On Nov 25, 2022, at 3:05 PM, Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il> wrote:
Hi Damien,
I'm sorry, but it would be much simpler for us to pay in US dollars since I will getting my salary for the year in USD. Israel does not use the Euro (we use the NIS). if it did I would have been happy to pay in Euro directly..
Hope all of your travels and the search committee are going well,
Best wishes,
Offer
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2022 11:36:46 PM
To: Offer Zeiri
Cc: Sue
Subject: RE: House for sabbatical at UIUCHi Offer,
For the monthly payments, I was wondering if you would be OK paying us in euro if I give you my bank account in France? Maybe we could both save some money like that. Because otherwise you would transfer funds from Israel to the US and I would transfer funds from the US to Europe.
No pressure if you don’t want to. I have not yet investigated how we will manage our funds.
Cheers,
Damien
From: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2022 11:05 PM
To: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Cc: Sue <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Damien,
How are you? We hope all the traveling is going well.
Do you have an idea when will you have the first draft for the contract? We would be happy to iron all the details and sign on, and have everything "official".. as we are sure you would..
Have a great week,
Offer
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:26:43 PM
To: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Cc: Sue <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Offer,
I am not traveling all the time, but it is just easier to schedule something like this during the weekend (I already have too many Zoom meetings during the week) and somehow I am traveling a lot in the next few weekends (there is also Thanksgiving in the middle of that and we’ll be traveling as a family). Unless you have burning questions you would want answered rapidly, it is just easier to schedule something Dec. 17. That being said, you are welcome to shoot us all your questions.
And thanks for allowing me to stay at the house. This saves us money and makes my trips easier. I am currently thinking about combing back for a week during the Fall semester and a week during the Spring semester. But nothing is set in stone yet.
Best
Damien
From: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 5:33 AM
To: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Cc: Sue <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi,
We were very happy to get your response, finding a place from across the ocean is stressful, and we are very grateful to have found very nice people to rent from!
Your terms for gas and electricity seem fair to us, no problems. Of course any time you visit Urbana you will be very welcome to stay at your house 😊
Are you travelling all the time or just the weekends? If it's only weekends we can set a time and I'll make sure to come home early so we can chat. if not then will just do it on the 17th.
Best wishes,
Offer
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 4:59:50 AM
To: Offer Zeiri
Cc: Sue
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hello,
This is great news! We're glad you're interested in our home. And thank you for adding the extra $200, this is a generous offer and very much appreciated.
Living in a big house in a climate where it can be very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, can mean using a lot of heat & AC. We would like to "protect" ourselves from any major surprises regarding the utilities. So we would like to suggest the following:
we would divide our gas and electric consumption in four quarters (winter, spring, summer and fall) and use the average consumption we have made over the last 2 years to set an average usage for each season. If you were to use 15% or more than this averaged usage we would ask you to pay for the difference. Similarly if you were to consume 15% less we would give you back some money. We first thought about using $ values rather than kWh or Therm (the units used by the power companies) but with the expected increase in utilities you would have always had to pay more. Of course we would provide the monthly bill to show you the consumption and also let you know what temperatures we typically set in the winter and summer. We would provide the averaged consumption numbers in the contract.
Are these terms acceptable?
Regarding the contract, we will draft something and will get it to you ASAP.
We are glad you are open to the idea of becoming our roomates! We like this idea because it would give us the opportunity to walk you through all the many small things you will need to know about the house. We would not ask you to pay rent for the overlap. I am planning on returning to the states a couple of times to check in on my students. Would you be open to me staying in the guest room for those short visits?
I am traveling for the next 5 weekends and we won't be able to zoom but we should be available for a zoom meet on Dec. 17th. Would that work for you? We can meet anytime after 8am CST.
We look forward to ironing out the details and having this all set.
best,
Damien & Sue
On Nov 5, 2022, at 2:15 AM, Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il> wrote:
Hi Damien and Sue,
Thank you for the quick answers. As for our decision, we are very interested in renting your home! It seems perfect, and we even think sharing it a bit at the beginning should be nice!
