Apartment Frustration

This weekend seemed to be one thing after another that just did not happen. Saturday morning at 6:00am, I found that my sprint triathlon had been cancelled. Later, I attempted to do some shopping and get a book from the library, but I was thwarted again as the things I wanted to obtain were not there. On Sunday, some plans I had with a friend fell through, so I decided to go to the beach. But every time I tried to go into the ocean, I was tossed out again by the remnants of Hannah. Nothing was panning out!

Just as I started to give in fully to my frustration, I remembered that a friend of mine was spending his weekend apartment hunting. In my opinion, that is THE most frustrating activity on earth. (which probably explains why I still don't own a place of my own and am living over my best friend's garage)

Years ago, when I was apartment hunting in Boston, one guy showed me a basement apartment that had no sub-flooring, no carpet, no cabinets, no kitchen floor, no closet doors, no sheet rock, broken windows and no appliances. It was the 24th of the month. He wanted a decision on the spot, because he was hoping to get somebody to move in on the 1st of the next month!

The next apartment I looked at was at least fully constructed. The realtor showed it to me and 4 other people at the same time. At 2:00 pm on a weekday. (I had to go into work early, run out of work to see the apartment and then go back and work late.) After showing all 5 of us the apartment, the realtor guy basically said that whomever could get to HIS office first to fill out the paperwork could have the apartment. Like some kind of strange amazing race. Skewed to favor people who didn't have a job to go back to.

Years later I was apartment searching in California. Though I had several years and 3000 miles in between, aparment searching had not changed much. I had given some thought to sharing a place with roommates. The place I looked at had advertised 3 bedrooms. In actuality, it had two bedrooms. The people living there had taken some cubicle dividers and sectioned off some of the living room. About 5 feet by 8 feet. The rest of the living room formed an "L" that was 2 feet in width on one side and about 3 1/2 on the other. Into which a sofa and a widescreen TV had been stuffed. There was one bathroom. For this luxurious set up, they were asking $750 per month.

After quickly dropping the roommate idea, I checked out a rather promising one bedroom apartment. Unfortunately, when we entered the apartment, I was overwhelmed by the strong odor of cigarettes and cat pee.

"Now, this would be thoroughly cleaned before move-in, right?" I asked.

"Oh, its already been cleaned by the crew" I was told.

"This place really does not look like its been cleaned" I said as I opened the refrigerator to a sticky greenish brown stain on the bottom.

"No, it has." the apartment manager said in a bored tone.

Then we went into the bathroom where, floating in the toilet, was a GIANT TURD. An "I had lots of mexican food last night" turd.

To this day, I'm not sure what disturbed me more: the fact that there was a sequioa log greeting me in the loo or the apartment manager's reaction to our unexpected visitor.

"Oh" she said in a matter of fact tone and reached out to flush. Then she again assured me that the apartment had already been cleaned.

WOW! Both my weekend and the garage-majal look astronomically better.