This is the story of how our insane landlady called the police on me at 3:30 on a Saturday morning.
One might expect there was a noise complaint. Or possibly disturbing sounds. Or the smell of a rotting corpse. None of the above.
Friday night, I was coming home with my cousin from a bar. I get to the door and realize, shit, I left my keys on the kitchen counter. On one hand, at least my landlady lives above me and I can just ring the doorbell. On the other hand, we were still on pretty bad terms.
Back-story: Alex's last post touched on this a little bit. The landlady and I had an argument the week before when I tried to explain to her why going through my clothes and personal things (and hiding garbage under the covers of my bed) was unacceptable. She responded by saying she had been "just waiting" for me to come upstairs and talk to her about this. And that the only reason I had a problem with her going through my things is because I'm a classist bitch who thinks I'm better than her because I have a degree (which, by the way, I don't). And while I tried to get over the shock of this strange reaction and formulate a response indicating that I don't want anyone going through my stuff, regardless of their education, she continued to yell at me and made some comments which I'm still too upset about to share on a public forum.
So back to our story. She does live right upstairs, but the last thing I want to do is talk to her, let alone ask her for help. My cousin, Shelagh, had met our landlady twice that day. She benevolently offers to ring the doorbell. I hear Shelagh explain into the intercom what had happened and ask to be let in. June says no because she didn't understand why I couldn't just let Shelagh in.
I roll my eyes, take a deep breath, and go up to the intercom. "June? It's Andrea. I'm here with my cousin. I can't let her in because my keys are locked inside the apartment. I know it's late. I'm sorry to wake you up, but can you just let us in?"
Silence. Then I hear her voice crackle over the intercom. "Why can't Alex just let you in?"
"Alex isn't here right now. He's out of town visiting family."
Silence. And then I hear the intercom turn off. June comes to my door and lets us in. I thank her and go downstairs to my apartment. Shelagh and I get ready for bed and go to sleep.
Since Alex was out of town, Shelagh was sleeping in Alex's room. Around 3 30 am, she wakes up to flashlights coming in through a tiny window in the room. And then voices saying, "There's definitely someone sleeping in there." She comes to the realization that the voices were police officers and they were talking about her. Then she hears a discussion in which the police officers explain that nothing was going on in the apartment. Just sleeping. And then June insisting they go in anyway. 30 seconds later she hears sharp knocks at my kitchen door accompanied by, "POLICE. OPEN UP!"
"Hold on!" she yells. "I'll go wake up Andrea. This isn't my apartment."
She comes into my room and says, "Andrea. Get up. Put on clothes. The cops are here."
"What cops?"
"...the cops"
"No they're not. The actual cops?"
"Goddammit. Yes. Hurry up."
I throw on a rain coat (because to hell with getting dressed) and stomp up to the door, very sure that Shelagh is mistaken. I fling open the kitchen door, and much to my surprise, there are two police officers standing there.
"Oh. Can I help you?"
"Are you Andrea?"
"...yes."
"And you live here?"
"...yes."
"Ma'am, step out of your apartment." [They may or may not have said 'ma'am' - I was far from sober. But in my head, police officers say ma'am.]
I step out of the apartment. June is standing there, clutching her robe, saying, "Yes officers. Yes. That's her."
Part of my is thinking I'm about to get arrested for whatever story June has concocted. Part of my is still in shock.
Then the officer says, "Ok. Just checking. Your landlady called us saying she had let your cousin into the apartment and then realized she didn't know her. She was worried strangers were looting the place."
"Wait. Stop. No. She let both of us in. She had a conversation with me. She knew I was there, and she knew that I had just locked myself out of the apartment."
Silence.
The officers look at each other, look at me, and one of them mumbles an apology for disturbing me.
I shake my head and tell him, "You're doing your job. You're not the problem here." I look up at June and say, "She's the problem here."
As I walk back in my apartment, I hear the officers start having a little chat with my landlady about when it's appropriate to call 9-1-1.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Karma Komplaints
I've really let my karma go.
Five years ago I was shown an apartment by an elderly Rastafarian. One of those uber-cool, feel-good, sun beaming out the no-sunshine-hole types. We talked for five or thirty minutes (accounts vary). I made him laugh, he said he liked my energy, and I got the apartment.
