Basement Suite Blues
So we're moving again...
We moved into this place in may. It's a really nice place. It had way bigger rooms than our last place. The only thing was, it was $725/mo. Since we were semi-desperate and in love with the place after living in a place where the bed was as big as the bedroom, we decided to take it. We thought our landlord was a really nice guy. I mean, the first day we had moved in, he came in, replaced some light bulbs, drilled us a peephole into the door, and was just a friendly guy. Then he vanished off the face of the earth...to Korea...I think. He said he was going to be out of the country, but he left and we never saw him again. He had told us that his son Leonard would take his place.
So yeah, now 19 year old Leo is our landlord. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. He's probably 20. But whatever. Soon the annoyances begin.
After about a week, we found out that our hot water ran out after about 5 minutes. I had been so thrilled about moving from a place with only a shower to a place with a nice big tub, that I didn't realized that I had exchanged the shower-only for a tub with cold water. I haven't bathed peacefully since I moved here, and if you know me, you know that I love my bubble bath/reading/relaxing time. And Paul, who loves his super hot showers (even hotter than I can bear), can only take them for about 3 minutes before the temperature starts dropping.
That's just a slight annoyance.
Then the dog started barking.
We knew that they had a big friendly dog in the backyard. She was sweet and a little scared of us, but that didn't keep her from attacking Simon through the screen window. For the first month that we lived here, Lucky attacked Simon through the windows non-stop. Of course, Simon realized this and would jump up there to provoke her, but that was his window, our window. Our cat should be allowed to look out the window without having the screens mangled. That was only a problem in the summer months, because we had to keep the windows open because of the heat. So, like I said, We knew that they had a big friendly dog in the backyard. What we didn't know was that they also had a tiny yip yapping dog in the garage, located directly behind our bedroom. This dog proceeded to bark 23 hours a day, non stop. I am not even exaggerating about that. We would lie in bed for hours hoping it would stop. It wouldn't. After a few weeks of this, we complained, and they moved the dog to a different section of the 3 car garage apparently. Now we can only hear him 23 hours a day in the living room/bathroom.
Then the mail.
They never give us our mail. Our bills would be late, and I would have to wait weeks to get letters from friends and relatives. I complained once, nicely. He said he'd be sure to give us our mail. He never did. Remember, I'm doing immigration crap. I need my mail. I complained on his voice mail- somewhat irked I'm sure. He never returned my call. I finally got a hold of him and talked to him about it. He said, "Yeah, no problem. I'll try to check the mail at least once a week." As if once a week is often! Sooooooo angry. We're currently having things mailed to the bakery.
Now we paid 25 dollars extra a month to do laundry once a week. We were conned. But whatever. We're paying for that Sunday that we do laundry. At least 3 or 4 sundays, they locked our door. This is a door that they told us they would leave unlocked at all times. A few of the times, they weren't even home. So we couldn't get them to unlock it. So we pretty much just broke in. (It's just a chain lock.) A few times we had to call good old Leo down to open it for us. Each time he would be so puzzled as to why it was locked. BAH!
There's a one bedroom suite beside ours and a mean old lady lives there and apparently smokes a pack a day, because our suite smells horribly like smoke half the time. That's a major annoyance. I say she's mean, because the day that we moved in, I asked her nicely if she would want to move her car because we didn't want to drop the couch on it or scratch it. It was dangerously close to the gate we had to go through. She rolled her eyes and sighed and snapped "ok" and shut the door. The next day she knocked on our door and apologized "for being a bitch." We lived on never seeing each other again until my aunt was visiting. Paul had come home sick and parked the van from work in our usual spot. And because my aunt and I had bought some groceries, I parked in front of it, leaving ample room for the lady to park. So whilst I was inside seeing about Paul and putting in groceries, apparently mean lady gave Aunt Lizzie, an innocent visitor, an earful about where the van should be parked. Whatever. I don't want to deal with her. One of our breakers went out one day, and she started whining and shouting out "Jesus!" whenever our landlord flipped hers off a few times trying to figure out which one of ours it was. Then she came out and started complaining about those horrible 2 seconds of darkness.
