad that our house and yard look the nicest they’ve looked since we moved in and we’re not even going to be living here anymore. But, hey, if it means our home will attract potential renters more quickly and easily, then I’ll take it!
According to Athena 