Back then I had no job, no higher education, no real style to speak of. Today I am a "young professional" (shudder) with a law degree (rounded up) and an array of nice shirts (six and counting).
But my karma credit, apparently, is in the red.
There have been complaints.
It started with a phone call, as so many conversations have before. Our beloved landlady wanted to show our apartment that upcoming weekend. She asked me if we would clean the apartment first. She said that she was willing to come in and clean it herself, but would prefer if we could do it ourselves.
I said, sweet Jesus no, we will do it ourselves. Apparently she heard something else altogether. We'll get there.
Andrea and I go to Bluesfest that night. We come home, and the place is spotless. Suspiciously so. The furniture is rearranged. And Andrea's clothes and personal effects have been, um, gone through. At first I suspected a very large and dextrous rat. Then, a particularly volatile yet orderly water heater explosion. Then my thoughts went to June.
The next day I had a shower. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Except that I stepped out of the shower and into a screaming fit. June and Andrea were going at it full-tilt in the entrance way. I came out in my towel and tried to mediate, like a true Roman senator, to little avail. June was livid, positively livid, because a) we live like pigs at a paint orgy, and b) Andrea had the audacity to ask her not to enter our apartment and rearrange our world without permission.
Well, we had to get to our jobs and I had to be less naked to do so, so I told her to leave and told her that we would settle this the next day.
The next day, June invites me up for tea. That old tactic. She explained to me that she may have flown off the handle. She explained that she doesn't rent her basement for the money but because she lives alone and she likes to know that other people are moving about the house. She likes to steep herself in the good vibrations that drift up from downstairs. But, lately the vibrations haven't been very good. There's been a lot of negativity going on. And it's been getting to her. So she snapped.
Well, that explained everything to my satisfaction. Sarcasm font.
Apparently she recalled me giving her permission to enter and "inspect" the apartment. She was listening in between my words I suppose. I told her clear-as-day that a) I did not intend to give her permission, b) I never would give her permission, and c) any further actions of this sort will be met with swift and immediate bad karma.
In regards to the filthy details she mentioned the two breakfast plates left on the kitchen counter, the shirt that Andrea left on her bed, and an empty salad container that she found after some forensic detective work.
I asked her to imagine, for a second, that she was a prospective tenant. Imagine walking through an apartment, admiring the spacious kitchen and living room, the faux hardwood floors and sanitarium-yellow walls, convinced that the place was a go ... until you spotted the shirt on the bed! The shirt that would surely be there upon moving in, and would never, ever, ever go away no matter what you did!
June explained that the concern wasn't our deterring potential leasees. If someone were to see the Caligulan madness in which we lived, she said, they would assume they could live the same way. Then calamity and whatever would ensue, and she would lapse into some karma-non-kardiac-koma. MmmmKay.
This all made more sense the following day. Four youngsters came by to view the apartment. This consisted of a five-minute tour of the apartment itself, and a two hour screening interview upstairs. I met them briefly. They were very nice, polite, well-mannered and attractive. They didn't get the apartment.
Who knows? Perhaps one of them sneezed. Perhaps one of them laughed at a joke.
Perhaps it was the karma.
Five years ago I was shown an apartment by an elderly Rastafarian. One of those uber-cool, feel-good, sun beaming out the no-sunshine-hole types. We talked for five or thirty minutes (accounts vary). I made him laugh, he said he liked my energy, and I got the apartment.
Back then I had no job, no higher education, no real style to speak of. Today I am a "young professional" (shudder) with a law degree (rounded up) and an array of nice shirts (six and counting).
But my karma credit, apparently, is in the red.
There have been complaints.
It started with a phone call, as so many conversations have before. Our beloved landlady wanted to show our apartment that upcoming weekend. She asked me if we would clean the apartment first. She said that she was willing to come in and clean it herself, but would prefer if we could do it ourselves.
I said, sweet Jesus no, we will do it ourselves. Apparently she heard something else altogether. We'll get there.
