546 MONTEZUMA
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Amber and I begin our day's explorations from this cottage at the corner of Montezuma and 6th Streets in Rio Vista. We have lived here for nearly two months. I came here from Oxnard on a blustery gray weekend in March, having already given notice that I would be leaving the townhouse I was renting in Oxnard by the 15th of April but without any clear idea of where we would be moving to. It had only recently dawned on me that I could live wherever I chose, that what tied me to any given location was my job. And I no longer had one. Hard times had come to the ed biz in California, and Oxnard College was laying off part time faculty, including me.
I had spoken with several real estate agents before arriving, and it seemed that there were many rental properties available in Rio Vista. Indeed there were. Over the weekend I looked at over a dozen places, at least half of them inside as well as out. In each instance there was one deal breaker: either the landlord did not want pets, or there was no access to the yard from the house, or no fenced yard, or a forbidding flight of steep stairs. Nellie, my significant-other-in-law, and I trudged around in the rain spotting rental signs and peering in windows. The rain fell and the wind blew and it was cold and by Sunday night I was thoroughly discouraged and thought that Rio Vista was not going to be our destination after all.
I had planned to stay over on Monday to see two more properties, although I didn't hold out much hope for either one. But I had made an appointment with Sam Richards at Richards Real Estate, so I waited. One of the two properties was a generic three room apartment, totally without redeeming characteristics. Nellie and I had looked in the windows at the empty-box rooms. The other one, this one, my son Jacob had seen the previous week and pronounced it to be "a dump." To cheer myself up I thought that Nellie and I could paint the interior in bright colors and do Sunset magazine sorts of things.
When I walked into the cottage on Monday I saw that the previous residents, a gay couple, had already done exactly the decorating I had thought about, and that the house had new windows and old wainscotting, a storage shed in back, a dog door leading from a separate laundry room with gas hookup just waiting for my new washer and dryer, a thoroughly fenced yard...in short it was perfect for our purposes.
It has taken some painting--not all of the color combinations worked and some walls were grimy--and is definitely a work in progress. But the many little advantages far outweigh the little problems. What Amber likes best is that the many windows are all low enough that she can see out and keep track of everything going on in the 'hood. It is her job to monitor the comings and goings of all the cats and dogs, many of which need a good barking at, but only if they intrude on our personal sidewalk.
I had spoken with several real estate agents before arriving, and it seemed that there were many rental properties available in Rio Vista. Indeed there were. Over the weekend I looked at over a dozen places, at least half of them inside as well as out. In each instance there was one deal breaker: either the landlord did not want pets, or there was no access to the yard from the house, or no fenced yard, or a forbidding flight of steep stairs. Nellie, my significant-other-in-law, and I trudged around in the rain spotting rental signs and peering in windows. The rain fell and the wind blew and it was cold and by Sunday night I was thoroughly discouraged and thought that Rio Vista was not going to be our destination after all.
I had planned to stay over on Monday to see two more properties, although I didn't hold out much hope for either one. But I had made an appointment with Sam Richards at Richards Real Estate, so I waited. One of the two properties was a generic three room apartment, totally without redeeming characteristics. Nellie and I had looked in the windows at the empty-box rooms. The other one, this one, my son Jacob had seen the previous week and pronounced it to be "a dump." To cheer myself up I thought that Nellie and I could paint the interior in bright colors and do Sunset magazine sorts of things.
When I walked into the cottage on Monday I saw that the previous residents, a gay couple, had already done exactly the decorating I had thought about, and that the house had new windows and old wainscotting, a storage shed in back, a dog door leading from a separate laundry room with gas hookup just waiting for my new washer and dryer, a thoroughly fenced yard...in short it was perfect for our purposes.
It has taken some painting--not all of the color combinations worked and some walls were grimy--and is definitely a work in progress. But the many little advantages far outweigh the little problems. What Amber likes best is that the many windows are all low enough that she can see out and keep track of everything going on in the 'hood. It is her job to monitor the comings and goings of all the cats and dogs, many of which need a good barking at, but only if they intrude on our personal sidewalk.
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