I came home from work on Wednesday and found my key didn't fit the lock. I looked and found the lock was changed. What the fuck? I walked around to the front of the buildings to look for any neighbors. Fortunately, I found one shooting the bull with a store owner, as usual. My neighbor let me in the courtyard and I was able to open the inner door as I thought I might. I said to him, "What sort of landlord changes your lock and doesn't even bother telling you?" Answer? An ex-landlord. It turns out that our apartment buildings (2 rowhouses "joined" by a common courtyard) have just been sold to a group of young siblings, possibly relatives of our former owner. I had my cell phone (wow, came in handy so soon) and, again with the neighbor's help (had the #), called my (ex-) landlord and asked him what was up?
More meat after the cut
Let me tell you this man has faltering English and a slurred accent (not drunk, just aging), though he does understand it better than one would think. Our language gap has seriously hindered my ability to get him to repair things here with any competence, though he could be fluent and I think it would still be a big struggle for him to be clueful (cue stories on rodent problems, leaky ceilings (though he did fix the leak on my toilet well (perhaps a first! or a second!)), leaky faucets (never got any resolutions there), etc.).
Well, at first I thought I was locked out because I hadn't paid rent in a while. This is ridiculous, of course and I told him I had told him I'd pay up by Friday the 15th, which I have. So anyway, he said, ok, I'll call you in a few minutes. After an hour had passed, I decided to call him and see what was going on. He said a friend would be by in a few minutes to give me the key. Well, all right! So I get a knock on my door and find a pleasant young fellow (~25) with crew cut (I guess this is where the gay-fantasists amongst yourselves can depart from the narrative). He gave me the new key and said he was the new owner, along with his sisters. We'll be getting a letter from them soon to explain who-the-hell-knows-what. At least he can speak and understand English quite well (if not at native level).
It may turn out our rents will rise. If these owners figure out our apartments are seriously underpriced for the market, we are in doo-doo (they may know already). I do feel they will fix some problems (hopefully they may even spring for major repairs on the ceilings (both my 1st-floor' and my basement's; let's even hope for new faucets, a new/fixed fridge, etc.)). The fellow seems nice enough, but I know nothing about his sisters. More people involved means greater likelihood someone will be watching the books very carefully. Wait-and-see. Let's have a look at that new-owner letter first, eh?
My counselor suggested I look at my past to see what changed to help make me so rebellious against Aaron-positive work (work that benefits Aaron). I thought of 3 events:
Our overall move from Kansas to Pennsylvania, during the summer between 2nd to 3rd grade, from positive peer environments to a hostile one;
My conflagration with Mom 1 2 in spring '91;
my flunking at Earlham College (and my failed notion then during my last term there, that I would try and do schoolwork for myself instead of for others (good teachers, parents, my advisor, friends, etc.).. the problem lies beforehand, I guess).
I suppose there's a lot more there I could talk about.. particularly, the 2nd one on the list.. whereupon I asked if I was good for anything, if I'd done anything good, and she said "no" (I'm still pained a little to view my journal entry around that time). She has since apologized and, as I say in the endnote, she's in a much improved state of mind overall and has a healthy attitude toward me. Not that I was a joy to be with of course: I raged (or blew up) against Mom frequently for her requests/nags to get me to do nearly anything until I finally moved out in Sept. '95. This is partly because I couldn't rage against Dad for what I perceived as his slights against me. I never felt my parents understood me (you knew that cliché was coming, didn't you); of course, I didn't understand them better until much more recently.
I had a stuck garbage disposal for a few weeks. I thought to look on the Web, and
HomeTips told me a disposal unit has a hole you can turn to free the flywheel. It said to use a hex wrench but not which size. Well, fortunately the wonderful owner of nearby Washington Square Paint and Hardware knew I'd need a 1/4" for a garbage disposal. Plus they're open on Sundays, hooray!
I need to finish editing W.'s story on drag racing. I still have stuff to do around the house. I will always have stuff to do around the house. I will always need to find a way to do stuff around the house.
Etc., etc.
1(I know she never wanted to be mentioned in here, but she has changed for the better and mustn't be judged on this incident)
2[note: my first uses of a link (a href=#blah) to another spot (a name=blah) within the entry! My HTML-knowhow glacier is melting. Or something. Thank you,
Web Design Group via
Webmonkey.]