I have an aversion to the sun. While most of my family and friends are sun worshipers and can't wait until summer rolls around, I tend to hibernate when the sun comes out. I don't even open my curtains, lest some dread brightness should filter through.
My husband says it's like living with a bat in a cave, but I really can't help it. Red-headed and fair-skinned, the sun actually hurts my eyes.So when I opened my drapes one day in my Pleasant Grove house, my neighbor came over to see if I was all right. "You never open your drapes," she said, "I thought something might be wrong."
I came away surprised that anyone actually noticed what I did with my drapes, but evidently she isn't the only one watching.
I moved to Provo and have been renting out that house for some years now. It became vacant last week, but I decided to hold off advertising it for rent until I made some repairs. Down came the drapes for cleaning, and within hours a women rang the doorbell. "Your house looked vacant, and I was wondering if it was for rent?" she said.
I began to wonder if I wasn't the only person without a curtain fetish as other people began stopping by or asking neighbors for my phone number and calling, all asking the same question.
A friend with a friend from California who was being transferred to Utah wanted to rent the house - was it still for rent?
Still for rent? I haven't even put it up for rent yet!
I've heard so many stories now about people needing housing, I wish I had 50 houses for rent. There's a man who can't send for his family in Wyoming until he's got a place to live, a woman whose landlord is moving back to town at the end of the month and he asked if she could have the house, another man who left his family in California while he's looking for a place to live. They all want to rent my house, and it hasn't even been advertised yet!
These people are circling around hoping to find something as it comes vacant. One woman offered me $600 a month for rent, and another countered with $650. I was only planning on asking $550.
I've hung the curtains back up, but not to hide the sun. I just don't want to get any more people's hopes up.