Life in the apartment saga has gotten a little better in the past week.
My roommate finally paid up, and our deposit checks were cut and sent out by our landlord.
Gina's parents came to visit this past weekend. Gina's Italian father had a very rude run-in with our landlord at the property when he was walking to our door. Our landlord ran up to him yelling "What are you doing here? Why are you on this property?" To that, he was able to answer something along the lines of, "Visiting my daughter. And why isn't anything done in their house EVER?" He proceeded to sternly question him about why our requests are never answered, and made sure our landlord didn't think he could take advantage of us girls because we were young, and he was going to make sure things got done. Right then and there our landlord came into our place and checked out everything we had been asking him to. While he didn't fix it, at least he was intimidated enough to act like he was going to get it done.
Our thermostat now works, and they installed ALL our fixtures (outside and inside). :) Thanks Mr. Siemplenski!!!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Update
I figured I should update you on the happenings of the last week or so with my new living situation.
Newsflash: My landlord still sucks.
We sent him a list of things that need to get done in our place three weeks ago when we moved in, we have followed up twice, and finally I sent him a stern email to get them done asap (among some other terse choice words). It finally decided to rain in So Cal this past week (we have a "rainy season" which is from the first of October to the middle of November, then we don't see rain again for the whole year), so from Tuesday to late Wednesday night it was a steady, healthy rain. Perfect for the earth, horrible for my shoddy apartment. We don't have weather stripping on our front door. We have been asking for it since we moved in. Weather stripping is a necessity for any dwelling for many obvious reasons.
Our reasons include:
1) Blocking out the noise from our annoying Asian neighbors who have a child who screams bloody murder literally all hours of the day.
2) Blocking out the desert draft that comes across LA when the sun goes down. Once our thermostat starts working (yes folks, that's on our list to our landlord too, but has he fixed it? Nah) our energy efficiency will be terrible if we don't block out that draft.
3) Bugs. Big ones. Enough said.
4) It was pouring for two days straight. We don't have eaves or any kind of overhang over our door; its very open to the elements. And when I say "open to the elements" I mean that water was puddling and spewing around, and under our front door onto our new, real, hardwood floors.
Great.
I pay almost $900 in rent a month. I think I deserve what I ask for. Not even what I ask for, but what a functioning, proper, modern, and stylish apartment that's worth $900 needs. Even trailers have weather stripping. Even the cheapest Motel 8 has some sort of central air, and a housekeeping staff. I deserve to move into a spotless, unstuffy apartment, and I sure as hell deserve to get all of these requested things within a month of moving in without a smidgen of a hassle. He never did clean the house. We finally got fed up and did it ourselves. The blatant lack of cleaning was the last straw for me, so all these other things that are not getting done are only cycloning my rage into a Twister (starring Jodie Foster) style wrath.
He finally came yesterday and installed weather stripping because that was the thing I specifically bitched him out about in the email. Everything else on our list of about 6 things remains untouched. I'm guessing I'll probably have to send him a separate phone call/email for each. We'll see.
I have symmetry issues. I want EVERYTHING to be perfect, clean angles, yet I cannot for the life of me hang a shelf or towel bar straight. I decided I have too many projects that involve things being leveled properly, so I need to hire a handyman. I have this amazing plan of walking into Lowe's, going to the Customer Service counter and getting the assistance of this nice older man with while hair who's been a handyman for years. He would get in his 2008 red Ford pickup equiped with all of his tools, and come to my house to put up my curtains, and hang my shelves and large wall mirror. I'd offer him lemonade, he'd talk about his grandkids in college, and I'd pay Lowe's a reasonable hourly rate for his services. But, I don't live in Palm Coast anymore. I'm probably either going to ask for assistance from Lowe's and pay out the butt for them to come to my place and spend too long doing my projects. Or, I'm going to have to resort to getting some sketch handyman guy off of craigslist who will later come back and rob my house with his cousins since he will then know where I live. Looking forward to it.
I've been involved in this terrible drama between me and my old roommates. One of them has terrible fiscal responsibility (for the sake of this story let's call her the FIO, Fiscally Irresponsible One) and bounced MANY a check during her stay with us which was a huge pain in the ass. She is too prideful to tell us about her financial issues, so we would never know our utility accounts were in trouble until the next bill came and we had bounced check fees. We'd then gently have to confront her to pay for not only her part of the bill, but the fees that were tacked on. I'm sure my credit score just jumps for joy when the gas bill, that's in my name, has an overdraft/hold fee multiple times.