Andrea and I go to Bluesfest that night. We come home, and the place is spotless. Suspiciously so. The furniture is rearranged. And Andrea's clothes and personal effects have been, um, gone through. At first I suspected a very large and dextrous rat. Then, a particularly volatile yet orderly water heater explosion. Then my thoughts went to June.
The next day I had a shower. This was nothing out of the ordinary. Except that I stepped out of the shower and into a screaming fit. June and Andrea were going at it full-tilt in the entrance way. I came out in my towel and tried to mediate, like a true Roman senator, to little avail. June was livid, positively livid, because a) we live like pigs at a paint orgy, and b) Andrea had the audacity to ask her not to enter our apartment and rearrange our world without permission.
Well, we had to get to our jobs and I had to be less naked to do so, so I told her to leave and told her that we would settle this the next day.
The next day, June invites me up for tea. That old tactic. She explained to me that she may have flown off the handle. She explained that she doesn't rent her basement for the money but because she lives alone and she likes to know that other people are moving about the house. She likes to steep herself in the good vibrations that drift up from downstairs. But, lately the vibrations haven't been very good. There's been a lot of negativity going on. And it's been getting to her. So she snapped.
Well, that explained everything to my satisfaction. Sarcasm font.
Apparently she recalled me giving her permission to enter and "inspect" the apartment. She was listening in between my words I suppose. I told her clear-as-day that a) I did not intend to give her permission, b) I never would give her permission, and c) any further actions of this sort will be met with swift and immediate bad karma.
In regards to the filthy details she mentioned the two breakfast plates left on the kitchen counter, the shirt that Andrea left on her bed, and an empty salad container that she found after some forensic detective work.
I asked her to imagine, for a second, that she was a prospective tenant. Imagine walking through an apartment, admiring the spacious kitchen and living room, the faux hardwood floors and sanitarium-yellow walls, convinced that the place was a go ... until you spotted the shirt on the bed! The shirt that would surely be there upon moving in, and would never, ever, ever go away no matter what you did!
June explained that the concern wasn't our deterring potential leasees. If someone were to see the Caligulan madness in which we lived, she said, they would assume they could live the same way. Then calamity and whatever would ensue, and she would lapse into some karma-non-kardiac-koma. MmmmKay.
This all made more sense the following day. Four youngsters came by to view the apartment. This consisted of a five-minute tour of the apartment itself, and a two hour screening interview upstairs. I met them briefly. They were very nice, polite, well-mannered and attractive. They didn't get the apartment.
Who knows? Perhaps one of them sneezed. Perhaps one of them laughed at a joke.
Perhaps it was the karma.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Ottawa
This title is for film buffs and Nirvana fans. For everyone else, this is a post about a rat.
A great big scheming dirty wife-cheating rat.
I'd better start at the beginning.
It was Sunday. It was raining. I think that U2 wrote a song about it.
I was sitting in our living room, drinking tea and reading a book, waiting for something eventful to happen. I heard a scurrying sound. I looked up. And saw a rat.
This is not to be confused with a large mouse. I know the difference. Remember the animated Disney film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in which Holmes and Watson and all other goodly characters were portrayed as mice, and the villain was a large rat, and a drunken mouse called him a rat to his face, and the rat fed the drunken mouse to his pet cat? For some reason this is the only part of the movie I remember. Anyway, it was a rat.
It scurried and scampered and hit under the TV cabinet. I lay on the floor and watched it for a while, contemplating my next move. I call June the landlady upstairs. She says she'd come right down. She doesn't seem remotely surprised, which is worrisome. I try calling Ottawa's finest on-the-spot pest removal service and found out that they don't exist.
June comes down wearing flats. I tell her to go back upstairs and get some sensible footwear on, and to bring me some work gloves. She comes back down with two left handed oven mitts. Whatever. I construct a makeshift maze to lead the rat into a kitchen enclosure. I tell June to scare the rat with a broom handle, and out he comes. He is white with grey spots. He would be kind of cute if he wasn't such a dick.
I try and slam a garbage can on him. He throws his rodent bodyweight into my makeshift barrier, knocks it over, and disappears behind the fridge and out of view. We search and we search and we cannot find him. June thinks that he escaped out into the hallway and back into the hell from which it spawned.
