Island Paradise Day 24

Today we were busy getting ready for the fumigator. We emptied all the cupboards and closets, and moved everything into the center of each room and covered it in tarps. It was actually a good opportunity to give this place a really good cleaning which was desperately needed.

The problem with places like this is they sit empty most of the year (not a good idea in the tropics). Owners hire local help to manage and maintain the property, but in the owners absence things are not really as they might think. For example, the caretaker here is paid to guard and maintain the grounds, clean the beach etc. We have been here almost a month, and he has only raked/cleaned the beach once – and that is only because we asked him for a rake so that we could clean it. I am out there picking up plastic on the beach - not him. He spends a lot of time raking leaves, yet it seems to me, the plastic is the bigger concern. He is supposed to take out garbage and burn it, yet, we do it ourselves, because if we leave it outside the door, the birds/dogs get into it and spread it all over the place before he comes around to get it. The beautiful dock here is covered in bird shit, but if we don't clean it, it does not get done.

While the owners think they have provided very good quality linens, for example, what they don’t know is that the linens have been in the closet for over a year with the bugs and the geckos nesting in it. As we took things out of the closet today, we found perfectly good, high quality, brand new linens, still in the package, completely ruined by bugs and various vermin. We have washed what we could and repackaged, but chances are this place will sit empty again for a length of time and things will get ruined again. We see first-hand how the “dream” of owning a part time house in the tropics is not all it is cracked up to be. The reality is, bugs, and mold, and salt, and bats, and snakes are the real owners. And “caretakers” can be paid squatters on the land if you are not around to supervise.

Tenants are not the problem in vacation homes. Vacancy is the problem. Nature takes over in the absence of people. When people buy homes here (or in Mexico) they are often convinced by realtors that they can rent their house out, and make lots of money, but in reality, most properties bring in relatively little income, and the costs to maintain them can be high. Also, the quality of maintenance is not always so good. For example, the guy who cleaned this place before we came to rent it, said to us today, as he delivered the fumigator guy, “I was just here and there were no bugs. We cleaned this place top to bottom.” Well, he says that, but the truth is, the day we moved in we found so much gecko poo and dead bugs and dust and filth everywhere we had to clean for two days to get the place livable. The linens in the closet had clearly not been so much as looked at in years let alone cleaned.

I am amazed that so many people are willing to leave their properties empty here, fearing tenants will ruin their house, when in reality, nature ruins their home.

Anyway, we are happy to have had our home fumigated, and as a result of getting things ready for the fumigator, we have moved a lot of junk (old kitchen gadgets that no longer work, bug infested linens, etc.) into the storage room, so the house is now cleaner and better organized that it was when we arrived.

This evening we were once again invited to dinner, and had a lovely visit with neighbours. We are so very pleased with how welcome we feel, and hope to go looking at other properties that may be for rent. I am not convinced I want to buy here, but I am not convince I do not want to stay – so we will check out a few rentals and see if we can find a place that is a little more conducive to long term rental.We are already committed to leave here and go back to Mexico, but we have our whole lives ahea of us, and paradise is not a bad place to hand out for awhile!