I understand. We have all been there. Those days of growing up where you throw your credit and finances into disarray because you don't know any better. But you'd think after the first, or 16th, bounced check, or after all the creditors calling and sending you letter after letter, you'd learn your lesson. Apparently not. As my beautiful roomie Gina would say, "You are almost 25. That's halfway to 50. Get your shit together."
Our last month of living together rolls around and we are working hard to finish out the last of our bills and get a walk through scheduled with our landlord so we can get our security deposit back. Me and my roommate find out from our landlord a week before we are supposed to move out that the FIO's rent check bounced for the last month's rent. She now owes $850 in overdue rent and fees. Our landlord keeps getting excuses from her. Our landlord tells us that if FIO doesn't get the money to her, in cash or money order, in two weeks, it will be taken out of our security deposit, aka, the $291 each we were to get back would then be dwindled to $25 each. Oh. Hell. No. Me and my roommate are furious. While we are not surprised, we are pissed that FIO wouldn't warn us that she is in this deep, and now, its come to the end of the line and she may end up using our hard earned security deposit portions to cover her ass. We confront her. She says she'll "take care of it". A week and a half goes by. She still hasn't. Me and my roommate are freaking out. While we hope she's a better person than that, FIO could easily just let the security deposit cover her debts and never speak to us again, leaving us no choice but to take her to small claims court. Or, she'd let the deposit cover her and then we'd have IOU's from her. Oh, did I mention FIO already owed my other roommate almost $150 from the many times my roommate has "fronted" (as she likes to call it) her for other bills she couldn't afford at the time? Hell if we're getting an IOU from her. We KNOW she's not good for it. And its OUR money. We have an intervention the night before the money's due. She NEEDS to find it. She needs to put her pride aside and start asking people for loans. FIO tells us she "hopes it can happen and she'll do her best". Me and my roommate leave the meeting more scared than ever. The next day we are on FIO's ass ALLL DAY LONG. We are checking in with her and our landlord simultaneously. We want to know every move they make so we know when this transaction will go down, that is, if it does go down. We realize the horrible truth that that day was Colombus Day. Banks are closed. We beg our landlord to move the deadline to the next day. She obliges. (She is the nicest. I can't believe she was so forgiving and understanding. God bless her please.) The next day we don't hear from FIO until I text her at 1:30. She answers that she's on her way to our landlord right then to put the money order in our landlord's hand. (Why we didn't hear about it, we don't know, but at least it was happening.) She texts us the transaction was complete and that our landlord would cut our checks that day. The landlord calls us to verify. Crisis solved, although not without tons of stress, a few borderline anxiety attacks, angry outbursts, and hostile texts/emails.
On another note, Gina texts me two days ago to tell me she's been released from work early. She has a fever. Yesterday she goes to the doctor. I meet her at home last night and she mentions to me the doctor thinks it may be the swine flu.
Never a dull moment.
Newsflash: My landlord still sucks.
We sent him a list of things that need to get done in our place three weeks ago when we moved in, we have followed up twice, and finally I sent him a stern email to get them done asap (among some other terse choice words). It finally decided to rain in So Cal this past week (we have a "rainy season" which is from the first of October to the middle of November, then we don't see rain again for the whole year), so from Tuesday to late Wednesday night it was a steady, healthy rain. Perfect for the earth, horrible for my shoddy apartment. We don't have weather stripping on our front door. We have been asking for it since we moved in. Weather stripping is a necessity for any dwelling for many obvious reasons.
Our reasons include:
1) Blocking out the noise from our annoying Asian neighbors who have a child who screams bloody murder literally all hours of the day.
2) Blocking out the desert draft that comes across LA when the sun goes down. Once our thermostat starts working (yes folks, that's on our list to our landlord too, but has he fixed it? Nah) our energy efficiency will be terrible if we don't block out that draft.
3) Bugs. Big ones. Enough said.
4) It was pouring for two days straight. We don't have eaves or any kind of overhang over our door; its very open to the elements. And when I say "open to the elements" I mean that water was puddling and spewing around, and under our front door onto our new, real, hardwood floors.