At this point, I should explain why the rat is a "he", and not a "she", "he/she", or "it". It's because I refuse to entertain the remotest possibility that it could have been pregnant. Also because his name was Stanley.
I keep searching for Stanley and he is nowhere to be found. I concede that he is probably gone. June goes back upstairs. I board off the doors to the storage rooms in the basement, set two rat traps and install one of those high pitched anti-rodent sirens. Apparently June had these things lying around. I sit down, and open my book.
And there is Stanley again, in the kitchen.
I lose my mind and scream a feral, high pitch scream. Stanley disappears before I can get to him. Maybe he disappeared out the open apartment door (my bad). Maybe he's still in here. I just don't know. But I need to leave and get drunk.
I call June to appraise her of the situation, and that I'm leaving to get drunk. She says she wants into the apartment to "do what she can" with the rat. I don't deal with vagueness so I tell her she does not have my permission. She says she will call the police if she has to. I tell her that is the stupidest thing that I've heard in hours, and that she probably shouldn't have rented her basement to law students if she was gonna pull stuff like that. She relents. June is a strange lady.
I call Andrea. Sweet Andrea knows nothing about anything thus far. She is off having a wonderful dinner with her man-friend, blissfully unaware. She texted me earlier, saying they were stopping by before leaving for dinner. I told them, no. There was an emergency, and they can't come home right now, but I'll handle it. So she might be a little edgy.
I call her, and it goes something (i.e. nothing) like this:
Andrea: Sooooo what's going on?
Alex: We, um, we have a stranger in the apartment.
Andrea: What? Like, some homeless guy broke in? Is he still in there?
Alex: A four legged stranger.
Andrea: Two homeless guys?
Alex: A small, furry, rat faced, four legged stranger.
Andrea: Two homeless guys gave birth to a hairy lovechild with a face like a ...
Alex: THERE'S A DAMN RAT IN OUR FRIDGE. Maybe.
Andrea: Oh. Well, why didn't you say so?
She is taking this well. I should have assumed as much. Georgia girls are tough as nails, after all. She grew up around alligators and komodo dragons and baptists. Rats don't scare her. She is my hero.
Anyway, this was Sunday. It is now late on Tuesday. There is new floor laid down on (half of) the floor. It's cheap vinyl flooring with a faux wood-grain look. It probably won't last a year. But it smells amazing, which is to say it smells like nothing at all.
And no rats. So I think we're in the clear. Which is such a relief.
It feels like the end of a Friday the 13th movie, where Freddy Kruger disappears and never, ever, ever comes back.
Right?
A great big scheming dirty wife-cheating rat.
I'd better start at the beginning.
It was Sunday. It was raining. I think that U2 wrote a song about it.
I was sitting in our living room, drinking tea and reading a book, waiting for something eventful to happen. I heard a scurrying sound. I looked up. And saw a rat.
This is not to be confused with a large mouse. I know the difference. Remember the animated Disney film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, in which Holmes and Watson and all other goodly characters were portrayed as mice, and the villain was a large rat, and a drunken mouse called him a rat to his face, and the rat fed the drunken mouse to his pet cat? For some reason this is the only part of the movie I remember. Anyway, it was a rat.
It scurried and scampered and hit under the TV cabinet. I lay on the floor and watched it for a while, contemplating my next move. I call June the landlady upstairs. She says she'd come right down. She doesn't seem remotely surprised, which is worrisome. I try calling Ottawa's finest on-the-spot pest removal service and found out that they don't exist.
June comes down wearing flats. I tell her to go back upstairs and get some sensible footwear on, and to bring me some work gloves. She comes back down with two left handed oven mitts. Whatever. I construct a makeshift maze to lead the rat into a kitchen enclosure. I tell June to scare the rat with a broom handle, and out he comes. He is white with grey spots. He would be kind of cute if he wasn't such a dick.
I try and slam a garbage can on him. He throws his rodent bodyweight into my makeshift barrier, knocks it over, and disappears behind the fridge and out of view. We search and we search and we cannot find him. June thinks that he escaped out into the hallway and back into the hell from which it spawned.
