BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

So Much Junk!

I don't get it.  I mean, I literally throw out one thing a week pretty much.

I feel like there's even MORE stuff in this house than there was before.

It's crazy.  In the last 6 months I've legitimately trashed, or donated like, one thing a week.  That would be 26 items... I've actually done, on average, 2 to 3 things, so I'm really at 75 different items.

An old walker, couch cushions torn apart by cats, old gas and paint cans and car things from the garage, the old lawn mower (two of them) and weedwacker, broken space heaters (two of them)...

And a bunch of other things.  Old shampoo... Sauce packets that my mom kept, like hundreds of them...

But it's just like the MORE I throw out... the more there seems to be!

I really need to go to home depot and buy another storage unit.  Ideally I want to use the basement as a staging area and then re-do rooms in the house.

I'm considering buying a small house somewhere just to use as storage.

What I'd do is rent out one of the rooms to cover costs, and then put a padlock on another room and just use that as a storage unit.  I wouldn't go rent a real storage unit because then you're just throwing money away.

If I buy a small house and rent it out, it's a physical asset that I can sell at a later date... And not only do I get storage space, I also get income.

My biggest problem with renting is... I hate people.  No offense... I don't hate ALL people.  I just hate those people that try to take advantage of other people.

So, for example, if I rent it to someone and they pay first and last month security, and pass background check, and pay rent, and don't put holes in the walls...

That's someone I like.

If they move in.  Stop paying rent.  Refuse to leave.  Break a bunch of stuff when I try to kick them out... Do drugs in the house, threaten my life...

Etc. etc.

I don't want to have to deal with that kind of person.

I feel like in the rental game, you probably have those people.

Deadbeats.

They just exist.  It's a fact of life.

This is why I'd rather possibly, buy the property, then have a management company handle everything for me... THEN use that income check to pay for space at a storage company.

Buy shares in the storage company so I get the dividend.

I don't know.

Seems like a lot of effort to avoid accidentally renting to deadbeats.

I imagine this is how women probably feel about online dating.

You want something good... But you have to deal with the possibility that you might end up encountering a deadbeat.

If only there were a way to just NOT have deadbeats in the world.  Just round them all up... Send them to some kind of finishing school so they can learn to be productive and decent members of society... Instead.

Who knows... I don't.

Anyway...

All I REALLY want to do is deal with this junk.

I was thinking a possibly better way to do it would be to buy shares in a REIT that rents out apartments, or houses... Then use the income from that to rent storage.

OR, use that income to pay for taxes on a house, and maintenance and what not...

And then just own the house and use it for storage.

That way, I don't have to rent to anyone.

And then every now and then I could AirBNB it or something.

Again though... You might end up dealing with that person who tries to take advantage of you.

See, it always comes back to that person who might screw you over.

There should just be a national reporting database for people who are unscrupulous and you can cross check them against that database.

What makes one person have morals and ethics and manners, and another... Have a complete lack of them?

I've always wondered that.

I guess that's just the way of the world... Some are good people, and some... Break things, kill people, do drugs... Who knows.

Anyway... SO I'm working on a better way to deal with all the junk in this house.  I just keep doing one item at a time.

Right now I'm still cutting up this carpet.  It's slow going, but I'm getting it in pieces.

Next I need to get rid of this super old big CRT TV.  I need like a e-waste recycling service or something.

Although, my boss offered to come over with his truck and we'd load it in that and then carry it into work and put it with the work e-waste...

I don't like to mix business and personal though, that's my thing.

I like to keep work at work and my personal stuff at my personal stuff.

I think that's my thing with that.

I just think it's weird when work and personal things overlap.  It feels like those two environments should always stay completely separate.

I don't know why, it just does.

Anyway, so... Hopefully I'll start to see more space around the house and then I can buy my drumset and work on my music area and my "study" area.

And then get some new furniture too like a nice couch to be able to lounge on and watch netflix.

The problem right now is this one cat just poops everywhere and another pukes.  SO if I buy a couch, within a week it would have stains all over it and they would claw it up...

I can't even use the current one because it's not even a couch it's a futon but it's all gross and nasty.

I don't know, maybe I'll buy a second house that can be my non-cat house, with nicer things, and then I'll have this house that is just full of junk and cats.

I mean, those two cats ARE like 15/16 years old, so I suppose in the next few years... Things will just resolve themselves if you know what I mean.  Cats have an average lifespan... So eventually, things will work themselves out.  That sounds mean... But I'm just saying... I want a nice couch, and I can't have one because of the cats.

Annoying.  Haha... Eh oh well.

Right now I'm not buying new stuff anyway, I'm in the process of clearing out.

Out with the old, not yet in with the new.