Darryl, There was a kid like that, he was the only one who knew how to break into my house when it got looted (the 1st time) while I was away. It'll come up eventually in the "story".
Joe, if you ever get over to the better (haha) side of FL let me know!
79gold, let me know when you come down.
Ryan, Thanks but I'd much rather be finishing the Camaro so I can get back to the Firebird!
So, back to the story.
I showed people pics of the house when I returned to CT. They said "Dude, you bought a PINK house?" .....uhh, I am colorblind, couldn't tell so I didn't care, I'll fix it!
While staying at the Motel 6 a young woman was also there long term and we'd cross paths occasionally. One day I was loading my Firebird into the enclosed trailer to bring it to a storage place where it would stay until after the closing on the house. Upon seeing the car she said "HEY, you could give that car to me!" and we became friends. Once I'd returned North and had the away closing on the house I called her and asked her if she'd drive over to the house and check it etc. if I sent her a key since I'd be working 7 days a week for a while. She'd moved into an apartment with someone in West Palm about 20 minutes from my house and agreed so I sent a key.
I'd turned on the utilities and wanted to be sure everything was OK. She checked on the house and I had her set the AC to 85 to keep it popping on and prevent black mold. She said it smells and opened windows to air it out. I flew down a few weeks later for a weekend and just bought an air mattress etc. at wally world so I could stay there. Bought a lawn mower, cut the grass and other yard maintenance so it wouldn't look abandoned. Made an arrangement to have next door neighbors kid cut the lawn whenever I wouldn't be back for a while and Stephanie would check on it occasionally.
At the time I owned a very large bicycle/skateboard store in CT I started from scratch and ran for 25 years. We kept 500 bikes and 300 skateboards in stock ready to go and did a lot of service with 3 full time mechanics. So, seasonal business with a bunch of year round employees and a few seasonal. Open 7 days a week April 1 till after X-mas. The first 15 years I worked 360 days a year building it up and at this point I could take some time off in winter but not much "in season" and typically worked 7 days. I planned to own two homes for a year. My plan was to travel down each holiday weekend and drop off one of the old cars and work on the house. My stepson (a grown man in his mid 20's) would be taking over the business so me being away was good experience for him operating the store and dealing with the daily issues an owner needs to. Seemed like a good plan but, not so much as I would find out later. Lyme disease still had me making decisions I wouldn't have under normal circumstances.
Can't find many pics from the store. We had two buildings with a large parking lot only for customers & employees of the store which was great for folks test riding bikes. This pic is of some guys from the local cable TV company shooting footage of toddler trikes for one of our commercials.