also...

as for the yard nick and i do know a lot about Yard work as we told bob in the beginning and yes we did not rake but we did mow all year long. nick and i aren't used to raking but to say it is a half assed job is absurd i spent all day raking up in the rain trying not to tear up the grass. sorry if we did not keep the yard up to your standards.

ok...so first let me clear up the reason my dad (wrongly) called you up and yelled. he shouldn't have and i was not happy he did that. you may not have realized it, but you and mikey were continously saying "you need to figure out if you still want to live there" over and over. and in a tone that was demeaning. i'm sure it was not intentional, but it was quite upsetting and we felt pressured to leaving after we had just moved in.
as for the issues we were supposed to address when we moved in. it was all paint - that nick took care of to the best of his advantage. we kept getting the wrong paint, or couldn't find the paint, etc. he took care of all of that. he even got aunt bob a deal on the kitchen/living room/dinning room area (although it took longer than we anticipated) we did maintain that house to the best of our knowledge. i would like to know what we didn't fix? nick put up wallpaper boarders, replaced a knob in the bathroom...what else did we have on our list?
as for the dogs...aunt bob knew when we first moved in that we had two dogs. we had not kennelled them in a long time. creo hasn't been kenneled since she was a puppy and rocco hadn't been kenneled for almost a year. we have that big kennel, but it hasn't been used in ages. we did not know when we moved in the dogs would have to be kenneled or something to that extent. or else we wouldn't have moved in. plain and simple. i dont' recall anyone offering to buy something for the garage, but i do remember that being a suggestion. it's cold in there and my dogs are little. it made me nervous.
i think we all agree that nick should have done the trim a long time ago. he does too. however he never lied to aunt bob and told her that it was done. before those real estate agents came over he had told her it would be done the week after. now i guess she heard him wrong, but i was there when he told her.
as for the moving out date...i was emailing aunt bob telling her when we were moving out that things were not compeletely done. that's the second time i've heard this comment and am very confused. we were emailing back and forth and i told her i would TRY to get the cleaning done. but i also said that if it wasn't done then, we would do it next weekend.
so let me try to clear up what happened with the cleaning...first of all aunt bob i did not hang up. nick's phone cut out. however, i was close to hanging up because we called and were immediately being yelled at and some of it didn't even make sense. saying that we had told her that when we moved out we the house was ready...never happened.
so my dad came over to help move and decided the paint was not ready. he wanted to help nick fix it and they started the next day, thinking it would be a couple of hours and that's it. when they realized it wasn't, they called aunt bob who said fix what you started and leave it. so nick spent the next week going over after work trying to fix it. by the time the weekend came we had a small window of time to clean carpet, not clean. we had had every intention of cleaing that house. my mom, nick, and myself were prepared to do just that. now i did say the fridge was cleaned out, because i thought you meant food items. that is correct.
if anyone had asked us to get back over there and clean it, we would have. i dont' think a phone call saying we were taking advantage of someone was warranted. honestly nick and i wrongly misinterepreted the whole "cleaning lady" thing.
and now the trim...yes nick gave aunt bob a deal on installing it and materials. and he offered to try to paint it. and it took him a while to get around to it. but once he realized it wasn't going to look good (about TWO MONTHS) before we moved out he told aunt bob he didnt' like it and wanted to get a professional in to do it. she didnt' want to. she said "do the best you can" and guess what? he did! he at one point even offered to pay a painter to do it - out of our deposit. so the week before we moved out we were working on the trim day and night. and my dad tried to help but he told aunt bob it could use more time. no one can say that we didn't warn anyone about the trim. and nick said from day one he is not a painter.

Frustrated sister, aunt and property manager

I had to debate for quite some time before I decided how/if I was going to respond to these posts. After much contemplation and counsel, I have decided that I do have some things that need to be said as I feel that I have taken the brunt of these problems.

