Tired of Renting

It was May 2020 when we realized that it was time to start making some big life changes to create a more sustainable future for our small family of 3: Mike, Jenn & Gunther, our 14 year old PBGV pup. 

We were currently renting a house in Santa Barbara, CA which was perfect for us during this stage of our lives. Before this, we rented apartment after apartment in Santa Monica, CA for nearly 8 years, which was fun while it lasted, but we reached a point when we were really craving more space, both in the home and outside, that we could expand into.

 

As artists, we needed more space to create, sometimes this meant a delicious meal, sometimes we needed space to set up a photo studio, but what we really wanted was a yard to grow food in and spare bedrooms to host friends and family in. This is why we decided to move to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara wasn't much cheaper than LA to rent in, but it was a smaller town with maximum beachfront and so many houses (with yards) to choose from. Yards were hard to come by in Los Angeles, unless you secured your rent controlled space at least 10 years ago, which we didn't. So we spent a few months driving back and forth to get to know the areas in Santa Barbara and when we finally found a few houses on Zillow that could give us the space we needed and live close to the beach, we drove up to the open houses to see them in person. Open houses are like interviews... there were dozens of people at each home, giving it a very competitive vibe. When we walked into one of the houses, we just knew it was the one and we put in an application right then and there. Luckily, the landlord liked us enough and chose us as their tenants! We signed a one year lease the very next day, which began in July 2019. 

The commute to Los Angeles was only about 90 minutes and we only had to make the drive on occasion, as we both work as freelancers in the film industry. I am a Union Costumer and Mike, a 1st Assistant Director. Working freelance allowed us to go to LA for a few days to complete a project and come home to Santa Barbara for our down time in between jobs... sometimes we had weeks in between and we enjoyed every minute of it in Santa Barbara. We did this for a year, and the drive never got old. It was a beautiful drive along the Pacific Coast Highway and the scenery was breathtaking every time, getting more and more beautiful the farther away from Los Angeles we got. It really was the perfect mix of working in the city and living the slow life in a small beach town. Working in the film industry was so fast paced and stressful that we needed this balance for our sanity. 

Freelance film work gave us the financial stability to make this dream work, but when the pandemic was in full swing, the film industry shut down. No more filming allowed. No working from home, not for us anyway. Luckily, we both qualified for unemployment during this time, which covered our living expenses, so we could ride out this wave as we waited for work to resume.

As time stood still, we spent our days riding our bikes, relaxing at the beach, diving into our art, cooking, cultivating the garden and fixing up the old house we were living in. We installed raised beds as soon as we moved in, so we really got to focus on these during this time at home and learn how to grow food from seeds, which is an incredible feeling! If you haven't experienced it yet, you gotta try it; It's so empowering! We were also cooking nearly every meal at home, so the compost bins filled up super quick and we experienced the art of turning food 'waste' into nutrients to feed our seedlings which is also an incredible process to witness! Those worms are the key. Meanwhile, the living room transformed into an film editing room as we finished editing out short film that we filmed in Copenhagen, Denmark the year before.  

It was great at first! But as the days went on, and there was no end of the lock downs in sight, we started to feel like this dream of ours was becoming unsustainable. We were living the life of a retired couple, and as great as this may sound, funneling all of our unemployment money into renting an old house, paying someone else's mortgage started to get real old, real fast. As the months went by... March, April, May, June... time started to move in slow motion, and things really started to come into perspective.  I'm sure a lot of us felt this way during this time.

The sense of security was fleeting while the pandemic settled in to a more permanent situation, like a rug being pulled right beneath your feet! Did you feel this way? All of the sudden, the mirage of our dreams faded out of sight and the reality of this new world started to sink in... We finally realized, we're tired of renting! Putting all of our resources and energy into someone else's property started to feel like a bottomless pit. With such an uncertain future, we knew if and when that unemployment stopped coming in, well, we'd be among the rest of us that were unable to pay rent, or buy food, because let's face it... as a renter in California, there was little left over to save. We knew this was not an option, so we dug deep down and considered scenarios that would -hopefully- bring a real sense of security and sustainability. For us, this looked like owning property... it was finally time to stop renting!