This is long, but I need a good vent.
In January we moved the daycare to a rental house. We have known the landlord's family for 8 or so years, and have had 3 of his grandchildren in care.
In our city, you have to live in a house you run a business in. This is a city rule, not a DHS rule. However, this land is unplatted and can therefore doesn't have to abide by that rule. It was also 3 miles down the street from our home, so it was close to all of our clients.
The way the land is situated, is there are 3 homes on the lot. One being the landlord's, one being the house we rent, and one being a home used as his daughter's "Doggie Daycare". The house we rent is in the middle, and the Doggie daycare's side yard is on the side of the garage of the home we rent, WE DO NOT RENT THE GARAGE SPACE, as per our lease. I am hoping this description makes sense.
The best way I can "draw" it...
Doggie day spa ---- yard -- garage of the home we rent -- our daycare space
When we were speaking to them about moving in, the owner of the Doggie daycare said that on long weekends they will use the garage for overflow boarding. Not an issue to us, since we aren't there on weekends and holidays.
We move in, and notice that dogs are being kept in the "overflow" room, semi-frequently. Occasionally, it would get LOUD. The 4th of July weekend was the breaking point. We came in and it literally sounded like we were in the middle of a kennel. It was humiliating to us to have our clients hear that. We sent out a e-mail to all clients apologizing and spoke with the landlord. He said he understood and would work on soundproofing. Nothing of which happened.
Throughout the whole time, we are talking back and forth about leaving/staying. We were happy with most other aspect of being there, aside from the noise - and we especially liked not having the daycare in our home.
The dog barking has lessened, but she was still keeping her own two personal dogs in the "overflow" room/ our garage. We purchased an ultrasonic dog barking machine, as a last resort. Placed it in the garage area on Tuesday. On Wednesday she came over during nap time, extremely upset. She pulled the box out of her pocket, and proceeded to ream us up and down about the use of the box (she said it makes the dogs anxious and hurts her business), where our parents park, and that we throw "hissyfits" whenever we don't like things. We have complained about 3 things since moving in in January, none of which unreasonable - and the biggest one being noise. She told us we never should have rented there knowing there were dogs around.
We told her how we felt lied to and deceived, and that she ver-batim told us that the overflow room would only be used on holidays and weekends, which we says she never said. We told her that she is so concerned about the ultrasonic machine might hurt her business and cost her money, but that the dog barking will hurt our business. She really didn't seem to be able to see it from our side. Apparently daycare isn't as important of a business in her eyes, and our bills aren't nearly as important as hers.
It ended very dramatically, tempers were lost. All the kids were sleeping, thank goodness. But she stormed off.
That was the tip of the iceberg for us. We We have now given the landlord our notice (lease was month to month).
I am SO not looking forward to..
1. being in the same vicinity until we can move
2. having to move
3. having to get resettled in our home
4. losing the space in our home
Oh, and I am on vacation labor day weekend, and have a weekend long concert the following weekend. So it is either move this coming weekend (ha!) or move the weekend of the 13th.