First of all, although I had no dog in this fight, I am unfortunately the one that got stuck in the middle…of everything. I was asked by my sister when she originally left Seattle to watch over her home and take care of the details of it for her in regards to renters, real estate agents, upgrades and maintenance. A task which I was happy to do, as I wanted to do anything possible to make her transition to her new life a little easier and a little less stressful.

Second of all, I also want to make it very clear before I continue that I do not hate my niece or my newly minted nephew – quite the opposite. I have and will always adore them in the same way that I have through the years, that will not change.

With that being said, I am brought to my first issue…the way my brother presumed that he could speak to me on that fateful afternoon last May. With the love that I have shown Jacqui through the years as my oldest niece, I am beyond pissed and hurt that you would ever think that I would attack/berate that child. Your phone call to me NEVER ONCE asked me what had been said or done. To this day you have never asked me what happened. While I happen to love J & N dearly, I also own a couple of 20 year olds and understand the drama that can be added to a situation. If you think for one second that the conversation that took place at my house involved anything more than a polite problem solving conversation with the same tone of voice that I would use at my dentist’s office to book an appt, then you don’t know me very well at all. And for you to not consider giving me the benefit of the doubt as a grown woman, knowing the drama that the children (all of them) have added to situations in the past is beyond comprehension. Do you really think that if one of my children had come to me complaining about something that you did that I would not have come to you first, trying to understand what had happened? It’s the same way with the teachers at school, the grownups are going to be given the benefit of the doubt if the kids come home complaining about something the teacher did. I deserved the benefit of the doubt as a grown member of this family and especially since nothing in my past labels me as a ranting/raving lunatic at large.

The other point to that is, my sister made me an agent of that house when she left the state and I have been involved in it on every aspect since they have left. Your calling me and asking me why I was involved should have been…why were you involved? Your name wasn’t on the lease and you weren’t an agent of the Snell-Bennett family. A lot of the stress of this situation also stemmed from the fact of you telling your sister 3000 miles away that she wasn’t there to make decisions on her house and that you would basically do what you want with the place, including ripping down moulding and making the decision to replace it at that time without her approval, and over her objections. So the question becomes – who are you to make that decision? Your name wasn’t on the lease and you weren’t left in charge of the decision making at that house, but you used your typical high handed tactics to do whatever you wanted.

As for the way you choose to talk to me, my dear brother…it doesn’t work for me. I have never spoken to you in that manner, and I expect nothing less in return. You don’t discuss a situation….you run it and yell over it so subdue whoever you are talking to and I am pretty much done with exchanges that work in that manner.

My second issue is the actual house and what is being done there. From my understanding, the extremely inexpensive rent that was being charged was going to be offset by some help in fixing the issues at the house that were outstanding when they moved in. J & N were also very aware of the fact that they were going to be living in a house that was going to be on the market. I explained to them when we met the real estate agent over there that the house was going to need to be maintained immaculately to help with the sale. This was not done. They were also unwilling to crate the dogs so that the house could be shown during the day. I am not able to understand why they were perfectly able to crate the dogs when they lived at the apartment, but not at Angie’s house to help speed a possible sale. That May date at my house I tried to problem solve this issue with them and offered to buy a large open dog pen to put in the garage so the dogs would have more room to roam. This was not acceptable either. It was also 5 months after they had moved in and a lot of the little fix it items had not been handled as agreed to either.

In the end, they were paying about 1/6 of the rent they would be paying anywhere else (besides living with the parents) in exchange for some handy work and daily maintenance needed to have a house on the market for showings…and they did not live up to their end of the agreements made.

This brings us to now. Since Nick was not working and Ang could use some work done to the house, an agreement was struck for improvements to the house. Nick quoted a price for work and the bulk of that work was completed in July and the price quoted has been paid by Ang. As of 2 weeks ago, that work had not been completed. I know that Nick and Jason had a falling out 3 weeks ago, but that doesn’t explain why the job wasn’t done during the past 5 months. Ang was under the impression from Nick that the work had already been completed.

