We're taking the Land Cruiser to Kansas City this coming weekend, leaving on Monday the 4th and coming back on Tuesday. Who hoo! Can't wait for a little 'us' time. This first picture is what the Crusier looked like when Mike got it....
This picture is one I took this last Sunday and is what it looks like now!
And sadly it looks like we're looking for a new place to live. We had a meeting with the city tonight and Mike was told that he can't work on ANY vehicle, even his OWN, in his OWN garage. According to them, a garage is for housing vehicles and such, not working on them. If he wants to work on them, even his own, he needs to buy an industrial lot and build a building. A few of our so called 'neighbors' were there complaining about the noise from the air compressor, grinder, etc and Mike was warned that if any of the neighbors complain he'll get a $500 ticket and possible jail time. We called our local chief of police and had him stop by after the meeting to ask him how far it could be taken. He said technically the noise ordinance is no noise between 10 pm and 6 am (logical and understandable) but he said that if anyone finds any kind of noise Mike does 'offensive' he'll get a ticket regardless of what time of day it is. So, if Mike is out working and the air compressor comes on, one of the 'neighbors' could complain about it. Even the chief of police told us that since we're not 'from here' we're not liked so now the cliques are trying to run us out of town. He said they even tried to run him out of town years ago when he first moved here and now that he's the police chief he's not liked by the 'locals'. Pretty pathetic if you ask us (not Mike's choice of words though). He said there's three cliques in town - the old people, the uppity ups, and the drunks. If you're not one of those you're not welcome. And apparently the kids are being harrassed about things too because they're more than ready to leave town and are begging us to find a new place asap. It's pretty sad and disheartening because we do like this town but what do you do? Mike isn't the type to sit in the house and drink like the ones who are complaining do and if he can't be outside doing something what's the point?!
On top of that, we got a letter in the mail today from the landlord, effective Aug 1st they're raising our rent by $50 a month! They haven't done a thing to this place in the three years we've been here and it's not worth what we've been paying, let alone more! The only reason we took it was it was closer to Mason City for Mike and it was the first place we found that was big enough for all of us.
The other sad part is that there are a LOT of nice houses for sale cheap around here, most 4+ bedrooms, but we can't get a loan and no one will co-sign a loan with us (we're talking house payments of UNDER $300 a month for a lot of these houses). So, we're getting the word out to as many people as we can that we're looking to rent something or do a contract for deed. Mike has been calling everyone he can think of around here that might know of something and I'm putting ads up online. Hopefully something will come up soon.