At this point, I should explain why the rat is a "he", and not a "she", "he/she", or "it". It's because I refuse to entertain the remotest possibility that it could have been pregnant. Also because his name was Stanley.
I keep searching for Stanley and he is nowhere to be found. I concede that he is probably gone. June goes back upstairs. I board off the doors to the storage rooms in the basement, set two rat traps and install one of those high pitched anti-rodent sirens. Apparently June had these things lying around. I sit down, and open my book.
And there is Stanley again, in the kitchen.
I lose my mind and scream a feral, high pitch scream. Stanley disappears before I can get to him. Maybe he disappeared out the open apartment door (my bad). Maybe he's still in here. I just don't know. But I need to leave and get drunk.
I call June to appraise her of the situation, and that I'm leaving to get drunk. She says she wants into the apartment to "do what she can" with the rat. I don't deal with vagueness so I tell her she does not have my permission. She says she will call the police if she has to. I tell her that is the stupidest thing that I've heard in hours, and that she probably shouldn't have rented her basement to law students if she was gonna pull stuff like that. She relents. June is a strange lady.
I call Andrea. Sweet Andrea knows nothing about anything thus far. She is off having a wonderful dinner with her man-friend, blissfully unaware. She texted me earlier, saying they were stopping by before leaving for dinner. I told them, no. There was an emergency, and they can't come home right now, but I'll handle it. So she might be a little edgy.
I call her, and it goes something (i.e. nothing) like this:
Andrea: Sooooo what's going on?
Alex: We, um, we have a stranger in the apartment.
Andrea: What? Like, some homeless guy broke in? Is he still in there?
Alex: A four legged stranger.
Andrea: Two homeless guys?
Alex: A small, furry, rat faced, four legged stranger.
Andrea: Two homeless guys gave birth to a hairy lovechild with a face like a ...
Alex: THERE'S A DAMN RAT IN OUR FRIDGE. Maybe.
Andrea: Oh. Well, why didn't you say so?
She is taking this well. I should have assumed as much. Georgia girls are tough as nails, after all. She grew up around alligators and komodo dragons and baptists. Rats don't scare her. She is my hero.
Anyway, this was Sunday. It is now late on Tuesday. There is new floor laid down on (half of) the floor. It's cheap vinyl flooring with a faux wood-grain look. It probably won't last a year. But it smells amazing, which is to say it smells like nothing at all.
And no rats. So I think we're in the clear. Which is such a relief.
It feels like the end of a Friday the 13th movie, where Freddy Kruger disappears and never, ever, ever comes back.
Right?
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Mould, Must, and Mildew
Today, Alex and I got some great news: the landlady is replacing the carpet in our apartment. We're getting pretend-hardwood. Do you understand how great this is?
As much as I'm not looking forward to the headaches that accompany having the flooring of my apartment ripped up, I am absolutely elated at the thought of our reeking, mould-infested carpet being removed from my living quarters.
The carpet is definitely one of the first things I remember about this place, mostly because of the smell it emits. But I would be remiss if I did not go on to highlight some of its other key characteristics. Not only can you smell (and in some cases, see) the mould, you can feel it. When you walk across the carpet, there's a damp feeling - the kind of dampness where you feel like you should wipe your feet after, but the dampness doesn't stick to your feet; it remains snugly within the purple, threadbare carpet.
I believe I have touched on the purple patches of mould blooming underneath the linoleum in my kitchen and bathroom, but I have to say, this doesn't bother me as much. I feel like it's trapped underneath there, like fish under a frozen lake. It's probably a false sense of security, but I'll take it.
The mould in the carpets leaves nothing to the imagination; it offers no room for me to create a lie in which I can take comfort. When you can see/smell/feel the mould, it makes it pretty damn hard to pretend it's not there. And the health consequences are getting a little hard to ignore. Alex has been sick pretty much since before I moved in here and recently I've been throwing up in the morning (and before my friends can make hilarious jokes about it, no, I'm not pregnant. Douchebags).
