New Roommate number uh, I lost count

My house is no longer being left unwatched and unguarded. In a Ferris Buellerian set of connections my old roommate’s wife’s brother needed a place to live. He graduated from St. Cloud State and is now working at General Mills. So he needed a place to live and I needed someone to watch over things. So that seemed like a good idea to me and RG was down with the plan so we went ahead with it. As he was moving in it struck me. I have had a lot of roommates/renters in my house. I have owned it the better part of 8 years and there have been a lot of people there. I had never counted them though, so I could not say with certainty how many I have had.

So I counted. 11 people besides myself have lived full time in my house since I have owned it. And that doesn’t count another 2 or 3 that only lived there for a week or two because they needed a place to stay. To put this in perspective I am only the fourth owner of the house in 100 years (the house was built in 1905). All of the previous owners were families. So assuming 4 people in a family plus one other person I know lived there I estimate that possibly 10-13 people have lived in the house prior to my tenure as owner. So basically nearly to 50% of the residency have been my roommates or tenants and then mostly over the last 8 years! Now I doubt I will have any more roommates that aren’t related to me while I own the house. So this new tenant is probably the last renter. But it was a surprise to me to think about the number, and variety of people that have lived in the house.

A somewhat related situation that also happened as the new guy – JA – moved in also occurred. When we got to the back of his moving truck I was shocked to see that he had a motorcycle in the back. And not just any motorcycle, but a 2002 SV650S Suzuki. I had before deciding to leave the phone company been planning on buying a 2003 SV650S six years ago. So I must admit I was a little jealous. I even contemplated offering him free rent for a year in trade on the bike. I didn’t of course but still I do have to say it does get me thinking of motorcycles again, even if I would only get to ride the thing twice a year. To be honest I haven’t even had time to get my golf clubs out this year so what would I do with a bike? But it was funny that my new roommie, has practically one of the bikes I drool from time to time over. The other being a BMW R1200C. Though last year I also liked but didn’t add to my list – due to the high cost – the Fat Bob from Harley.

So I do wonder how many people will eventually live in my house. I know my wife would like to see us plus 4. Though I have a suspicion that we may also house some other relatives from time to time, so really I may end up responsible for 20 people living in the house over my ownership.