Sometimes it’s best to follow your gut

Know anybody with lots of children? You know how that goes. Glenny and I, with our six kids, we run into that all the time.

My house is filthy, the dogs stand on the table and eat the food we’ve set for dinner and it smells like wet cat. Some of the kids have lollipops in their hair, others are walking around without pants and the only thing they have in common is that they’re all screaming. There are drawings all over the wall (where the sheetrock isn’t busted) and you have to use a shovel to clear a path through the house.

OK, by now you might be wondering if I’m joking. Those of you who know me are wondering what the heck I’m talking about. So why the gag? Because this is what I run into whenever I’m gearing up to go try and find a house to rent.

When we first arrived back in Alaska, we found a home out in the Butte. Lots of land, big house (too big, actually) and things were great. But after a couple years of sky-high utility bills trying to heat a 4,500-square-foot home with four Toyo stoves, one problem after another that required tons of money and Glenny going through nursing school, our backs were broken. So we went back to being tenants until Glenny gets that degree. It was hard to adapt to being a tenant again, but we’ve become used to it. Having a great landlord makes all the difference.

Glenny and I were landlords and I must say, hats-off to the people who are able to do it for decades. We had some wonderful people who rented from us, but inevitably they would move out as they found jobs in other cities, got married or purchased their first home and we’d have to go through the process of finding new tenants all over again.

I get a kick out of the professional companies that place all the emphasis on credit rating. Personally, we had some people with great credit who turned to be the biggest headaches when it came to how they treated our homes. On the other hand, some of the best tenants I ever had were people I took a chance on despite their credit being in the tank. I preferred to use job history and criminal background checks as my primary tools. But honestly, the best evaluator I used to size somebody up was my own gut. I guess you can just tell after talking to a person and their family for awhile whether or not they’re going to care for your home. I often had people who were interested in renting come over for dinner to discuss the house after they’d looked at it. Unorthodox, I know, but they always turned out to be the best tenants.

I’m glad we approached it that way, because call it what you will — karma, God, what-goes-around-comes-around — we lucked out when we realized we were going to have to go back to being tenants again. Can you imagine trying to find a home to rent with six kids and two dogs? Frankly, I thought our chances hovered somewhere around 0 percent. I’m pretty sure if we were still in Washington, they would be.

But even here in Alaska, you mention having that many children and pets and you can actually see the “no way” form in somebody’s head as soon as you say it. I can try to convince them all I want with military background, straight-A respectful kids, clean pets, a wife who fanatically cleans, but I might as well be trying to convince them I can fly.

As depressing as it is, I don’t let myself get to upset about it. Let’s face it; people with rotten kids and a filthy house that smells like pets often don’t realize it and believe it when they tell you otherwise. I’ve run into that a time or two when vetting potential tenants. But we lucked out and found somebody willing to give us a chance, even though it meant moving out of our school area.

Adapting to being a tenant was strange. We find ourselves fixing plumbing problems, screen doors or other issues that arise with any home and Glenny has to remind me to give the receipts to the landlord. I honestly can’t understand what goes through the heads of some tenants who choose to simply sit on an easy issue and wait for the landlord rather than just take care of it. I remember getting a 10 p.m. call one night when one of my tenants said the heat had stopped. I threw on my clothes, grabbed my tools and flew over as fast as I could since it was February. As I entered the house, it was chilly, in the 50s, and the family was sitting on the sofa all bundled up watching TV.

I peered around the back of the heater … and turned on the switch. Heat sprang forth. Seems that one of the children in the home had reached back and played with the switch and, rather than turn it back on, the man of the house had chosen for his family to freeze until I could get there and flip the switch myself. Needless to say, this was one of my not-so-great tenants. (in my defense, I had inherited this guy from the previous owner. I was happy when they moved out.)

So, we’ll see if karma smiles on us again. It’s a tough fight with such a big family and pets, but it would be nice to be a little further into Palmer or the Butte again. Just have to hope I can find somebody who is willing to forego the assumptions of a family right out of hillbilly heaven and see things as they really are.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.