Nick asked Ang if they could not pay rent in Jan since they were moving out in the middle of Jan, and Ang said yes. It was assumed when Nick told her that they would be out on the 15^th that they would be completely out, all obligations taken care of. She asked me to start lining up window washers, yard guys and the cleaning lady so the house could go on the market shortly after. No problem. Its not until the 15^th or shortly thereafter that we realize that the jobs she paid for already, are not actually completed and more money is going to be needed to hire someone out for the job. That is when I understand that you stepped in to help.

I spoke to Jacqui and Nick on Tues the 19^th. I told Nick the real estate lady was coming to the house on Sunday and they were taking pics of the house on Tuesday for it to be listed. Nick told me at that point in time that the only things left to be done at the house were cleaning the garage and steam cleaning. Nick knew the cleaning lady was coming Sat afternoon to prep the house to go on the market. I specifically asked Jacqui if they had remembered to clean out the frig, as I wanted to prompt her to remember to take care of the cleaning details they were responsible for. Her answer to me was “yes, we cleaned it out already”. After seeing the frig, I can only assume that she meant they took their stuff out of it, as it is apparent that no one wiped down the inside of the frig at all.

None of the move out cleaning was done, and I assume that since they have moved out of apartments before this one – they understand what needs to be done to get a deposit back. I am not sure why their aunt deserves less consideration of how they leave her home when they vacate it than a faceless landlord would. I doubt that Jacqui would have hung up on a different landlord if they were asking her questions about why the cleaning wasn’t done or would have called her father to intervene. Would you have called an apartment complex to berate the manager there if they were telling you that your child had left the dwelling without cleaning it properly? No, they wouldn’t have even discussed it with you as she is over the age of 18 and entered into a binding legal document with them and is responsible for her own choices. If that had been my child that had left my sister’s house, or your house for that manner, looking like that…I would have marched their happy ass right back over there and told them to handle their responsibilities as they had agreed to them. My intervention does nothing to teach them how to handle their obligations as grownups, it only cripples them as to what to expect in the real world and quite frankly, their low rent saved their independence when Nick lost his job – so I feel that my sister has been more than generous. $300 a month with half of it coming back to them at the end…come on, what a deal.

So now, my sister has had to pay out twice the amount she should have to a cleaning lady to get the house clean enough to sell. Money she should not have had to spend. The basic yard maintenance was not taken care of at the house, all the leaves left on the yard for 4 months have seriously yukked up the grass, not to mention the back deck. The leaves were not even attempted to be taken care of until something was mentioned last week, and then only a half hearted cleanup was done. Again, more money being put out for the yard guys to come do a thorough cleanup instead of just a freshening up. The roof guy took care of the back deck when he pressure washed everything. I am sure that Ang did not expect complete yard maintenance, but I would think mowing and raking would be included in the basics of any tenant agreement. I know that I rented an inexpensive place for 11 years and I took care of the yard, did a lot of maintenance projects and left the house in far better shape than I found it as I was appreciative of the financial burden that I was relieved of while I lived there.

So my issue boils down to this…I didn’t live there, I don’t own it, I didn’t get any financial gain from it, my kids didn’t benefit from it – but I still get to be labeled the bad guy because things have to be taken care of that were agreed to. I will be over there doing the touch up paint from all the overspray, washing the curtains and finding someone to finish the trim paint that is two toned, which will also cost money.

Again, I have never raised my voice to the kids or talked to them in a snotty tone or been accusatory – just tried to ask questions and get answers…so how did I get stuck in the middle?

I was really not sure about posting this on the family blog. Then I thought about it and realized that this is already everyone’s business. No one in the family doesn’t know about this and I want everyone to know the facts as I have been given them. I did not want this to be a case of he said/she said which has happened far too often in this situation. This is everything I know, out in the open so there would be no confusion as to my motives or feelings.

