The Funeral Celebration

We have a quasi-tenant who has died. I use those words because he did not live here until about 6 weeks ago when his family brought him home to die. They expected him to live for less than a week at that time. He actually did die only last week.

Although Jim told one of the sisters, who lives in the house with her family, that he had no problem with them paying their rent late this month, we were presented with the rent check on the 4th. This family has not been late with lot rent since we bought the park.

They are not holding the official funeral until NEXT Saturday - about 10 days after the death, so the whole family can get here. Therefore, they "appear" to be having a huge celebration on a daily basis until then. More and more people are arriving. They are double and triple-parked along approximately 200 feet of roadway. (It is a good thing we have wide streets.) They have foldup tables and chairs around the yard for people to sit. There was a huge party last night! The beer was flowing.

This is our tenant with the strangest living arrangment. We have no idea how big the entire family is, but we DO know that 13 people are living in that doublewide. It is a big house, but the daughter told us that some of the kids sleep in her mother's walkin closet. There are two daughters with their husbands and children, plus other family members in the home all the time. (We inherited this situation, so are just waiting for it to change.)

The daughter that keeps us informed of what is going on would like her own home, but wants it out of eyesight of her mother. She is the one who told us how many people are living there. They tried NOT to tell us before, because the rumor was going around that we would make them move out. This came because we asked all tenants to write down who lived in their home. We had one home that she could have bought, but she did not have the money for the downpayment at the time. We have since found that she and her husband have been paying her brother's medical bills.

We are getting ready to rehab another of our older homes, and hopefully she will want this one. It should be in the price range she can afford, and it will take the number of people in the doublewide down to a reasonable number. If necessary, we will work out a payment arrangment for the option deposit.

One of the reasons that we were surprised they brought the brother home was that the home has no air conditioning. Apparently it broke several years ago, and all those people have lived in that home for many summers with only fans in the windows. It seems like it would have been unbearably hot in that home, especially for someone close to death.

Jim has been looking for a replacement air conditioning unit for these people. He has already told the daughter we will finance one for them. So far he has not been able to find the right unit here, but will look in Florida next week when he is down there. We have brought air conditioners here from Florida before, since it seems that we cannot always find what we want or need in this area.

So, this normal household of 13 has many guests currently, and for the next week. We have no idea where they are all sleeping, or how they are coping with the lack of air conditioning.

---