So what do we do about it? It's too late to get another place. We've tried some basic stuff. Vacuuming, hairdryers, Lysol, dehumidifier. Alex washed his floor in laundry detergent and vinegar tonight. He's sleeping in the living room because he literally cannot sleep in his room anymore. His clothes are hanging up in my closet because his room smells so bad. ***This is not because Alex smells bad. Alex smells wonderful. It's 110% the mould that is making this smell.***
I was just debating the merits of pouring bleach all over our floors (or...you know...gasoline and a match), and then Alex played a voicemail for me. Our landlady wants to come into our apartment on Thursday to take measurements for new floors. They should be in within the next two weeks. Goodbye mould. And good riddance.
****
In other news, I saw two bums beating the shit out of each other on the way home from work last week. And when I say on the way home, I mean across the street from my driveway. Did I mention we live next to a methadone clinic?
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Guests
FIRST AND FOREMOST
We have hot water. Thank you all for listening to me complain about this for a week. And thank you to Vanessa for letting me come over and shower in the morning before work.
So this weekend, we had guests. Taylor and Elaine showed up to stay with us for a few days.
We went for drinks (frequently), toured Parliament, saw The Shining at an old theatre (as per usual, Elaine fell asleep during the movie), etc. One of the bars we went to was supposed to be a Maritime themed bar. I asked the singer to play the most Maritime-y song he knew.
"Uh...I just moved here from Miami...soooooo I don't know any? I can give you guys a shout out though. HEY EVERYONE! THESE GUYS ARE FROM HALIFAX! Everyone put your drink in the air - CHEERS!"
To which the Halifax crew yelled back "SOCIABLES!"
The former Floridian gave us a confused look and started singing something from the Top 40.
(Don't worry - we all ended up back at our apartment, very drunk, bellowing out Barrett's Privateers).
When Taylor and Elaine first got here, I explained to them that I had spent a few hours cleaning the place, but that they wouldn't be able to tell. They came into the basement, looked around, and nodded. I showed them around, which took about 5 seconds, and we started to chat in the kitchen.
Elaine poked at some strange black stain on the floor with her toe. She looked up and said, "All these black marks are kind of just stuck to the floor, eh?"
I nodded, and told her that I had swept. And mopped.
She looked around the floor, and as I noticed her eyes stop on the big purple patch under the white linoleum, I preemptively answered her question.
"We're pretty sure that's mold that got underneath the floor. It's in the bathroom too. It just looks funny, but it seems pretty harmless down there."
She laughed and shook her head. "You know," she said, "I really thought you were exaggerating about this place."
I smiled, and nodded.
"It's...," she began. "There's lots of um..."
"Please don't," I said. "You really don't need to feel like you have to find something to compliment. We'll be here all day. And it's only for a few months."
She laughed and said, "Well, they put hardwood floors in our penthouse, so you have that to look forward to when you come back in September."
Good news though - we got the hot water fixed the morning they showed up, so hot showers were available for our guests (and more importantly, for us). Our landlady let us borrow her vacuum. And we cleared the garbage off our porch, so now we have a pretty sweet sitting spot outside.
Things are coming up Milhouse.
We have hot water. Thank you all for listening to me complain about this for a week. And thank you to Vanessa for letting me come over and shower in the morning before work.
So this weekend, we had guests. Taylor and Elaine showed up to stay with us for a few days.
We went for drinks (frequently), toured Parliament, saw The Shining at an old theatre (as per usual, Elaine fell asleep during the movie), etc. One of the bars we went to was supposed to be a Maritime themed bar. I asked the singer to play the most Maritime-y song he knew.
"Uh...I just moved here from Miami...soooooo I don't know any? I can give you guys a shout out though. HEY EVERYONE! THESE GUYS ARE FROM HALIFAX! Everyone put your drink in the air - CHEERS!"
To which the Halifax crew yelled back "SOCIABLES!"
The former Floridian gave us a confused look and started singing something from the Top 40.
(Don't worry - we all ended up back at our apartment, very drunk, bellowing out Barrett's Privateers).
When Taylor and Elaine first got here, I explained to them that I had spent a few hours cleaning the place, but that they wouldn't be able to tell. They came into the basement, looked around, and nodded. I showed them around, which took about 5 seconds, and we started to chat in the kitchen.
