Nebulous Mooch

So I’ve complained many times about my apartment complex in this blog. My first issue was when we moved in we had no running water on Tuesdays for about a month or maybe even longer. Then there was the famous Valet Waste incident. For some reason I thought that moving out would go relatively smoothly. I seem to have difficulty learning from the past.

When I went to give our thirty day notice the apartment manager suggested that I pay an extra eighty dollars for a cleaning service they “offer”. I said I’d clean the apartment myself.

We moved out today and an office person came to inspect our apartment. The first thing she said was “Your apartment smells of spices. That’ll cost thirty five dollars to fix. The burner plates are dirty and they’ll be thirty-five dollars each to replace.” The fees kept racking up.

I couldn’t believe it. It’s all a scam to get you to pay the cleaning service fee. Of course our apartment smells of spices, we cook in it. Did they expect us not to cook?

Never move into Camden Lake Apartments or any apartments affiliated with Camden Living. That’s my free advice for the day. I don’t give much so savor this morsel.

Have you ever been given a meaningless time wasting task at work? I’ve been given tons of them. That’s one of the reasons I hate working so much.

I could hear the motor of a leaf blower going for what seemed like forever right outside my window. Finally fed up with all the racket, I decided to look outside to see what was going on. One of the grounds keepers was randomly blowing leaves off the sidewalk around our building. I say randomly because he would blow the leaves off the sidewalk in one section, then he’d move to the grass next to the sidewalk and blow the leaves from the grass onto the sidewalk that he’d just cleared. When he finally finished, I think there were just as many leaves on the sidewalk as there were when he started.

Whether or not he’d successfully cleared the sidewalk, it was a meaningless task. There are a lot of leaves around. If no one picks them up, they’ll blow right back onto the sidewalk again. I wonder how long it took him to do this around all of the buildings in the complex. This is a big complex so it’ll probably take all day.

I have to admit that we have a bit of a mold problem in the master bathroom. It’s been plaguing me ever since we’ve moved into this place. I’ve tried everything I can think of. It taunts me from beneath the caulking along the edge of the tub. Every time I take a shower, I think about how wrecked it is. Why must it live in my bathroom? Is it doing me harm? Why doesn’t it pack its little moldy suitcases and move out?

The other day I decided to use the bleach we had under the bathroom sink to get rid of it. We never use bleach. Recently, I’ve been trying to use natural cleaning products, but I was desperate. So I mixed some bleach and water in a spray bottle and sprayed it all around the tub. I sprayed so much my hand cramped up.

Did the mold go away? No, but I got a big headache and felt like I was going to throw up. So I learned that the bleach isn’t worth the environmental and physical harm it causes. I also learned that I should probably open the windows when I ‘m cleaning.

Shortly after my husband left for his gig this afternoon he called me on the phone. “Go outside and look on the ground next to my car,” he said. He was driving my car at the time.

The front of our apartment complex is shielded from the main road by thick shrubbery and trees. The trees arch out over the sidewalk providing shade to pedestrians. The trees and underbrush used to be so thick that you couldn’t see into it. When we went for walks I could always hear things scurrying in the bushes. That made me feel quite nervous. I don’t like scurrying.

Recently the trees have been thinning out. I’ve noticed this more this month than others. Yesterday on my walk, I noticed that the apartments were clearly visible through the trees now. In some places you could easily walk through the trees. The branches of the trees have been sawn off in many places. I wonder if this is the work of our apartment’s ground keeping service or if it’s been done by someone else.

About a year ago I noticed an old bald man on the side walk with a hand saw, cutting the branches from the trees. After that, I realised he’s out there every evening, sawing away like a man on a mission.

One evening we went on our walk late and walked by him. He didn’t have his saw this time. Instead he had a large stick and he was beating the thin branches of the trees wildly until they broke.

What could he be doing? I’ve run through all kinds of scenarios in my head. Maybe he has a fireplace. Maybe he’s building something–a giant bird’s nest or something. Maybe he really doesn’t like trees. I don’t know. I want to ask, but I’m afraid. Somehow I don’t think talking to a crazed man with a saw is a good idea.

