VRHH - Chapter 1: Moving Day

Chapter 1: Moving Day

It’s moving day. We’ve been steadily moving into the rental since yesterday; however, today is the day we make the “big” move. It’s a Saturday in May, in Texas. There are only two temperatures in Texas in May; hot and hotter. I am feeling somewhat sentimental. We are getting ready to leave the house in which both of my kids learned to walk and talk. I remind myself that the memories don’t live in the house, but rather in my mind, and with the advances of modern technology, on videotape. I realize I’m doing nothing to dispel the stereotypes of women with my sentimentality, but a girl’s gotta have at least one flaw, right? Anyway, I digress.

My mom and I go over to the rental to see if everything is in order. We bring a few small boxes with us in my car. The neighbor with the grotesque car collection is outside watching. He sits on his porch and stares out into the street. I can see him glancing out of the corner of his eye over at us. He refuses to look directly at us and never says a word. I now know two things about my new neighbor: He collects burned out rusting cars in his backyard and he sits on his porch watching absolutely nothing, avoiding eye contact with other people. I found it strange, but I didn’t think much of it. Why should I? I don’t know the guy and perhaps he’s just having a bad day. Maybe he had bid on eBay for another burned out rusted car and lost to some 15 year old boy in Alabama. Who knows?

We go inside and discover that the air conditioning is somehow off. I thought I turned it back on after the cleaners had turned it off the day before. It’s stifling inside. I feel as if I’ve walked into the pits of Hell. There’s a noise upstairs. It’s what sounds like a door opening. I look at mom and put my finger to my lips. I slowly walk over to the stairs. I’m painfully aware that I’m not armed with anything. I grab a small lamp. What the hell? It’s better than nothing. I walk on my toes up the stairs. Once I’m at the top, I creep around the corner. All the doors are open except one: it’s the room that is across from the room we intended to give to our son. At this point my heart is beating as fast as it can and the house is hot. I begin to sweat. I hear a shuffling noise. Slowly I open the door. The room is small with a closet that has sliding doors. There is one window on the wall to the right of the entrance when you are walking in. The blinds are closed and the room looks eerily gray. The closet doors are open at least. There is no one in the room, no one hiding in the closet. In fact, there is no one at all upstairs other than me and my sad little lamp. I walk back down the stairs and tell my mom I didn’t find anyone. We bring in the boxes and walk out of the house. Burned-out Car Guy is still sitting on his porch looking at nothing. I get in the car and I look up at the eyes of the house. For a second I thought I saw someone standing there, but when I look again, there is nothing there.

We are back at the “red house,” as my daughter calls it, otherwise known as our soon to be sold house. The truck is packed with the first load. I tell Paul about our strange experience at the rental. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he says. “Houses make noises.”

“I know. It was just strange and then there’s that guy sitting on the porch. It’s just all very strange. And that pot is still out back and that stupid tire.

“It’ll be fine. It’s only temporary,” he says. I realize that’s his new mantra. Whatever helps him sleep at night.

The truck contains our bed so tonight will be our first night in the rental. This makes me feel uneasy. I realize that there have been an awful lot of strange and annoying events that have happened since this house came into the picture. My husband continues to chant his mantra and I try to match is mood but something won’t let me. After an entire day of moving, we are spending the first night in the house. My parents are here still and will be joining us for our first night in the rental.

The neighbor is still sitting outside. I wonder what he is thinking about. He’s staring out at the street. The sun is going down and dusk is fast taking over the sky. He is lanky. His deep brown hair is cut short and he has a large brow and sunken cheeks. For one moment he turns his head my way and opens his mouth as if he is about to say something, but just at that same moment, my mom walks out and asks about dinner. Burned-Out Car Guy turns back to the street. We go inside the house for dinner. After dinner I go back outside, but he has gone into his house or somewhere other than the porch. I notice the neighbor on the other side is out. There’s a car parked in front of his house. The neighbor goes up to the car and he leans in the window. The neighbor looks back at me and I look away trying not to stare. I decide to go into the garage. He doesn’t see me still standing there. He pulls something out of his pocket. I can’t really see what it is. He hands it to the guy in the car and the guy hands him something in exchange. The car drives to the end of the street, circles the cul-de-sac and leaves. The neighbor looks around and walks back towards the house, but then his phone rings. He stops. “Yeah. Come on by.” He hangs up and goes inside. I see another car coming down the street and it too stops in front of his house. He comes out again and the same sort of transaction occurs.

