UtterlyBoring.com

The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the University of Oregon is getting sued by a couple of Sunriver homeowners for a cool $500,000 after they threw a massive party and trashed the house.

This happens far too often out here. I work at a vacation rental company that manages several homes larger than the one in the article, and you’d be amazed how often, this time of year, these houses will get totally trashed. We always are trying to be careful who we rent to, and while we have houses that sleep about 16 people, we’ll only advertise them as 12 so this doesn’t happen.

My worry is that the guy that rented the house will also get in trouble. The frat obviously over-occupied the house, probably violating county occupancy guidelines for nightly rentals, but the homeowner, if they truly are renting the home on a nightly basis, is required to pay Deschutes County a room tax (7%). The county is trying to crack down on private homeowners who rent their homes out privately but don’t pay the tax, and this may end up opening another can of worms for the homeowner if they haven’t been clean and clear with their taxes. If I were the lawyer for SAE, I’d be sure to bring that up — after I beat the living tar out of my clients for being jackasses.

Like Jon, I remember when there was a bus station downtown. The last few years, the station’s moved around, mostly situated in the back of Gas stations — the now non-existent 76 station on the North End of town, and the current location at Hwy 97 Gas, across from the Red Oak Square, come to mind — or in small little stops like on the East side of Bend in a little strip mall plaza across from a car dealership. But those big buses with the big shiny Greyhounds on the side won’t be coming through Bend anymore.

I’ve used Greyhound several times — a few times in Bend — but I used it a lot when I was trying to court my then-girlfriend (now wife) as she lived in Monmouth, I lived in Eugene, and I had no car. When I wanted to surprise her with a visit, I’d take Greyhound to Salem and hitchhike into her college. The bus was just nasty and dirty, but I met some fascinating folks on that bus — fascinating in that “if this white-trash redneck sitting next to me spouts off any more anti-Hispanic racial slurs as loud as he is, I’m going to be in the middle of a serious ass-kicking” kind of way.

In the grand scheme of things, it probably won’t hurt our tourism-driven economy too much, as the people that traveled via Greyhound didn’t generally make too much of a dent in the local economy with their spending. I’m just hoping Hwy 97 Gas doesn’t close, because they have really cheap gas.

Where else could you just be minding your own business at the post office and suddenly you’re getting selected for jury duty?