We have new neighbors. They’re a family–a mother, father, and two small children. They’re quiet and better than other neighbors we’ve had. There’s just one problem. They smoke.

In cheaply made apartments like the ones we occupy, noises seep through the walls along with smoke. The smoke is mostly evident in the bathroom. One day, my husband went into the bathroom and came out coughing dramatically.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Smoke. Our neighbor smokes.” He poked to the bathroom door that he’d pulled tightly closed behind him. While I had on many occasions seen the mother happily puffing on a cigarette, I didn’t know what that had to do with our bathroom.

Thinking he must be over reacting, I opened the door to check. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought that my husband had just smoked a few cigarettes in there.

The strangest part is that the smoke seems to come up through the drain in the sink. I picture our neighbor standing in the bathroom blowing puffs of smoke down the drain as her children nap quietly in the next room.

We’ve solved the problem by keeping the bathroom door shut. Whenever we need to use it, we just hold our breath.

Today our stove blew up. Well to put it in a less dramatic way, one of our burners shorted out. Saying it like that doesn’t do justice to the tremendous bang and large amount of sparks that were produced by this event. I’d turned the stove on and went to set a pan on it. As soon as the pan touched the burner the sparks started flying.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m not a cool and collected person in situations like this. I’m afraid of fire and afraid of getting burned. I didn’t learn how to light a match until I was nineteen. I’m still afraid to light a cigarette lighter. Every time I cook, I’m afraid of starting a fire. I run through what to do if there is a fire over and over again in my mind.

When this happened, I was cool as a cucumber. With sparks flying through the air, I took the pan off the burner. As my husband tried to turn off the stove, I opened the breaker box and turned off the circuit. No problem.

If I’d been alone, I would’ve curled up and a ball and sobbed after that happened. We had company at the time so I went on with the conversation like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. That’s what you do when you’re cool or, at least, pretending to be cool like me.

I arrived home this morning to a note on my door. This note informed me that if I continued to keep my Valet Waste container outside during daylight hours I would incur a $25 fine per incident. This angered me greatly because, as I previously explained, the ergonomically designed Valet Waste container is much larger than the container I currently use and will not fit conveniently in my apartment.

I decided that I would return the container to the office and decline Valet Waste services. When I walked into the office with the large black trash can in hand, the women who worked there all looked shocked. Reluctantly, one asked me if she could help me. I explained my problem and she referred me to the property manager who was just coming in the door. So I explained the situation to her. “Why don’t you just put it in your pantry?” she said, like I hadn’t thought of that before.

“I have food, percussion instruments, microphone stands and three hurricane kits in my pantry. It won’t fit,” I told her.

“You have to find a place for it.”

“There is no place for it. I have too much stuff in my apartment already.”

“Why don’t you just put it in your pantry?” She said this like she hadn’t just suggested it a few seconds earlier.

I placed the can on the floor in front of one of the workers desks and said, “I have a good idea, I can just leave it here. That way it’ll be inside.”

“The can has to be in your apartment when you move out or else you’ll be fined,” the property manager replied.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pick it up before I move out and put it back in my apartment.”

“You can’t leave it here. It must be kept in your apartment.” She perched her drawn-on lips. “Other tenants have tried to refuse the service but you can’t. It’s the new rule.”

“Rule? How is it a rule that I have to keep this thing in my apartment?”

“All of the other complexes owned by our company are doing it and most tenants love the service.” She said this like this information would somehow change my mind.

“Well I don’t,” I said. Most other tenants are too lazy to walk a few feet to the compactor, I thought.

“Don’t worry, you’re not getting charged for it. Valet Waste fees won’t be added until you sign your next lease.” She must be on crack if she thinks I’m signing another lease here.

“Living here gets more ridiculous every day,” I said as I picked up the Valet Waste can and marched out of the office.

I should’ve asked her if she had anything else she might want to store in my apartment, like a large suitcase or a small car. The suitcase could sit it in the living room in front of the sofa. Maybe I could use it as a coffee table. I guess I was mistaken, but I was under the impression that I would only have to keep my possessions in my apartment. I didn’t know I’d have to keep theirs too.