“Great,” I think to myself, “I’m living next to a drug dealer and a psycho car collector.” I couldn’t have known at the time how close I was to the truth of the thing. I go inside the house and put my son in bed. I hear a noise in the room across the hall. Just as earlier in the day, when I go inside there is nothing there. I look out the window and I can see the cars. They look like eerie statues in the darkness. I see movement in the yard with the cars. It’s him. He’s walking through the graveyard of cars. A car cemetery. He lifts the tarp on one of the cars and I see how severe the damage is. It has obviously been wrecked, probably rolled. The roof is caved in and the outside metal is scorched. Why would he want this car? It’s beyond repair. I watch as he caresses the car as if it were a person. His mouth is moving as if he is speaking, but I can’t hear whatever words are coming out and it is too dark for lip reading at the angle his face is to me. He looks up at the window and I realize he can see me looking at him. He walks into the light. I see him mouth something at me and I understand exactly what he is saying, but I don’t understand the meaning. It is one word, “bones.” He covers the car back up and goes inside his house without any other attempt at contact. I can’t imagine why he would mouth the word “bones” to me. I think he must have some sort of mental disorder. None of it makes any sense.

As I lay in bed, shadows dance across the walls. I turned the closet light off before bed, but it is back on now. Paul is asleep so I can’t ask him if he turned it back on. I can hear traffic in the street. My sleep that night is troubled with dreams of melted cars driving up to the neighbor’s house with skeletal drivers.

Voodoo Rental House of Horrors: The Introduction

Enjoy!

The house looks normal enough from the outside. It’s a two story home, 3 sides red brick on the first floor with maroon painted trim and beige colored hardy plank right above the garage, the second floor exterior, and the entire back of the house. It has a two car garage and a nice little covered front porch. There are two windows above the porch that look like eyes. The neighborhood is plain. I wouldn’t have picked it. We pulled up right before the agent, whom we’ve never met. He is a large, sweaty man, barely able to manage keeping is pants up. He smells of sweat and cigarettes. It takes him 5 minutes to get us into the house as he has forgotten to update his Realtor key in order to access the house. “Here it is,” he says as he opens the door. “I can’t believe they are willing to rent it to ya for less than a year. That’s pretty rare and this is a great price for a house of this size. You’d better grab it up if ya like it before someone else does!” I smile at him and nod. I’m thinking of this as a temporary home for 7 months while my new dream home is being built and he’s talking about this house like it is the greatest thing on the market. I guess that’s what agents are supposed to do, especially when they are working in cooperation with the property management company.

“Well, it seems nice enough,” I say to my husband as we walk through the house. “What do you think about it?” I can tell he is aggravated by the kids running up and down the stairs and trying to keep our son pacified.

“I don’t care. It’s only temporary. We can do anything for 7 months,” he says in his usual noncommittal fashion.

I think to myself, “This place sure looks dirty. Who lived here before, the Beverly Hillbillies? Why wouldn’t the management company have cleaned this?” The agent is talking, but I’m not really listening to what he’s saying. He walks over to the sink and tries to turn on the water, but nothing comes out.

“I guess the water is shut off,” he says as if it isn’t uncommon. He keeps talking, but I’m walking to the sliding glass doors that go out to the backyard. It is more weeds than yard, but there is a sprinkler system (thank goodness!!) to water all the weeds. The back patio is about 5’X5’ and not covered. Sitting next to the patio, I notice there is a silver pot. It is long and slender and there’s a lid on it. I think to myself, “I’m not opening that pot. Who knows what could be in there? Probably shrunken heads from the previous owner. Perhaps a witch doctor or a Voodoo priestess rather than the Beverly Hillbillies lived here.” I laugh to myself at that thought and then continue scanning the backyard. There is a tire out there as well, just propped up against the fence and places in the yard where there is a lot of rock, seeming as if someone had been digging. I walk back in the house and again think to myself how dirty the house is. I walk into the master bedroom. It is a small room with one small window on the back wall facing out into the weeds. On the same wall as the entry to the room is the bathroom and the closet is in the bathroom. I walk into the closet and look around. It’s small, but I figure it’s temporary and most of my things will be packed anyhow. I’m about to walk out of the closet when out of the corner of my eye I see something move. I turn around, but I don’t find anything there. I think it must be the lighting and I walk out.

“So, whacha think?” the agent tells us, “It won’t be on the market long at this price!”

“I think we need to think about it. We have some other houses to consider,” I tell him.

“Well let me give ya a couple of applications just in case. I’ll also give ya’ll my card,” he says and he walks back to his beat up tiny red pickup, which sags as he sits down in the driver’s seat. It reminded me of one of those clown cars. A clown truck.

As he digs around in his truck for the applications, I say to Paul, “Well, it’s a good size for us. I’m not really very fond of the layout and it’s really dirty, but they’ll clean it before we move in right? Most of the others we have in mind are much smaller and almost the same price. If we go with one of those, we’ll have to keep the storage room.”

