A house wants to be loved, not rented

Owners, beware if you are considering renting your house. Renters can be great, awful or indifferent. Generally, most houses prefer to live with their owners. Owners generally settle into a house and live there longer than renters. However, there are exceptions to that.

There are folks out there who will always be renters. They do not want to take on the responsibility of a house. They prefer to live without being concerned about the health of a place. Not that they wouldn’t keep the place clean and looking good, but they don't want to have to worry about keeping the roof, appliances, windows, doors, heating/cooling, et cetera, in good shape.

When a house is built to become a rental, all the owners' and renters' responsibilities are understood from the beginning. If a house has been lived in by its owners and then rented to nonowners, that is a different story.

The truth is houses, unless they are built to be rental property, are seldom happy being lived in by renters. That makes them feel like their owners aren’t interested in them. They feel they have become a source of income, not really loved by their owners. When houses feel unloved, roofs can develop leaks and water lines become clogged.

We once lived in a rental whose basement flooded when we had a rather light rainstorm. That had never occurred while its owners lived there. Even the lovely swings on the front porch refused to swing when we sat in them. Because there was always something causing a problem and the landlord was always in our place working on the current problem, it just got to be a bit much, so our parents found another place, and we moved. Our next rental was built to be a rental. There were occasional problems but nowhere near as many as the place we left.

Not long after we moved, we heard our former rental was put on the market to be sold. That house was thrilled. All its problems seemed to disappear, and when a young couple fell in love with it and bought it, the house was ecstatic. Of course, once that young couple moved in, a few problems occurred, but they were easily and inexpensively resolved.

The young couple soon added to their family, and the house loved the new baby. After baby two arrived, followed by baby three, that house was beginning to feel a bit crowded. The house worried if the couple would look to find a bigger place or, heaven forbid, would the growing family rent their house?

No worries. That couple loved their house so much they decided to talk to a builder about adding an extension with a few more rooms, which they did. What had begun as a starter home had become a stately home, and both house and owners were thrilled. That place was happy, and the owners were happy. They are still living there, and both house and family have grown.

Laura Moore can be emailed at lehmoore1@gmail.com.