This weekend we moved the first wave of "stuff" into our daughter's new rental house in Champaign/Urbana. She's a Junior at the University of Illinois studying Industrial Design in FAA, Fine & Applied Arts.
The marathon move-in is going to spread itself over a week-long period with the finale scheduled for next Saturday. It's amazing how much one "needs" to go away to school these days.
She and three friends found the house last fall after spending the last two years in the dorms. The rental tradition at U of I mandates that the search begin almost as soon as classes start and the best properties are snapped up by October. Leases run from August of the next school year to the following August.
The girls found this house without any parental help and given the condition of some properties in the area, it looks like it's going to be fine -- after the landlord addresses some remaining issues.
Why am I blogging about this? Because this weekend was another example of how a Realtor's job is never done.
Most parents were shopping for white goods, stocking refrigerators and saying their goodbyes. What was I doing? Checking for mold, testing the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, fretting about peeling paint and vacuuming ducts. I was looking for potential electrical problems, questioning the soft-feeling subfloor in the lower level bathroom and making sure the bedrooms' egress windows actually open as they're supposed to.
It's probably hard for restaurateurs to dine out without turning a critical eye toward to meal and it's certainly hard for a real estate professional to move their kid into a house without giving it an extra once-over.
(By the way, the Swiffer Wet Jet -- worth its weight in gold.)
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