“Whatever you think,” he says, “It’s only temporary.” He is trying to entertain our son as our niece and daughter chase each other in the driveway, running in and out of the small, bushes that are in what would be a flower bed in front of the porch, but grass has grown over most of the bare dirt and is starting to intertwine with the bushes. The front yard is more grass than the back, but several different kinds of grass grow there making the yard a patchwork of various grasses and weeds.

The agent comes back, “Here ya go. Here’s my card also. I’ll be out showing some more homes this afternoon, so if y’all decide y’all want to sign up, let me know, or if y’all need me to show ya any others. If y’all decide to rent, you’ll need to have the deposit and application fee in two separate money orders. Nothing is final until they get that money!”

“Thank you. We’ll let you know,” I tell him and he goes back to his clown truck and drives away. My husband and I wrestle the kids into our car and I look at the house. “It really isn’t so bad, but I have a few other agents who are supposed to e-mail me back about whether or not their clients will rent for less than a year and whether or not they will take pets. It may be our best option to rent here.”

“Yeah,” Paul says as I back out of the ridiculously steep driveway. The transmission makes a thudding noise as it goes into gear. We only have two weeks to find a place before our home that we have been living in for almost 5 years will belong to someone else. We wanted to sell, so we agreed to a ridiculously quick closing, leaving us struggling to find a place to live that is not a box behind the grocery story or a van down by the river. I hear a noise from my purse and I realize it’s my Blackberry announcing new e-mail. It’s one of the agents informing me they don’t take pets.

“Another one bites the dust,” I say to Paul, “No pets. That leaves the really small one.” Almost as if Fate were mocking me, at that very instant I get another e-mail from the agent for the last remaining hold out. They won’t rent for less than 12 months. “Well, I think we are going to have to rent that house.”

“Sounds good to me,” Paul says.

I call Clown Truck Agent and let him know, fill out the apps, get the money orders and head out to meet him in a parking lot. I feel like I’m making some sort of backroom deal rather than a legitimate rental of a home, but I’ve never rented a house before so what do I know?

“I’ll get this turned in for you today,” he says. “I think you’ll like it.” But he has an uneasy look on his face as if he isn’t telling me something.

“It’s only temporary,” I say to him and smile. “We are building a house in another neighborhood and just need a place to sleep until it is done. He nods, but something about his demeanor makes me a little uneasy. I drive away hoping we’ve made the right decision.

Several days later after I have had to call and follow up with the property management company about the status of our application, we are informed that we have been approved to rent the house. The woman on the other end of the phone makes it sound as if this should be the most joyous occasion of our lives. She reminds me of one of those overly peppy cheerleaders that I couldn’t stand in high school, or an annoyingly joyous morning person. I make an appointment to go and sign the contract. This is about 3 days after the approval. Looking back, I’m not so shocked at how badly the whole process to finalize the rental went, considering everything that has happened since we moved in, but at the time I was somewhat appalled. None of the paperwork was ready, and after 3 trips to the grocery store to get more money orders, we finally have the keys. We make our way over to the house only to discover that there is still no water and the house is as dirty as the day we viewed it.

The beige walls have dirty handprints on them. All the light switches are covered in grime and the stove top has actual rust on it. The toilets are stained and the carpets feel grimy. I go upstairs, and it’s the same. Then I notice something I hadn’t seen the last time. From out of the window in what will be my son’s bedroom, I notice that one of the neighbors has cars in his backyard. Rusted out, burned out cars, partially covered with tarps. It seems odd to me, but I shrug it off. I’m too mad about the dirty house to worry about the neighbor and his strange collection. I see a shadow again and I get a feeling that someone is watching me, but I shrug it off as stress from the day.

Finally, after a week of waiting for water to be turned on and the house to be cleaned, including carpets, it is moving day. If I had known then what I know now, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so optimistic that it would be fine; this temporary arrangement. Ah, but hindsight is 20/20 and I’m getting ahead of myself.


*****Stay Tuned for The Next Installment****

Tales From the Voodoo Rental House of Horrors - The Intro

Most of you who know me are aware that a couple of months ago I moved into the house that I have lovingly deemed to be the Voodoo Rental House of Horrors. Given the various experiences that I have had in this house, I've decided it would make for very good story material. While I am counting down the days until I (hopefully) move into my new house and out of VRHH, it has given me some great material to work with. I'm finishing up my summer class right now, so I am hoping once that's done, I can post Tales from the Voodoo Rental House of Horrors - Episode I. Stay tuned for more tales from my crypt...err crib...err house. :)