Hats (chapter 1)

After thinking about it I decided to be selfish and bring my dog over here. I even found the perfect place: A small private house with a very big fenced back yard that would have been perfect for me and him. The neighborhood was nice and it was in a good place in the middle of the region I'm looking for. It was a little expensive but my original post on the internet claimed that I'm willing to pay 15% more than this house was for. My friends and boss that saw the place said it was perfect. Armed with their feedback I went ahead and decided to rent the place. I filled the paper work and was missing a small thing: A cosigner. You are no one if you don't have a good credit history and since I just moved here, I have nothing. This makes my old dream of absolute anonymity come true. But as much as I love anonymity it also limits one's possibilities. Since the owner lives in another state and has to protect himself. He wanted to receive assurances that he can sleep well at night and that the renter (that would be me) whom he never met wouldn't screw him up by getting away and leaving the owner in debt. I also learned that the owner has a mortgage on the house and he's paying for it by renting the place and mortgage payments influence immensely one's credit history. Fair and square. My cosigner on the other hand is afraid of identity theft: Since it's a big country there must be a method to be able to be identified without appearing in person. This is done by giving social security number, driver's license (equals to ID) and other information. Giving this information to some unknown stranger that you never met before is a wide open door to the stranger to assume the identity of my cosigner possibly ruin my cosigner's life. Both sides in the argument are right and neither is wrong. Still I got stuck in the middle without the ability to rent the place and live happily ever after. So I was very unhappy (and that is no small understatement) yesterday evening when my cosigner and the landlord didn't reach an agreement about the lease. A friend offered To be my cosigner and give his information instead. I refused the offer, because I didn't want to expose him to a possible identity theft.

Hasta Manaña