Tis the Season to be a-Changing

Met my first ever tenants yesterday - a family is leasing my little house on the non-prairie and we are repainting the house, sanding down the floor, polishing the marble, cutting the grass, waterproofing the walls again and taking back all the lawn furniture (they do not like it).

The only thing I can't do is control the rather predatory neighbours who keep coming around to bug the estate agent, contractor, subcontractor, painter, curtain person et al with their little questions, like:

1. How much are you renting for, ah? Two houses down, they are only paying S$[less]. The house opposite, they are only paying S$[less].

2. My daughter like your house, but I think your house is not so nice. Mine is nicer. Tell you what, you get the owner to sell me lah. I buy for [ way below market price ].

3. You still selling or not? How much ah. Stock market crash you know. Can sell or not.

4. Your tenant is from where ah. How you get tenant like that, can you get for me?

5. I want to sell my house for S$[1 million above market]. You sell for me.

My tenants are walking into a landmine. I betcha after they move in, everyone will pak bodo. Nobody will talk to them, everybody will act blur. Except for No. 17, who will be re-energized by the fresh blood next door, and will restart her strenuous complaints about how the bamboo leaves fall into her garden from mine, and how sometimes, when we breathe out, some of our carbon dioxide gets into her house.

My little house. I miss it. It's my first property and how bittersweet it is to be handing it over to someone else. We had little markings on the wall showing The Son's height every other month from the time we moved in to the time we moved out, and that's all been painted over and gone now.