It's been decided. My husband and I are moving from Minnesota to Charlotte at the end of March - in a little over a week. We've settled on a rental unit on Lake Wylie. I'm envisioning evenings on the deck, sipping margaritas and watching fish jump as the sun goes down. Realistically, when we visited last weekend and selected a home, it was gray and rainy, and with my internal compass all skewed, who knows if where the sun actually sets (well...to the west, obviously).
Husband is amazingly efficient and packing and organizing the move. Our biggest challenge is that we are combining two households and have a LOT of stuff. It's a great opportunity to donate our extras - some to charity, others to friends and neighbors as "gifts." I've never been such an avid gift giver until recently. (And yes, that green leafy substance in the little baggie truly is a spice. I'm not sure what kind. Cook it up and let me know what you'd guess.) Another friend got a box of partially filled bottles of liquor. Creme de Banana? Where'd we get that?? You're welcome.
Our new home comes fully equipped with two of our own parking spaces. We were told that like we should be impressed. Not a two-car garage. Two parking stalls. Hmmmm... With all of these boxes, many of them will never get unpacked in the next year. Normally, they would be packed into a garage, and we don't want to use the real-estate in our two parking stalls. Do we stack them all in a room and hang a little curtain in front of them? Ugly. Or do we shell out the money for storage? Wasteful.
Today I set up utility service. Carolina Water is an interesting group. No website easily returned in my Google search, so I had to actually dial the phone. (I since found out the site is www.uiwater.com) Odd. In order to avoid the $100 deposit charge, I was advised to fax letters from two of my former utility companies indicating that I have a clean payment record for the previous 12 months. My local utilities easily complied, much to my surprise - apparently it is a common request. But, back to the water company. I was appalled to learn that the monthly base rate is $56 per month just to have an account, plus a $27 initial reading/setup charge. Usage is charged on top of that at $4.48 per 1,000 gallons with average usage at 4,000 gallons per month (not sure if that is 4k per person or per household). And, no, they won't send a bill electronically.
I admit, I haven't paid a water bill in over 4 years. It's included in my current association fee so I have no idea what water costs in MN. I recall my last Florida apartment, a 2 bedroom 2 bedroom unit was charged about $30 per month.
The rumor is that the water in our new area is undrinkable and horribly hard.
Do you live in the Lake Wylie area? What is the quality of your piped in water? Can you drink it straight out of the faucet? Do you have a water filter? Do you buy drinking water? What does your monthly bill run?
See you there soon!
Friday, March 20, 2009
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