So yeah. One afternoon I had taken a shower. And I had just gotten out of the shower, and I had wrapped a quilt around me and was lying on the couch talking to my mother on the phone when someone flat out opened the door. It was the door leading to the inside of the house. Now, it has a chain lock on it, but it can still open about 3 inches, making it possible to see a face or a naked body if one had the chance. I heard a male voice say "sorry!" and left. I cracked the door to see who it was and it was some guy I had never seen walking away. That pretty much did it for me. I didn't complain about it, but I started putting Simon's litter in front of the door, and I became paranoid about them opening the door on us. I devised a mechanism to see if they did it while we were away. I stretched some sticky-tack over the front of the door crack and lo and behold, one day it was broken. So they had opened the door!
Soon after that, Leo called me to ask me if I had seen anyone in the back yard stealing their fruit, which to me sounded like "DID YOU STEAL MY FRUIT." He didn't say that, but he might as well have. So I took the opportunity to tell him about how someone opened the door on me. His response was, "I don't know why anyone would do that."
"Well, they did," I said. "And It makes me very uncomfortable."
He repeated, "Well, I just don't know why anyone would do that. Are you sure it wasn't the wind?"
I'm thinking, yeah it was that gust of wind in YOUR HALLWAY, and said, "Yes, it was a person. I heard him and I saw him."
"I just don't know why anyone would do that." Pause. "You should buy a lock."
WHATEVER RETARD
It turns out that Leo works at Canada Post. And he still didn't give us our mail.
So this past month, we were a day late paying our rent. When we moved in, we didn't have a phone, so we gave them Paul's dad's cell phone number, because we could get a message that way. So Leo called that cell while Paul was at work, and Paul's dad answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, Paul. Give me my rent."
"You want to talk to Paul, hold on a second."
Paul: "Hello?"
"Why is someone else answering your phone?"
"Uhhh, because they were using it."
"Yeah, it's your phone you should be answering it."
And so on and so forth, he's a jerk. Paul said he'd give him the money when he got home from work. And so when he got home, he went to their front door and gave it to random non-english speaking female # 34. So at 10pm, when Paul and I were getting ready for bed and snuggling on the couch, we get a loud knock and a "Hey Paul!" from their door. We open to: "Yeah, where's my rent." LOSER JERK 10 pm!!!
His behavior that day, did it for both of us. We started looking for a new place almost immediately.
(TO BE CONTINTUED.....DUN DUN DUN!)
We moved into this place in may. It's a really nice place. It had way bigger rooms than our last place. The only thing was, it was $725/mo. Since we were semi-desperate and in love with the place after living in a place where the bed was as big as the bedroom, we decided to take it. We thought our landlord was a really nice guy. I mean, the first day we had moved in, he came in, replaced some light bulbs, drilled us a peephole into the door, and was just a friendly guy. Then he vanished off the face of the earth...to Korea...I think. He said he was going to be out of the country, but he left and we never saw him again. He had told us that his son Leonard would take his place.
So yeah, now 19 year old Leo is our landlord. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. He's probably 20. But whatever. Soon the annoyances begin.
After about a week, we found out that our hot water ran out after about 5 minutes. I had been so thrilled about moving from a place with only a shower to a place with a nice big tub, that I didn't realized that I had exchanged the shower-only for a tub with cold water. I haven't bathed peacefully since I moved here, and if you know me, you know that I love my bubble bath/reading/relaxing time. And Paul, who loves his super hot showers (even hotter than I can bear), can only take them for about 3 minutes before the temperature starts dropping.
That's just a slight annoyance.
Then the dog started barking.
We knew that they had a big friendly dog in the backyard. She was sweet and a little scared of us, but that didn't keep her from attacking Simon through the screen window. For the first month that we lived here, Lucky attacked Simon through the windows non-stop. Of course, Simon realized this and would jump up there to provoke her, but that was his window, our window. Our cat should be allowed to look out the window without having the screens mangled. That was only a problem in the summer months, because we had to keep the windows open because of the heat. So, like I said, We knew that they had a big friendly dog in the backyard. What we didn't know was that they also had a tiny yip yapping dog in the garage, located directly behind our bedroom. This dog proceeded to bark 23 hours a day, non stop. I am not even exaggerating about that. We would lie in bed for hours hoping it would stop. It wouldn't. After a few weeks of this, we complained, and they moved the dog to a different section of the 3 car garage apparently. Now we can only hear him 23 hours a day in the living room/bathroom.
Then the mail.