Also, since utilities are all included, we can manage a rent of 2200$.
We would be very happy to chat on zoom once (as you suggested), to "meet up" face-to-face at least once. We are 7 hours ahead of you, so the weekend is probably the easiest. Maybe next Saturday (our weekend is Friday+Saturday, Sunday is a workday)?
We are currently in the midst of renting our home here as well, but I think we should start drawing the contract and finalize all the details.
Best wishes!
Offer & Yael
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Saturday, November 5, 2022 4:04:38 AM
To: Offer Zeiri
Subject: RE: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Offer,
I answered your questions directly in your email. When do you think that you will make your decision? We are getting a bit anxious and are wondering if we should put our house on sabbaticalhome.com.
Damien
From: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2022 4:08 PM
To: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Cc: Sue Guironnet <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi,
We looked over the house pictures and as we suspected, your house looks fantastic! We were very happy that one room was left with a little mess 😊
As I mentioned before, we had a couple of questions we wanted to ask, so here they all are (we tried to think of as many as we can):
- What kind of heating and cooling does the house have? We thought we saw AC in some of the rooms, but weren't sure..
For heat we have a gas furnace with radiators distributed all over the house. For cooling with have 2 AC units. One for upstairs and one for downstairs.
- Since our budget is limited, we wanted to be clear on what is included in the rent, and what additional payments are there. Utilities (water, electricity), internet, any taxes? Also, if they are not included how much are they, more or less..
In our initial email (with asking price of $3k) we mentioned that it would include all the utilities and taxes. When we offered you $2k/month we were expecting to keep the same deal but if you think you can pay a bit more that would be welcome! To give you a monthly breakdown:
Mortgage: $1600
Property taxes/insurance: $1000
Electricity/Gas: $400 (we pay the same all year but this number is set to increase with the current energy crisis)
Water: $60
Sewage/Recycling: $30
Internet: $30
Garbage: $40
- What type of internet do you have? Are there wire connections in the rooms, or wi-fi?
We upgraded our internet during the pandemic (we were 4 on zoom in the morning). We have fiber optics (1Gb/s), I think we have a limit 10 Gbyte/day but we have never reached it. We have two WIFI extenders to make sure that the connection is good in all the rooms.
- Will we be responsible for any garden care?
Yes. The lawn needs to be mowed during the warm months. We usually do it about every 2 weeks. You will have access to our lawnmower. In the Fall the leaves do need to be picked up. Our neighbors pay people to do both jobs for them and I'm sure that could be arranged for you too if you'd rather not do it yourself. I have no idea how much they pay but could find out. We also usually have a vegetable garden. If you have any interest in gardening (tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, etc) we'd be happy to get it started for you. It would mean taking down trellis and such at the end of the season. If that's not something you're interested in, we won't do one next year. There is a Farmer's Market within walking distance of the house on Saturdays.
- Does the house have an alarm or any other security measures?
No alarm nor security system. We have Ring for the front door. We are in a very safe neighborhood. The streets in the front and back of the house are lit at night. I have always wondered if we could use Alexa (the amazon thing) as an alarm system (picking up noise) but I have never investigated it.
- Which furnishing/ appliances are included?
Our plan is to leave everything in the house for you to use. Of course we would empty closets and dressers for your things. All of our clothes and personal items will be stored in the attic or basement. We were not planning on locking stuff up, we have to trust each other! Our kitchen is very well equipped. We also have a robot vacuum and a cordless vacuum. We can talk about what toys/games your children might be interested in having access to and can put away other things. If none of your kids are into Lego or dolls, we'll have a lot to put away! I have a pretty well equipped workshop in the garage you'd also be welcome to, though I imagine you won't be building much furniture while you're here :)
Other than that, what are you planning to do with all your stuff that you need to store? We think the house is large enough that you can just leave a room or two locked and use them as storage.. that's what we are planning to do in our home here..
