And so we were on our way. Packed everything, except for the furniture, which we successfully sold.
We did not decide to rent a van or any moving company. Every day we drove to the new temporary apartment, leaving our stuff there, bit by bit.
In our last week before handing over the keys, I noticed a puddle of water in the kitchen. And then a big wet stain on the ceiling. Perfect, we’re abandoning a sinking ship. Tamer immediately informed the owner about the flooding, which was the result of the now obviously ill-conceived renovation of the floor above us. Can you imagine, he had the audacity to almost double the rent?!
Observing what was happening in the building, we realized that two more families had moved out of the apartments. Not to be petty… But in this case, our greedy landlord got what he deserved. A whole lot of nothing.
I predicted to my ever-optimistic husband that we were going to have safety deposit issues. “He will find a thousand excuses why he shouldn’t give it back to us. He has no money!”
Little did he know, we had an ace up our sleeve. Three years ago, when Tamer was about to rent the apartment, he sent me a video tour for me to have a final say. It had potential, but it looked like someone had left it in an indescribable hurry, cluttered and in need of a thorough cleaning. Definitely in a much worse condition than when we left it.
And I was right. The owner had quite a few objections about the things we had no influence on. He made the excuse that he didn’t know in what kind of state the apartment was when we rented it, that he had a real estate agent for that. What a good landlord, Mashallah. After Tamer showed him the video, he went silent. We got the 1,000 Saudi Riyal deposit back. Alhamdulillah.
When I first realized that we had to move out, I felt terrible. But after everything we’ve been through in recent weeks, leaving was a kind of relief. It must have been the right thing. It was time to move on.