In which the final word was "AUUUUUGHHHHH!"
To relate my own story of bad apartment services, I must set the scene. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Basically, we were in college and found out that the majority of our friends were backstabbing, manipulative assholes.
We had been living in a trailer near campus under an awesome landlord. He laid down reasonable rules and he kept up on his properties. Unfortunately, our friends turned out to be not so nice. We were paying $675 plus utilities for 6 of us, and come to find out they were jonesing to stick us with the rent and spontaneously leave. Nice. Classy.
We left instead after verbal abuse and some not so nice treatment of our items. We had to get out of there fast and we ended up in this... Charming little apartment near the place my SO worked anyway.
Why we didn't take one look at the place and just keep driving like there was obviously a horror movie going on there was because it was actually a cool place. It was an old, old motel, and the rooms had been connected and renovated (you know, in the 1820s), and we had two showers and two bathrooms. One shower was built into the wall of the bedroom and WE WERE YOUNG AND IT WAS COOL!
Our landlord was this fat, old guy that owned an old restaurant in town. He seemed nice and, since we were but poor college students, he allowed us to pay our deposit in installments. Rent was reasonable and included everything. We never actually signed a lease or even saw one. Hmmm.
About a day after moving in, we realized only one sink worked, only one toilet worked, and the fridge and the oven/sink/counter combo were ancient. Then, the shower in the bedroom leaked into the stairwell below. No biggie, we said. We didn't use the bathroom or shower in the bedroom and we got our neighbor to fix the toilet. We could hear the disgusting downstairs neighbor watch porn at 1 am, but NO BIGGIE, we had a place to stay and it was our own and no one bothered us.
A week in, we began to notice the bugs. Roaches. Despite being students, we are clean people and I hate bugs so I cleaned and swept and de-bugged religiously. Come to find out everyone had them. Big ones, small ones, some as big as........
We learned to watch constantly for the bugs. We went through like 25 cans of bug spray while we were there.
Let's see.... Our neighbor (who fixed our toilet), stole our cable! And then got mad at US because he didn't have cable anymore. :/
The neighbors who moved in after him smoked so much pot that I could smell it in our apartment, which was across the hall and through a caulk-sealed door. It WOKE ME UP. Not cool. Several times the cops came because, as it turns out, some guy up the road was burning trash. They asked if I smelled anything weird. YES, I'd say! The neighbors toking it up like it's 1999! Nothing was ever done...
Our one neighbor was actually my SO's coworker. It turned out she was a huge liar and told stories about people left and right. She also stole this motorcycle. She bought it, and moved out without paying on it and didn't give a forwarding address.
Our next neighbors were nice, but they fought a lot. Ah well.
We learned to live with it, and in fact made the place quite cozy. It was that winter that we really suffered. The ancient motel's ancient boiler lost power. Several times, men who may or may not have actually been licensed came to look at it, and apparently nothing could be done.
Usually this would be remedied quick, no? I mean it was WINTER. There was SNOW.
This was when we found out that basically nothing in that place was up to code or even safe. We had two space heaters for our two room apartment. If we had both on, the neighbors' heater wouldn't run. We popped several breakers because we all tried to stay warm. In the end, they kept their gas stove on...
We began to complain since it was so cold. Eventually, we stopped paying the rent. Why pay when we were freezing?!
Our landlord began to call, demanding to talk to me and be given the rent. We began looking for a new apartment because my SO was starting a new, better job. I never returned his calls.
The final word, on the final voicemail he left me before we moved out was "AAAAUUGHHHHHHH!!!" screamed into the phone. Good riddance.
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