Well, it's been a while. Life is never dull. At the moment, we are packing our boxes, again. Unfortunately, we have had many problems with the current landlord. The flood that happened from a malfunction in the toilet, the end of November, has caused some disputes. The owner refuses to fix the problems unless we (or our company)pay half of the bill, though it is clearly his responsibility in the contract. We tried to be patient, and work things out, but he doesn't want to take responsibility, and insists on forcing the issue. He feels the contract is unfair, and though he says that he doesn't feel it's our fault, he didn't use the toilet, so he believes it isn't his fault either, and we should pay half. He feels that our approach is not the Chinese way, but since he is taking American rent (or more) this is unfortunate. He wants to take our company to arbitration over this, and we told him that if he does this, we will move, so he will not have renters paying rent for the next six months (easily six times the amount of the total repair bill!). It can be difficult to find renters for these houses. Because he has broken his contract by not making repairs in a timely fashion, we can leave without penalty. There is mold under the floor-boards in the girls' room, and we feel it is unhealthy. It has been a very stressful few weeks, especially this last weekend, realizing that he was not going to come around, and that we really were going to have to move. There wasn't much available, and it was hard to find a house best for all of the kids. We were very blessed, and feel we have found a good solution. We will move to Dong Jiao Guest House, a nice complex on Purple Mountain. It isn't too far from school, and it will be a nice place for us. Unfortunately, we will need to move into 2 apartments until sometime in April, when the house becomes available.
Yes, we will be moving, again, this Thursday. Wish us luck! This is short, but there is too much going on for the moment. More to come next week...