As an afterthought, I typed this last night and was re-reading it before I posted it and just read the family blog and J’s post. Honestly J, after the phone call I got from your father that afternoon – I had no idea what you had said to him that got him so mad. I just know that I had not said anything mean or hurtful to you that day…so I have been unsure what to say to you since then, not knowing what would happen again, since I truly have no clue what happened to start with. I was very disappointed as I know that I had been kind, but apparently, that was not what was conveyed to your father. I have felt like I needed to walk on eggshells after that incident, so it seemed best to tread lightly.

And yes J, I think you’re right…unless we talk about it, it isn’t going to go away. We can pretend it has…but we will all know differently.

first off...dad you don't owe us an apology. we made the decision to move. i can honestly say that i don't know how it got this bad. i just don't. my husband and i had a yelling match with my aunt, i can't even comprehend how that happened. i feel that there has been tension since the misunderstanding with aunt frankie when we first moved in. i can honestly say that since that incident i have never felt welcome in her house. and i feel that my father telling her not to talk to us about the house may have added fuel to this situation, but i don't know. i just don't know if this is all about the house, or a bigger issue.
i am very upset that my aunt feels that we would ever try to take advantage of her. it hurts. nick did a lot to that house out of the kindness of his heart. we all want the house to sell and he was just trying to help. the cleaning issue was something that happened a lot - miscommunication. and we are part to blame. we assumed something and we shouldn't have. we do know that you should clean when you move out of a place, we just misunderstood what was going on with the housecleaner. and for that we are sorry. but this was an issue the entire time we lived there. we would be told one thing and than it would switch, or conversations were remembered differently, or whatever. so it wasn't an excause to get out of something. the time line and the paint situation kept changing and it got confusing.
growing up this family was so close. aunt bob, aunt frankie, you two were like second moms to me and i hate that this is happening. i love both of you very much. i would love to put an end to all of this. so how do we do this? if we just pretend it didn't happen and just not talk about the house are we all still left feeling wronged? will there still be hurt?

We are no different, and it's disappointing.

Did you write all THAT?!? Who typed that for you?
I’m not exactly sure what to say.

Yes, your daughter was against the idea… yes I thought we were different and no I don’t hate my niece or my new nephew.

We can move forward however it’s best – but I am done talking about my house. It no longer matters who’s at fault or what mis-communication there was. There is SO much around this that no-one will ever be happy, and honestly I am unable to wrap my head around much of it right now. What’s done is done, and I wish to end the drama in this family around my house. For this reason we've decided against having Dad come out to fix/finish it for the market.
We appreciate ALL THE work that each and every one of you put into it, and we are now closing the book on that part of our life. We know that many of you spent many hours trying to help. I’m sure we all learned lessons that we will take with us.
I guess we are like anyone else – perhaps we always had these issues, and somehow we were able to avoid them. I think that our children being small is what kept us together. We all lived close, and we had our children in common. Now – we have family spread out and it’s more difficult.

I’m not sure where to start. This is new for me … and I’m still in a bit of shock

The Young Adult Needs To Be Heard!!!

I have chosen this as the title. Seeing Jacqui was against this whole house deal from the start. But we adults always seem like we know best. To her, I owe a big sorry and she did tell me it was a bad idea and I thought I new better than her. I was one of the main adults that pushed her to move into the house. I was in the wrong, she was right. Her biggest worries have now come true.
I have since seen how a family can be rifted by what I consider small things. When left alone even small things, can turn into major problems. I have a wife that really does not want to talk to me. I have an older sister that has not talked to me in like a year. Since I yelled at her. I have a younger sister that has surprised me and now we are having huge problems. My oldest child feels her aunts hate her. So I would call this adventure a disaster.
So how did this all start? Well to be honest it all started by not listening to my oldest child. I really don't want to hash out why we are, where we are. But the rift is there and I am unsure what to do. I think back at how many friends said don't do this and we said we could. Angie said she also thought our family was immune to this kind of trouble. But I guess we have all learned a lot the hard way.
So my question to the family is this. Do we want to fix the rift or do we want to just let sleeping dogs sleep. That is really the only concerns I have at this time. We can hash out who is at fault or not. But is that's what you want, then we will create a larger problems. I had planned to write something a little different. But after much thought I feel this is the correct path to take.
So what is it you want? This is the chance to say it.
Kerry???
Angie???
Roger???
Frankie???
Jacqui???
Nick???

