Is a second home the best choice?

Carolyn deals with a crisis from afar.

I am in Colorado today. My parents bought an apartment here 20 years ago as a retreat from the brutal Texas summers. My mother still spends her summers here, and if I’m available, I like to fly up and then drive with her back to Austin (it’s an 18 hour drive). It is still in the high 90s in Austin and I am delighted to put on a sweater, if even for a few days.

Vail is always gorgeous, but September is particularly stunning as the trees turn gold and orange.

As my mother packs up to leave for the year, she is also preparing the apartment for rental, which can be great business during the ski season. But of course it also means packing up and storing personal belongings either of sentimental or monetary value. Mom bought this very cool (fabric) deer head and each year she wonders if she leaves it will somebody steal it. Like us, she is not coming to the apartment after every renter to see if anything is broken or missing.

The cloth deer head.

Roberto and I wrote in June about getting ready to rent out our French apartment. We ended up locking off half of the apartment so that we could store our clothing, guitars, and buckets of dog toys in the back rooms. We hired our cleaning woman to come before and after each rental to clean but also to refill the essentials like toilet paper and cleaning supplies. She is also responsible for meeting the guests and giving them the key.

We had two short rentals in August and everything went smoothly. But yesterday our luck ran out. I had an 11am flight to Colorado. I awoke to a message that the new renters (who are British and don’t speak French) were having problems getting in touch with Claudia, the cleaning woman. I thought everything was set for the key drop off, but when I checked in with Claudia she said she had heard from the renters but would not be able to meet them at the location they wanted. She could only meet them at the apartment.

I was confused. The English couple wanted to meet at our apartment. After a fair amount of back and forth, I realized that the couple had told Claudia, “Please meet us at Chic Renovation at 5:30.” Our listing on Booking.com is “Chic Renovation of Medieval Monastery.” Claudia had no idea about this and guessed “Chic Renovation” was a clothing or furniture store. Lol.

So I figure this out and text Claudia about the misunderstanding. However, my text would not go through. I tried it time and time again. It had worked only minutes earlier! Then I get a text from Orange Mobile that I have maxed out my international minutes. WTF? Why don’t you just let me run over my minutes and then charge me an insane amount of money like any other civilized phone company?!

I texted Claudia on What’s App, but she didn’t reply. By this time I had to leave for my flight. While Roberto drove me to the airport, I frantically tried to find a way to top up my minutes. It was already 4pm in France and the English guests were due in an hour and a half! (Side note, Roberto LOVED being my chauffeur as I cursed at the screen).

Arriving at the airport, I zipped through the security line, grabbed a Starbucks, and spent the next hour on the phone with Orange in France setting up a new international cell plan (this was time I had set aside to write this blog, so sorry for that, friends).

Finally able to text Claudia I wrote and told her about the misunderstanding. She said no problem, but I can’t get there until 7pm. So I write a diplomatic text to the English couple and tell them that we had “unfortunately had a set back.” Would they mind going to get a glass of wine or coffee around the corner until Claudia arrived? They were very gracious and said no problem.

I boarded my first flight, Austin to Denver. When I landed an hour and a half later I see this message:

Hello, just to let you know that we are in and your home is really amazing . Just to mention though that we were disappointed to have to wait more than 2 hours to get in as Claudia was lovely but didn’t arrive until about 7.35 so we were waiting outside for 35 minutes even after the initial hour and a half delay . There wasn’t any toilet paper to start us off with or any coffee pods but we can manage ( the bedroom radiator was on at 27% but think I have switched it off now 🤞) Also I don’t know if you are aware but it seems you have a moth infestation as there are loads of what looks like little moths. My husband killed about 50 in the cupboards above the sink and lots up on the walls/ ceiling. Sorry as we’re not trying to be difficult but just thought you should be aware . Kind regards.

“Sorry as we’re not trying to be difficult but just thought you should be aware .” I don’t know if you know any English people, but this them raking me across the coals!

Mortifying. No toilet paper. No coffee pods. And a plague of moths?? What was happening?

By the time I responded to them they had already popped out to get toilet paper and coffee, and they had cleaned up the moths as best they could (when Roberto and I return will we have no clothes left - just swaths of hole-filled wool?)

I wrote Claudia who said that she forgot about replacing the necessities and that she hadn’t noticed the moths. From what I have gleaned, she arrived, gave them the keys and changed the linens. I don’t think she had arrived earlier to do a big clean, which is what we had agreed upon.

A quick note to say that Claudia is wonderful and kind. She has THREE small children so my theory is that she had no childcare and things got crazy.

Roberto and I decided to comp one of the two nights for our guests. We only have one review so far on Booking.com, and although it is glowing, one bad one could really sink us.

The Brits had been very sweet about everything and I felt like the problems had been solved, until I woke up this morning to this new message:

Hi Carolyn, We found the source of the little flies/moths as there were lots of maggots in the cupboard with open packets of quinoa ( we threw the 2 open packets away as they had maggots) We've cleaned out the 2 cupboards with loads of them in and there are not too many on the ceiling now, only in the kitchen area so hopefully won't cause a problem now. These things happen and it's just one of those things. Kind regards.

MAGGOTS, people. They cleaned up maggots.

Surely maggots lose us at least one star.

So uh, maybe we comp both their nights?

This is the nightmare that is renting out property when you don’t live in the same city (let alone the same country). You just never know what could go wrong. I AirBnB’d my apartment in Austin for years, but if something went wrong I could just drive over and fix it. And I went personally each time to make sure everything was perfect before guests arrived.

Roberto and I read a book called Are We French Yet? Keith & Val's Adventures in Provence, written by a couple who split their time between Silicon Valley and Province.

They have not bought property. They rent a new house every summer and stay for three months. This keeps them from needing special visas, taking care of a second home, and worrying about French taxes. They go to the same region every year so they have made many friends that they love to spend time with. One sweet moment I remember in the book is when the husband describes going to the market at the beginning of every summer for a new scarf. The scarf vendor (yes, that is a thing in France) can tell him exactly what scarf he bought the year before and what is in season now. How charming is that!

When I read this book two years ago I thought, “If they love it so much why don’t they buy property there? Wouldn’t that make going back and forth easier?” But now I have a different perceptive. I LOVE our French apartment, but you are signing up for a big project when you buy property abroad.

Hopefully I won’t receive any more texts from France today. I am relieved we have no more renters planned - we are returning to the apartment ourselves in three weeks time (gasp!)

But if you are reading this because you too are considering a move abroad, just remember, there are many ways to do it. And hopefully none of them involve maggots.

Jusqu’a la prochaine fois,

Carolyn & Roberto

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