All the best,
Offer
From: Offer Zeiri
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2022 6:13:55 PM
To: Guironnet, Damien S
Cc: Sue Guironnet
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Damien,
How are you? how are all your plans for the sabbatical proceeding?
My wife and I were happy to receive your e-mail. It sounds like we can work out the dates, we are still a little worried about handling a cat, but appreciate everything you're doing. We would love to see the interior pictures of the house.
We will try to come up with any questions we still have, and send them to you in the next couple of days..
Best wishes,
Offer
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2022 5:43:18 PM
To: Offer Zeiri
Cc: Sue Guironnet
Subject: RE: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Offer,
We're glad to hear we're not out of the running :) We know this is a big decision, which we understand well. We are willing to commit to being away the full 11 months, being Aug 1-June 30. We could also consider the possibility of sharing the house for the month of July, there really is space for us all. We would give you the master bedroom with attached office and bathroom and your kids could use the 2 bedrooms with bunkbeds. We would use the guest bedroom on the first floor and the one remaining bedroom upstairs for our kids. It would be a lot of people in one house, but we could make it work!
As far as the cat. She is an older cat and always stays indoors. She has never had any health problems (though like all cats, she vomits occassionally). She mostly keeps to herself. For her care, she mostly just needs to have food available and water (though she has recently decided she prefers to drink from the toilet) and her litter box needs to be scooped once/week. We have a friend who has offered to deal with any potential problems with her, if she were to get sick or need to go to the vet. We will continue to work on finding someone to take her in but leaving her in the house would be best. Also, she can be left up to one week alone in the house, and we have someone else who would take her in for longer if that were necessary (she also has cats so it's not ideal long term but she could keep them separated for a couple of weeks).
Since we were working on posting the house for rent, we've taken some pictures of the interior, I could share them on dropbox. You'll be missing the older 2 kids bedrooms and the guestroom/playroom.
As I said before, we'd be happy to do a video chat with you and your wife to help answer any questions, or feel free to continue to email.
Best,
Damien
From: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2022 11:41 AM
To: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Cc: Sue Guironnet <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Damien,
Glad to hear from you, and thank you for you generous offer. We are still looking at houses. We will be visiting the USA for a full year, however, we can manage a few weeks in hotels. So if you are leaving at the beginning of August, and coming back at start of July, it might work.. When will you know the exact dates?
Regarding the cat, this is something that worries us a little. We never had a cat (had several dogs..), so we don't really know anything about taking care of one, and also have small children (3 yo) who may annoy it a little.. In addition, we are planning to travel a lot during the year, on many weekends, and sometimes longer.. How will that work with a cat?
Thank you again,
Offer
From: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 25, 2022 4:05:54 AM
To: Offer Zeiri
Cc: Sue Guironnet
Subject: RE: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi Offer,
I am sorry for the slow response. We tried to figure out what our own sabbatical will look like before responding.
Are you still looking for a house?
We could do $2k/month but we would like to discuss dates and a few other things. Do you need the house for a full year? We are planning on staying in Europe for ~10-11 months and not 12. Our plan was to leave in August and come back mid-June or early July. This would be complicated for us to accommodate for a full year.
What do you think about taking care of our cat? She is sweet and does not need much.
There is more to talk about but the dates and the cat are kind of a big deal, so we thought that we should start with that.
Best,
Damien
From: Offer Zeiri <OfferZ@nrcn.gov.il>
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2022 1:04 PM
To: Guironnet, Damien S <guironne@illinois.edu>
Cc: Sue Guironnet <suepadden@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: House for sabbatical at UIUC
Hi,
Thank you so much for the detailed replay, and information!
We understand what your concerns regarding renting to someone reliable, as we are also starting to deal with renting our home here..
While your house sounds amazing, unfortunately it is out of our budget. We are looking for something closer to the 2000 range..
We will try looking for smaller places, or in Champign.. Anyway, I really hope you find a nice family to enjoy your house and take care of it.
Thank you so much for all the information about the schools, it was very useful. We wish you a great time in Switzerland, both in research and in family fun!
Thank you very much, truly.
Offer Zeiri