HELLLLLOOOOOO FLORIDA!
After a few much needed relaxed days visiting my mom in Orlando, one of which we used to visit Universal Studios (side note to all: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU EVER TAKE ANY MOMENT OF TIME OUT OF YOUR LIFE TO GO ON THE TWISTER RIDE AT UNIVERSAL. IT CAUSES PERMANENT DISSATISFACTION AND AN UNYIELDING SENSE OF BLAH.), we finally drove the last 6 hours out of over three thousand miles to the Keys. In the first day or two we set up meetings with people to look at the apartments available to us. And the story begins...
His name was Bob. No last name, just Bob. Now, we had been warned by several people already to be weary of everyone we met trying to lease us a place. This was because apparently in the Keys, because tourism is such a huge market, and every tourist is apparently a dumbass, scamming for rentals is hugely taken advantage of. For example, there are a ton of vacation homes down here that are only occupied half of the year. So, scammers break into the homes, pretend to be licensed realtors, convince people to rent from them and take cash or check for the thousand or so dollar deposit and then disappear. Two months later, when you're living in this house, the actual owners come home and freak out because there's people living in their house. I know, totally weird. But believe me, down here this actually makes sense.
One of our visits was to an absolutely too good to be true little apartment in this beautiful neighborhood right on the canal. (First clue: too good to be true= it probably actually is.) We pull into this place and this shifty-eyed humpty dumpty lookin dude comes out in the driveway to greet us. He says his name is Bob and hands us these awkward Office Depot standard "pamphlets" he'd printed out about the place. Dillon and I right away noticed the beautiful tree in the front yard that was shedding some kind of fruit. Bob got really excited about the tree, telling us he'd been there for 6 years, and every year at the same time the "starfruit" tree would produce beautiful fruits that would fall all over the front yard. Dillon asked the guy what time of year that was. He had no idea. (Second clue: if you've been living somewhere for 6 years, wouldn't you kind of know when the tree in the front yard produced its fruit?)
We walked inside to this cute little apartment. Shifty Bob was being, shifty. I was falling in love with the place, but I noticed there was random shit lying around like utencils in the kitchen, soap in the shower, and clothing still hanging in the closet. I asked Bob where all of the leftover stuff came from and he explained, "Oh, the people that lived here before just left it and I hadn't had a chance to clean it up yet." There was also a dog barking from the upstairs, which he claimed he lived in. We asked if he would bring his dog out to meet Avery so we could make sure they go along. He wouldn't go up and get the dog. When Dillon and I started sounding interested, he was very adamant that we give him at least half of the deposit in cash. So much that when I told him I could probably write him a check for it, he asked if I could go to an ATM and pull out half of the security deposit so it could be in cash. We told him we would think about it and get right back to him that night.
Now, I am incredibly naive and oblivious a lot of the time. And when we pulled away, I was super excited and loved the place. But Dillon looked at me, wide eyed and freaked out. "Crystal, I think that guy was scamming us." Boom. It all made sense. As soon as we started piecing it all together, I was incredibly creeped out. Not to mention the fact Bob had invited us on a sunset cruise with him that night. AWWWWKWAARRRD. Anywho, I don't know if I was able to convey the creepiness that was Bob through this post, but take it from me, it was damn creepy. Not to mention, this was our second day in the keys. Ahhh, welcome home.
I guess the moral of this blog is this: the starfruit tree will always bloom at the same time of year. And if a creepy guy named Bob tells you that, don't rent from him.
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