My husband said that I should’ve asked to see a floor plan of our apartment so she could show me where I should keep the Valet Waste can. Then I should’ve pointed out that the square footage on the plan should read 808 instead of 810 as they are taking up two square feet of space with a Valet Waste trash can. I should’ve asked her if that meant I only had to pay rent on 808 square feet of living space instead of 810. If they want to charge me $25 a day for leaving their Valet Waste can outside, I should charge them $25 for every time they turned my water off for the day.

The Valet Waste can is now being used to hold microphone stands. I’ll be taking my own trash to the compactor again. I’m considering starting a protest group for residents opposed to Valet Waste. We could picket and barricade the property manager’s office door with our Valet Waste cans.

They’ve been making some changes at my apartment complex: painting buildings, fixing the pool, charging to use the racket ball and basketball courts, requiring residents to register their cars. There is a sign on the main office building that reads, “Pardon our progress.” It’s like saying, “Excuse the mess.”

Now, as a special new service for their residents, they’re offering Valet Waste Services. When we got the first flier about it last month, my husband was not happy. “People are so lazy they can’t take their own trash a few yards to the dumpster,” he said. “Is this the reason they raised our rent $200?”

Two weeks ago, a black trash can appeared at our door with the words “Valet Waste” written on it in white letters. The instruction sheet it came with tells us to keep our “Valet Waste” trash can inside during the day, and not to put it outside until after six in the evening. “Leaving your trash can outside will result in service interruption,” it reads. The can is too big to fit under the kitchen sink, where our old trash can is stored. We don’t have any where else to put it so we leave it outside. Our service is yet to be interrupted.

I checked out the Valet Waste website. On the website they say that the trashcans are ergonomically designed to fit in any apartment. They need to redesign those cans because they don’t fit in my apartment. How do you make a trash can ergonomic anyway?

Trash collection is promptly at eight. There are a lot of buildings at this complex. In order to have everyone’s trash picked up promptly at eight, they must have a worker collecting trash at every building. That’s a lot of workers. On their website they claim that this adds to apartment safety. That depends on who their employees are.

Before we had Valet Waste, I used to see people leave bags of trash on their cars for half the day before they lazily drove the trash to the compactor. For them, Valet Waste is just what they needed. I liked taking out the trash. The short walk was nice, but I’m using Valet Waste because, whether I use it or not, I’m still paying for it. I just take longer empty-handed walks now.

Last month, my husband went to England for ten days. While he was away, our noisy upstairs neighbors moved out. They moved out in the middle of the night. There was lots of banging around and dropping things. They left a pile of glass from a mirror they broke in the bushes next to the sidewalk. That’s typical of them.

After they were gone, there was a lot of speculation–not that I’m nosy and have nothing better to do than wonder about the neighbors. I’m just curious and interested in learning more about the things that go on around me. I was happy they were gone, but I was also concerned. Today I learned that my speculation and concern may have been warranted.

This evening a stranger knocked on our door and of course my husband answered it. If I were home alone, I would’ve just pretended that I wasn’t home, but my husband always answers the door. I don’t think that’s a good thing. I mean, what if it’s a crazy killer. It was a good thing he was home tonight because if he wasn’t home I would’ve missed out on some interesting information.

This stranger was a woman who was asking a lot of questions about the upstairs neighbors. “Did a Barbara Jones live upstairs?” she asked. (The names have been changed.)

“Yeah, Barbie,” I answered.

“We don’t know her last name,” my husband added.

“Was she living with Doug?” the woman asked.

“I thought his name was Ken,” my husband responded.

The woman laughed knowingly. “Were they driving a green Honda Civic?” (The car has also been changed.)

“Yeah,” my husband responded.

“How long ago did they move out?”

“I don’t know maybe three weeks ago,” my husband said. “May I ask what this is all about?”

“It’s personal. I’m a private investigator. Thanks for your help.”

“I wonder if her name was Magnum,” my husband joked after she left.

I wonder what’s going on.