Elaine poked at some strange black stain on the floor with her toe. She looked up and said, "All these black marks are kind of just stuck to the floor, eh?"
I nodded, and told her that I had swept. And mopped.
She looked around the floor, and as I noticed her eyes stop on the big purple patch under the white linoleum, I preemptively answered her question.
"We're pretty sure that's mold that got underneath the floor. It's in the bathroom too. It just looks funny, but it seems pretty harmless down there."
She laughed and shook her head. "You know," she said, "I really thought you were exaggerating about this place."
I smiled, and nodded.
"It's...," she began. "There's lots of um..."
"Please don't," I said. "You really don't need to feel like you have to find something to compliment. We'll be here all day. And it's only for a few months."
She laughed and said, "Well, they put hardwood floors in our penthouse, so you have that to look forward to when you come back in September."
Good news though - we got the hot water fixed the morning they showed up, so hot showers were available for our guests (and more importantly, for us). Our landlady let us borrow her vacuum. And we cleared the garbage off our porch, so now we have a pretty sweet sitting spot outside.
Things are coming up Milhouse.
Friday, June 7, 2013
The Week that Hell Froze Over.
Greetings, slummerinos.
So, our hot water tank broke this week.
That is to say the bottom fell out. This happens to appliances that are older than I am. Maybe to people too. I'm not there yet.
I first noticed on Monday morning when I went to shower. The shower was cold. Not just cheap-hotel, early-flight, needed-to-sober-up-anyway cold, but my-testicles-just-sent-me-photos-from-Antarctica cold. That is pretty damn cold.
At first I blamed Andrea, because she was around and it was convenient. I said, jokingly, "Hey, roommate. Way to use up all that hot water". She shot me a stare that was icier than the shower. Then I knew we had a problem.
See, I've bathed in the lake with a soap bar before, or washed myself in a barrel of rain. I call it camping (or, alternatively, visiting my folks). So really, the lack of hot water was never the problem. Going to work has been the problem. I've been sleeping in the woods, waking up, brushing myself off with pine needles, throwing on my finest squirrel-skin cloak and stepping into an office. This week I had a surprise evaluation. It went well, probably. I barely listened. I fixated on how bad I smelled, and hoped that the lawyer evaluating me didn't have the sudden urge to take a whiff. Which lawyers are known to do.
The other day, walking home, I encounter two shaggy-clothed men for who seemed generally indifferent about having hot water. I was listening to my music. One of them yelled something at me. I stopped and listened. Here's how our conversation went:
"Hey, you a lawyer?"
"Umm yeah. Actually I am. Wait, no. Not yet. Maybe one day."
"Hey, are you James Bond?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
"Want to make some money?"
...
(the remainder of this conversation has been removed due to solicitor-client privilege)
It's good to know that I can go a week without showering, and be mistaken for 007.
Andrea has been a good sport. She has substantially more hair that I do, and that lovely Georgia-peach competition of hers. Naturally, she also has higher hygiene standards. Furthermore, she works at a law firm where people seem to care what you smell like.
I wouldn't exactly call her a "morning person", the same way I wouldn't exactly call Rob Ford a Nobel Laureate. She also doesn't seem to drink coffee (poor thing). So take away her one morning ritual, and she's bound to get a little ornery. But she's mostly been cool about it. In a passive-aggressive, good-thing-she's-on-my-side kind of way.
Today I felt innovative. I boiled a pot of water in our large cooking pot, and bathed with it. Which felt a-mazing, until I realized that I was washing myself in bits of pasta, because we hadn't really done dishes all week, because we had no hot water. Oh, how the dogs stack up.
The repairmen came by the other night, with our landlady (i.e. the sweet old lady whose basement we live in) in tow. She was genuinely surprised that hot water tanks expire at all. Then she noticed that someone had run an exhaust pipe through her basement door (i.e. our fire exit). She was not pleased about that, and demanded to know where it came from. The repairman politely informed her that he didn't have a goddamned idea. There was some haggling over the pricing, and I had to basically broker a water-heater deal. Law students never rest, I swear.
So all is resolved: the tank is being replaced tomorrow. If you need me, I'll be in the shower.