They never give us our mail. Our bills would be late, and I would have to wait weeks to get letters from friends and relatives. I complained once, nicely. He said he'd be sure to give us our mail. He never did. Remember, I'm doing immigration crap. I need my mail. I complained on his voice mail- somewhat irked I'm sure. He never returned my call. I finally got a hold of him and talked to him about it. He said, "Yeah, no problem. I'll try to check the mail at least once a week." As if once a week is often! Sooooooo angry. We're currently having things mailed to the bakery.
Now we paid 25 dollars extra a month to do laundry once a week. We were conned. But whatever. We're paying for that Sunday that we do laundry. At least 3 or 4 sundays, they locked our door. This is a door that they told us they would leave unlocked at all times. A few of the times, they weren't even home. So we couldn't get them to unlock it. So we pretty much just broke in. (It's just a chain lock.) A few times we had to call good old Leo down to open it for us. Each time he would be so puzzled as to why it was locked. BAH!
There's a one bedroom suite beside ours and a mean old lady lives there and apparently smokes a pack a day, because our suite smells horribly like smoke half the time. That's a major annoyance. I say she's mean, because the day that we moved in, I asked her nicely if she would want to move her car because we didn't want to drop the couch on it or scratch it. It was dangerously close to the gate we had to go through. She rolled her eyes and sighed and snapped "ok" and shut the door. The next day she knocked on our door and apologized "for being a bitch." We lived on never seeing each other again until my aunt was visiting. Paul had come home sick and parked the van from work in our usual spot. And because my aunt and I had bought some groceries, I parked in front of it, leaving ample room for the lady to park. So whilst I was inside seeing about Paul and putting in groceries, apparently mean lady gave Aunt Lizzie, an innocent visitor, an earful about where the van should be parked. Whatever. I don't want to deal with her. One of our breakers went out one day, and she started whining and shouting out "Jesus!" whenever our landlord flipped hers off a few times trying to figure out which one of ours it was. Then she came out and started complaining about those horrible 2 seconds of darkness.
So yeah. One afternoon I had taken a shower. And I had just gotten out of the shower, and I had wrapped a quilt around me and was lying on the couch talking to my mother on the phone when someone flat out opened the door. It was the door leading to the inside of the house. Now, it has a chain lock on it, but it can still open about 3 inches, making it possible to see a face or a naked body if one had the chance. I heard a male voice say "sorry!" and left. I cracked the door to see who it was and it was some guy I had never seen walking away. That pretty much did it for me. I didn't complain about it, but I started putting Simon's litter in front of the door, and I became paranoid about them opening the door on us. I devised a mechanism to see if they did it while we were away. I stretched some sticky-tack over the front of the door crack and lo and behold, one day it was broken. So they had opened the door!
Soon after that, Leo called me to ask me if I had seen anyone in the back yard stealing their fruit, which to me sounded like "DID YOU STEAL MY FRUIT." He didn't say that, but he might as well have. So I took the opportunity to tell him about how someone opened the door on me. His response was, "I don't know why anyone would do that."
"Well, they did," I said. "And It makes me very uncomfortable."
He repeated, "Well, I just don't know why anyone would do that. Are you sure it wasn't the wind?"
I'm thinking, yeah it was that gust of wind in YOUR HALLWAY, and said, "Yes, it was a person. I heard him and I saw him."
"I just don't know why anyone would do that." Pause. "You should buy a lock."
WHATEVER RETARD
It turns out that Leo works at Canada Post. And he still didn't give us our mail.
So this past month, we were a day late paying our rent. When we moved in, we didn't have a phone, so we gave them Paul's dad's cell phone number, because we could get a message that way. So Leo called that cell while Paul was at work, and Paul's dad answered, "Hello?"
"Hey, Paul. Give me my rent."
"You want to talk to Paul, hold on a second."
Paul: "Hello?"
"Why is someone else answering your phone?"
"Uhhh, because they were using it."
"Yeah, it's your phone you should be answering it."
And so on and so forth, he's a jerk. Paul said he'd give him the money when he got home from work. And so when he got home, he went to their front door and gave it to random non-english speaking female # 34. So at 10pm, when Paul and I were getting ready for bed and snuggling on the couch, we get a loud knock and a "Hey Paul!" from their door. We open to: "Yeah, where's my rent." LOSER JERK 10 pm!!!
His behavior that day, did it for both of us. We started looking for a new place almost immediately.
(TO BE CONTINTUED.....DUN DUN DUN!)