Small favor.

Seriously, people, I get it. You mean well, you want to help, and all that, but please stop with the suggestions. As you may imagine, in a decade of affiliation with the Army, I've moved a time or two. I know how I like to do things, and my way works really well. Honestly, there's nothing I don't have figured out beyond how I'm going to get my husband off the couch to actually go with me to get some boxes like I've been asking him to do for weeks (or if the people at the recycling center on post will have pity on the very pregnant woman trying to load boxes all by herself into her tiny car).

Yes, I have hired licensed contractors to fix the things that have broken since we've been here in this house. I am covering my ass because my landlord seriously strikes me as the type who will try to screw us out of money at the slightest provocation, so having receipts from licensed contractors for the repairs we've needed is a way of actually saving me money and trouble. Yes, I probably could have run down to Home Depot and hired some Mexicans to do this work for cheaper, but I don't want to mess around with that. I just need everything on the up and up, so I went with reputable local contractors. Plus, I'm not stupid. The prices they charged me were fair, and MUCH less than the landlord would have charged if we'd just left the stuff not done.

I know you can rent carpet cleaners at Albertson's. I own a carpet cleaner not terribly different from the one you can rent, in fact. I want it done professionally again for the documentation of it. Paying $50 to have our very small carpeted areas cleaned is a lot less than what we will be charged for not doing it, and having the receipts and documentation that it was professionally done just further covers my ass.

No, I won't just say "screw it" and let them keep the deposit. You are aware we paid about $1600 in deposits when we moved in here, right? No? Yeah, we paid like $1600 in deposits for this house. I want that money back. I NEED that money back. Spending a couple hundred to get things done so that I get back at least a thousand of my deposit, is honestly, smart thinking, when you consider that the landlord would have probably just kept the whole thing if we did none of this.

Bottom line, I really do know what I'm doing. I'm not stupid. I've done this before. I want my money back, and I'm doing what I have to do to get it. Please stop with the suggestions. I have a plan, and I'm using it.