The past few weekends have been spent cleaning up the rental property I have. I normally have to clean and patch after a tenant leaves either because of normal wear and tear or just plain abuse. This time around we cleaned and spruced up the back yard with the thought of selling the place if an offer came through. I get nostalgic when I think about selling it, and I get somewhat offended when the place is mistreated by a tenant. This was the first house I bought. I lived in it as a tenant, saved my penny's and bought it. Granted it was relatively cheap, $50,000 but I was broke and had gone through a bad spell which lasted several years. After the 'dark years' began to clear and I slowly got my life together I bought the house.

After the sale I walked through it, looking at it with fresh eyes. I would stand in a room and think to myself 'I own this'. Even the scraggly, Charlie Brown Christmas tree in the backyard didn't escape my figurative spraying of ownership, "yup, that diseased looking stick in the ground is mine." I was proud to own this house. The bank, of course, could argue who actually owned the house but screw them, the house was mine- I had earned it.