A Tale of Two Closings - Part II

The Reckoning

The closing day for my Austin apartment was quickly approaching, so it was time to empty the property. I mentioned last week that because the apartment had once been used for short term rentals, it was full of not only furniture but kitchenware, linens, lamps, and random furnishings. A friend of my mom’s had recently met a refugee family from Afghanistan who’d landed in Austin with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They seemed like the perfect recipients of a whole apartment’s worth of stuff.

I contacted Refugee Services of Texas, who said that they had neither the truck nor the storage space for such a donation. Thank you and goodbye. Whoa. Okay. Through Mom’s friend I got in touch with a member of the NAMCC (North Austin Muslim Community Center), which is just north of Austin. They did, indeed, have a great need for all of my things, but they also had no way to transport it.

More complicated than the transportation was the fact that most of the refugee families in their community were in long stay hotels and had nowhere to put any of the stuff until they had been moved into apartments. Some families had been in Texas for a while and only needed a few things.

I had fantasized about making just a single trip to my apartment where I would meet a big moving truck that took all my stuff away while everyone patted me on the back and said, "Thank you, good neighbor!"

Ha. 

Instead my apartment became a bit of an Ikea, with families stopping by to look around and take what they wanted. I was there every day for a week. I don’t mean to sound like an asshole. It was wonderful to see people get the items they needed. It was less wonderful seeing them survey the furniture and say, "No thank you. That doesn’t go with my decor." Most frustratingly, things were not disappearing as quickly as I needed. Closing day was fast approaching.

And I haven’t even mentioned the storage unit that came with the apartment. Anyone who’s ever had the soul sucking job of emptying a storage unit knows it is akin to cleaning out the world’s largest junk drawer. For years I’ve been hoarding boxes of VHS tapes, CDs, cassettes, old Halloween costumes, art, old electricity bills, etc.—some traveling from Austin to New York to London to Los Angeles and back to Austin. It was time for a reckoning. I sneezed my way through the dusty unit dividing things into keep, throw away, and give away.

These were all “throw away.” Out of more than 100 VHS tapes, I chose 20 from my past as a comic and performer to have digitized.

Included in storage was this Annie album, which I have had since I was nine years old. I put it in the “give away” pile, and it wasn’t easy.

The closing was less than 48 hours away, and I still had furniture in the apartment. I was in a serious state of panic. My agent called and told me there was an issue with the paperwork from my HOA board and the closing would have to be postponed until after the weekend. He apologized profusely, but all I could think was Thank god.

The mosque liaison was sure that the mosque could arrange a truck and several men to come over the weekend to pick up all my remaining furniture—two beds, a sofa, a table, and a dresser. However by Sunday night, nothing had happened. 

Should I just list it all on Craigslist for free and tell people to come carry it out themselves? I knew everything would be gone in a matter of hours if I did this. But the liaison kept telling me how much the things were crucially needed by the refugees, so I couldn’t bring myself to use Craigslist. 

By Monday morning, I was desperate. I went on Thumbtack (which is the same as Task Rabbit) and I hired three guys and a truck for two hours beginning at 4:30pm. I called a local storage facility and explained my situation with the donation to the mosque. The nice man there, James, helped me choose the appropriate storage unit size and helped me secure the best rate which was $50 for the month. 

And then . . . the movers were an hour late. The storage facility was due to close at 6pm. At 5:30 the movers were still loading the truck. It was rush hour in Austin. I was fucked. 

I called James and told him what was happening. And GOD BLESS JAMES, he told me he would keep the storage building open a wee bit longer for me.

I drove in front of the moving truck and using my wily native Austinite ways on the back roads, we got to the storage building in fifteen minutes. James was waiting with a smile. The unit he offered me for $50 was too small. Of course it was. The bigger unit would be $120 a month (This was my fault and not Saint James’). At this point I was ready to leave everything in the street. Or burn it in a bonfire.

But the men unloaded it and put it all inside. I have just emptied one storage unit that was costing me nothing and filled another that costs $120 a month. Winning!

I don’t about you, but storage buildings creep me out in a very Stanley Kubrick way.

But the apartment is finally empty. The people at the mosque promise to have everything out by the end of the month. I drive home and collapse into a pile of jelly.

The next day I hear from my agent that the paperwork from my HOA has been sorted out, which is a relief. Roberto and I were starting to worry that the buyer’s lender was panicking due to all the recent bank failures. The closing is now set for Thursday. All I have to do is show up and sign.

On Wednesday I am at home, exhausted, catching up on some work, when I get a text from my agent. "Hey Carolyn, the buyer’s agent just called. They’re at the property. She said they smell gas in the unit. She mentioned this is the 2nd or 3rd time and they want to make sure that everything is safe. I don’t know if it’s coming from your unit, or if it’s an HOA thing, but do you have a plumber that might be able to get over there to check this out?"

Ummmm. What?

I confess that hearing it was the "2nd or 3rd" time the buyer had smelled gas made me skeptical. As I complained to you, I had been at the apartment every day the previous week, and I had smelled nothing. The 1950s apartment definitely smelled "old" in the way that old apartments do—anyone who has every lived in New York knows what I’m talking about. 

Nevertheless, the buyer’s agent asked me to call the gas company. I wanted the buyer to wait 24 hours and then she could call them herself. She didn’t want to sign the papers on an apartment that might be about to blow up. Fair enough.

I met the men from the gas company at the apartment and they spent an hour and a half searching the unit and the building and they found . . . nothing. No leak. No problems. It was just one last hurrah, the universe asking, "Are you SURE you want to sell this place?"

Oh, yes. I really, really do.

I signed the papers on Thursday. It took ten minutes.

The following Monday I wired the money to France. We will be closing on our apartment in Montpellier on April 20th. The only step we have left is to buy a French home insurance policy which we have to show the notaire on closing day. We have eleven days to make it happen. 

Wish us luck.

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time)

Carolyn & Roberto