Carpet cleaning guy went to the house this morning. Diagnosis: needs replacement, cannot be cleaned.

I need to make a decision about where I want to go with this house up there. Do I want to keep renting it out? If I do, I will have to replace the carpeting and repaint the entire house and take down my two remaining roman shades and replace them with blinds.

Or, do I want to reduce the price and sell it?

Those short-term tenants still want the house and are willing to give me almost all of my premium. They don't want the house until August 1. That would give me plenty of time to get the floors re-done. Problem is $. How much will it cost? I don't know. If I keep it, I would replace the hall carpet with tile and replace the kitchen, utility room, and hall bath linoleum with tile. Less carpet to tear up, and I could then have it replaced by room becuase there would be tile seperating all the rooms.

I either do this and keep this house as a rental or I can let these short-term prospects live in it as-is then sell it at a reduced price. My old tenants made it very clear they think I am being too harsh and I doubt I could get them to pay for having the carpet replaced. Even though their dogs ruined it, not me. I think if I gave them the bill, they would contest it in court. Even though I would win, I would then have to shoulder the expense of an attorney, my time at the court 300 miles away (and not at work) and just an over-all huge headache. I am an accountant. You do not throw away good money to chase after the bad!

Decisions, decisions.

Update: They retracted their offer. I am going to lower the price of the sales listing in light of the flooring problems and see how it goes. Hubby and I decided not to keep the house. That is probably the best thing to do for us. We don't really need to be sinking any more money into it.

Once we re-group out here, I can get some local property.