The idea of having my own place is nice, and the actual having of a place is not entirely horrible, but the actuality of the place I have is somewhat problematic.
There are various reasons I rushed into getting the place that I have. The landlord didn't require a deposit, which was nice as I had no money for such. He didn't require much at all other than money, and a tiny red flag went up as I handed him that first check and he asked if I didn't have cash.
Other red flags had gone up previous to this, but they were tiny and I ignored them. I wanted this place, and I wanted the location. I'm still not as unhappy as I could be with the general location, this area known as The Fort and my location just a mile from downtown. That first time that I walked from the apartment to downtown and I realized it had only taken me twenty easy minutes were nice.
But as the two months between then and now have passed I've realized how bad a decision I made, and some of those tiny red flags have become the problems I overlooked. I won't even mention that no one around here seems to understand why/that there is a city law requiring them to clean up their dog's shits.
One problem is the tiny-ness of the unit and the fact that there is no real room for the boys when they are there. I hate even to bring them over. The layout of the unit and the single wall unit air conditioner combine to make a place that, coupled with the Tennessee summer and humidity, make it nearly impossible for them to get a decent night sleep. Add in that it's a block from two different hospitals and then imagine being serenaded nightly, several times a night, by the ambulances screaming past about fifty feet away, and that adds to the issue. Adding on even more is that outside of the inside of the unit there is nowhere for the boys to play, and there's no room inside either.
The swimming pool was supposed to be an amenity, but I still haven't gotten a key to the gate. The landlord assumes the maintenance guy has it, while the maintenance guy suggests that the owners of the units should have them to give to their tenants.
That last paragraph probably needs some clarification. The building was built in the '60's as a hotel. At some point in the ensuing years it became apartments, but there is no single owner of the units which are owned by various landlords. I have a friend four two floors above me, and we have different landlords.
While I was working and then watching soccer this past Saturday there was an open house in my building. My unit was one of those up for sale, and my landlord did some work, painting, caulking, steam cleaning, to prepare the building. In the process he moved all my stuff around, understandable, and he also broke a clipboard and a cd tower, not understandable. I haven't discussed this with him. I could also mention that his painting job absolutely sucks, and he doesn't know how to smooth caulk. I could then mention that he leaves dried chunks of caulk in the sinks and that the kitchen sink was clogged last I looked. I could go even farther and mention that I can't visually see that the carpet has even been vacuumed, much less cleaned, but perhaps that's just piling on.
Back to the pool, I've now decided that I'd prefer my kids to not swim in it, so it's no longer an amenity, and I'm not sure that I want to explain to them why I don't want them in it. Any number of mornings that I've left the building via the stairs that overlook the pool I've seen beer cans and chairs floating in the water. I've known a few people who've admitted to having been in the pool as it seems that nearly everyone in this town knows or has known someone that lives/lived in this building, and apparently the majority of late night pool partiers are swimming, as we say in the south, butt ass nekkid. As if all that weren't bad enough I left the building one day in time to see the maintenance guy having to close the pool because there was broken glass in the area.
And in the end I just can't afford the place. I'm spending nearly half my measly monthly income on the place, and it's not a place I like or that I want to be. I had to move a fair amount of stuff out of the unit for the open house because, as the landlord said, we don't want anything walking out and then have to deal with he-said-she-said. I haven't actually been back in a couple days. Saturday night saw us ending our pride festivities at a friends house, swimming till late at night. Several of us just crashed and then began our Sunday with more swimming. Sunday night I was with the kids at Momma's, and then Monday night ended the same. Some of that was wanting to get up early so that the family (minus The Boy who just doesn't care) could watch the World Cup together. Some of the crashing here might have been more staying up late and some drinking of beer. Momma and I are still really good at being friends and hanging out and sitting up late.
My financial situation could be a whole 'nother post, so in the interest of not boring you THAT much I'll not include that bitch fest here. I just needed to rant for a minute. And now that that's out of the way, I need to figure out where to go from here. I can barely afford to pay half this month's rent now and hand over the other half when I get paid in a week and a half. I did this last month and promised profusely that it wouldn't happen again.
I hate going back on my word. I had the best intentions, but I didn't realize then that, because of a normal summer time lull in business where I work that our labor would take a cut over the next two weeks as we saw some amount of business fall off, and I couldn't have foreseen how much smaller this check was going to be than the last.
All I can do now is explain to the landlord my situation and let him know that I'm planning to be gone in thirty days. I feel like a douche, but I tend to feel like that more often than is really necessary. Now to figure out where I'm going to be in thirty days and how the fuck I plan to swing it.
