Got another question not only about finances but also a dilemma. Long story coming up.
Here's the situation: we are currently renting Ryan's parents' old house (they moved up to NH recently, and us paying them helps pay off the HELOC. We may or may not be getting equity out of it. Probably, but not sure). They wanted $900 a month but we talked them down to $600. This doesn't include any of the bills - electric is usually around $150 and gas around $80 in the summer, while in the winter electric is about $100 and gas is closer to $200. We're also paying $70/mo for internet and $50/mo for a storage unit.
We have two roommates, a couple in their 40's who came across some hard times a while back (they were going to move to NC and her job fell through so they couldn't go after all) and we offered them a room to help out (we were already good friends with them). At first it was just the husband because the wife was up in NC looking for a new job. He was paying us about $200 a month, which was fine - he doesn't make a mess, doesn't take up any room, is a real laid-back guy that we like a lot, and they were paying for him to live here and her to live there while she was job-hunting. When she couldn't find a job, she moved in too and they increased that to $250/mo without asking us what we thought would be fair - just handed us a little more. Now they're both working again and I want to say they're each making around $40-$45k a year.
In about August of last year, our refrigerator's water feed sprung a leak that we didn't catch until hours later, and it ended up flooding the entire kitchen and part of the dining room. Their room is underneath that and all their stuff got absolutely soaked. They were out of town so Ryan and I spent the entire weekend steam-vaccing and washing all their stuff and making sure their computers still worked and putting in fans etc. etc. When they came back into town, we were out. They moved into an extended-stay hotel without telling us - just packed some of their things and went. We had to call them a few days later to see if they were okay, and that's when we found out. They left most of their stuff which meant that we couldn't use the entire basement, so we had to leave our stuff in storage (the only reason we have it is because their stuff is in the basement). They never offered to pay us for the space they were still taking up.
About two months later they were having trouble affording everything again because the extended-stay place was like $700/mo. We told them that they were welcome to come back but on our terms as far as how much they'd pay, and that we wanted to sit down and talk to them about it. We also pointed out that I was pregnant and that would obviously change the situation when the baby comes. They were fine with that and agreed to talk to us about the price, and we all agreed that they would be staying until September of this year. They moved back in that weekend, and on Monday they had left $300 on Ryan's desk for rent. Never sat down with us to talk about it, just gave us slightly more again.
Now she's posting cryptic stuff on FB like "Wish me luck!" "Fingers crossed!" and now today "Doing the happy dance!" to which her NC friends and family are all "Oh my sweet Carolina!" and "Hooray, what did they say?" I know I'm paranoid about them, but she's been wanting to move back to NC since day one and it sounds a LOT like she got a job offer. If that's the case, they're thinking of moving without telling us AGAIN?
So here are a few questions...
1. Do I confront her about the cryptic posts? If it was anyone else I wouldn't care, but this directly affects us financially and the baby is due in two months. We need to know if we're going to be missing that extra rent.
2. We feel that since the house costs around $1000 a month including all the bills, $300 from them is awfully low. Ryan and I have the master bedroom/bathroom and office (10x10 room that has our computers) and now will be using the nursery. Our roommates have the basement which is about a 15x20 finished room, and they're the only ones who use the living room which has our Xbox, Wii, and 50" tv, plus they have their own bathroom. We all use the kitchen pretty equally. We had originally offered them what will now be the nursery, but they said they preferred the basement because it had more room and that way we wouldn't be in adjacent rooms.
3. If they are actually moving out, we still need to know what a fair amount to ask for would be, because we'll pretty much have to find new roommates. We can't afford to lose even the $300/mo, especially since I just found out that insurance through my company for employee + family will be about $700/mo.
4. Wahh sniffle