So, our hot water tank broke this week.
That is to say the bottom fell out. This happens to appliances that are older than I am. Maybe to people too. I'm not there yet.
I first noticed on Monday morning when I went to shower. The shower was cold. Not just cheap-hotel, early-flight, needed-to-sober-up-anyway cold, but my-testicles-just-sent-me-photos-from-Antarctica cold. That is pretty damn cold.
At first I blamed Andrea, because she was around and it was convenient. I said, jokingly, "Hey, roommate. Way to use up all that hot water". She shot me a stare that was icier than the shower. Then I knew we had a problem.
See, I've bathed in the lake with a soap bar before, or washed myself in a barrel of rain. I call it camping (or, alternatively, visiting my folks). So really, the lack of hot water was never the problem. Going to work has been the problem. I've been sleeping in the woods, waking up, brushing myself off with pine needles, throwing on my finest squirrel-skin cloak and stepping into an office. This week I had a surprise evaluation. It went well, probably. I barely listened. I fixated on how bad I smelled, and hoped that the lawyer evaluating me didn't have the sudden urge to take a whiff. Which lawyers are known to do.
The other day, walking home, I encounter two shaggy-clothed men for who seemed generally indifferent about having hot water. I was listening to my music. One of them yelled something at me. I stopped and listened. Here's how our conversation went:
"Hey, you a lawyer?"
"Umm yeah. Actually I am. Wait, no. Not yet. Maybe one day."
"Hey, are you James Bond?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
"Want to make some money?"
...
(the remainder of this conversation has been removed due to solicitor-client privilege)
It's good to know that I can go a week without showering, and be mistaken for 007.
Andrea has been a good sport. She has substantially more hair that I do, and that lovely Georgia-peach competition of hers. Naturally, she also has higher hygiene standards. Furthermore, she works at a law firm where people seem to care what you smell like.
I wouldn't exactly call her a "morning person", the same way I wouldn't exactly call Rob Ford a Nobel Laureate. She also doesn't seem to drink coffee (poor thing). So take away her one morning ritual, and she's bound to get a little ornery. But she's mostly been cool about it. In a passive-aggressive, good-thing-she's-on-my-side kind of way.
Today I felt innovative. I boiled a pot of water in our large cooking pot, and bathed with it. Which felt a-mazing, until I realized that I was washing myself in bits of pasta, because we hadn't really done dishes all week, because we had no hot water. Oh, how the dogs stack up.
The repairmen came by the other night, with our landlady (i.e. the sweet old lady whose basement we live in) in tow. She was genuinely surprised that hot water tanks expire at all. Then she noticed that someone had run an exhaust pipe through her basement door (i.e. our fire exit). She was not pleased about that, and demanded to know where it came from. The repairman politely informed her that he didn't have a goddamned idea. There was some haggling over the pricing, and I had to basically broker a water-heater deal. Law students never rest, I swear.
So all is resolved: the tank is being replaced tomorrow. If you need me, I'll be in the shower.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Organizational Notes
Things my apartment does not have:
Things my apartment does have:
- Hot water (and significantly less cold water as well)
- A dishwasher
- Laundry on the premises
- A vacuum
- A toaster
- An iron
- A dresser for my clothes
- Functional blinds
- An emergency exit (unless you count the windows you can crawl out of)
Things my apartment does have:
- Mold
- Wet carpets (kind goes with the mold)
- Booby traps
- A room full of other people's shit
- Bizarre stains on the kitchen floor that challenge you to get creative with what could have possibly caused them
- Bars on the windows
- Giant cracks in my wall that make noises at night
- Cracks in the bathroom sink
- Other peoples' pictures in my closet (they were here when I moved it...I'm not a freak. #okmaybesometimes #dealwithitkevan)
- Large spiders
- Tiny ants
- A ton of empties - but seriously, how else are we supposed to deal with the rest of this shit sober?
- A pretty great roommate (except that he seems to think ketchup-popcorn-flavouring is a meal...)
***I bought a toilet bowl scrubber. So that adds that to the "Things my apartment does have" list and removes "20 million red rings in my toilet" from that same list. Hoorah!
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