Roger due home Tomorrow

Roger is due in tomorrow morning.
As you might imagine, I've had a long few weeks, and am looking forward to him being home.

While this was not our plan, this is what our family needs right now.  It's not just the loss of Ripley, but we are also dealing with some other stresses.

Roger will be home for at least 3 months, and our hope is that he ONLY returns on his terms for a large promotion.  However what happens to us at the end of that 3 months is totally up in there.  It could involve more of the same - or a move to almost anywhere.  Much of it depends on the house in Snohomish.

name change

it's official, my last name is now Trent. i'm still a snell at heart though! it's frusterating all the different agencies you have to go to and everyone you have to contact!
getting ready to move into our new apartment on saturday (even though i will be at work for some of it...)! very excited since it's very close to work and it's pretty cute and appears quiet. nick, cory, and i have been working on the trim and it's (finally! almost done) and nick starts work on monday. he was offered a job at a drywall/finishing carpentry company with only about one month of work guaranteed and hopefully more to come. the boss told him he would see what he could do about keeping him on. at this point we will take anything we can get. he filled out paperwork on monday, worked a few hours today and has to do some stuff tomorrow. don't know about friday yet; but like i said, monday he should be working full time. i know he's happy to be working again. now we have to start looking into more cop stuff for him :)
keep us in your thoughts!
love you all,
the trents :)

Serves you right Aunt Bob! ;)

So, I was looking at all the back posts looking for the pictures in the blog and I came across a post from Aunt Bob last year...one that pictured her 2 lonely snow shovels during winter last year when we were all slammed...well, can we all just say "HA!" That should teach you (probably wont though), to mock those with the snow, because it comes back to bite you in the arse! We have had hardly anything this year... Guess your poor shovels got to make up for last year this year!

A Snell tongue lashing

Who do you think is getting yelled at the most here ....

Dad, Spenser or Jacqui?

Main Photo Dec 16 - Jan 10

Oh I missed the hopes

I missed the "hopes" section.
Somehow I read goods and bads.

I'm not full of hope right now.

But I can think of these.

1. Sell the Snohomish house
2. Get my husband home to stay
3. Help my son continue on the right road of life.
4. Is asking for HGS stock to hit 50 too much?

Ok, my turn...

Best things about 2009...
1. Meeting James
2. Going back to school
3. Finally deciding to live my life for me and my boys, not caring what others think about it
4. Watching my babies grow and learn

Hopes/goals for 2010...
1. Finishing more school
2. Digging my family out of debt
3. Getting to see everyone in my family at some point throughout the year
4. Loose weight, so i can fit into mom's wedding dress next year,
5. Just in general a more successful/productive year than last year was for me

....I think that is it for now...whos next?

back from vegas!

tried to make a big post about vegas but it all got erased for some reason so go look at our pictures on facebook, because i'm not retyping all that!
love and miss you all
jacqui trent

2009 in Review

Okay, I'll start (cause Whitney didn't actually do it).

The Good Times

1. Getting to see you all in Seattle.  Getting to see how Mason had grown, and meeting Camden.
2. Giving my husband his motorcycle for his 50th B-day.
3. Helping to make Spenser's Europe trip come true, and watching him explore the World.
4. Watching Ripley and Ollie finally play together.

The Bad Times.

1. Obviously losing my boy, Ripley.
2. ... and be without my husband for another year.

Next to those two things.... everything else is minor.