Great.
I pay almost $900 in rent a month. I think I deserve what I ask for. Not even what I ask for, but what a functioning, proper, modern, and stylish apartment that's worth $900 needs. Even trailers have weather stripping. Even the cheapest Motel 8 has some sort of central air, and a housekeeping staff. I deserve to move into a spotless, unstuffy apartment, and I sure as hell deserve to get all of these requested things within a month of moving in without a smidgen of a hassle. He never did clean the house. We finally got fed up and did it ourselves. The blatant lack of cleaning was the last straw for me, so all these other things that are not getting done are only cycloning my rage into a Twister (starring Jodie Foster) style wrath.
He finally came yesterday and installed weather stripping because that was the thing I specifically bitched him out about in the email. Everything else on our list of about 6 things remains untouched. I'm guessing I'll probably have to send him a separate phone call/email for each. We'll see.
I have symmetry issues. I want EVERYTHING to be perfect, clean angles, yet I cannot for the life of me hang a shelf or towel bar straight. I decided I have too many projects that involve things being leveled properly, so I need to hire a handyman. I have this amazing plan of walking into Lowe's, going to the Customer Service counter and getting the assistance of this nice older man with while hair who's been a handyman for years. He would get in his 2008 red Ford pickup equiped with all of his tools, and come to my house to put up my curtains, and hang my shelves and large wall mirror. I'd offer him lemonade, he'd talk about his grandkids in college, and I'd pay Lowe's a reasonable hourly rate for his services. But, I don't live in Palm Coast anymore. I'm probably either going to ask for assistance from Lowe's and pay out the butt for them to come to my place and spend too long doing my projects. Or, I'm going to have to resort to getting some sketch handyman guy off of craigslist who will later come back and rob my house with his cousins since he will then know where I live. Looking forward to it.
I've been involved in this terrible drama between me and my old roommates. One of them has terrible fiscal responsibility (for the sake of this story let's call her the FIO, Fiscally Irresponsible One) and bounced MANY a check during her stay with us which was a huge pain in the ass. She is too prideful to tell us about her financial issues, so we would never know our utility accounts were in trouble until the next bill came and we had bounced check fees. We'd then gently have to confront her to pay for not only her part of the bill, but the fees that were tacked on. I'm sure my credit score just jumps for joy when the gas bill, that's in my name, has an overdraft/hold fee multiple times.
I understand. We have all been there. Those days of growing up where you throw your credit and finances into disarray because you don't know any better. But you'd think after the first, or 16th, bounced check, or after all the creditors calling and sending you letter after letter, you'd learn your lesson. Apparently not. As my beautiful roomie Gina would say, "You are almost 25. That's halfway to 50. Get your shit together."
Our last month of living together rolls around and we are working hard to finish out the last of our bills and get a walk through scheduled with our landlord so we can get our security deposit back. Me and my roommate find out from our landlord a week before we are supposed to move out that the FIO's rent check bounced for the last month's rent. She now owes $850 in overdue rent and fees. Our landlord keeps getting excuses from her. Our landlord tells us that if FIO doesn't get the money to her, in cash or money order, in two weeks, it will be taken out of our security deposit, aka, the $291 each we were to get back would then be dwindled to $25 each. Oh. Hell. No. Me and my roommate are furious. While we are not surprised, we are pissed that FIO wouldn't warn us that she is in this deep, and now, its come to the end of the line and she may end up using our hard earned security deposit portions to cover her ass. We confront her. She says she'll "take care of it". A week and a half goes by. She still hasn't. Me and my roommate are freaking out. While we hope she's a better person than that, FIO could easily just let the security deposit cover her debts and never speak to us again, leaving us no choice but to take her to small claims court. Or, she'd let the deposit cover her and then we'd have IOU's from her. Oh, did I mention FIO already owed my other roommate almost $150 from the many times my roommate has "fronted" (as she likes to call it) her for other bills she couldn't afford at the time? Hell if we're getting an IOU from her. We KNOW she's not good for it. And its OUR money. We have an intervention the night before the money's due. She NEEDS to find it. She needs to put her pride aside and start asking people for loans. FIO tells us she "hopes it can happen and she'll do her best". Me and my roommate leave the meeting more scared than ever. The next day we are on FIO's ass ALLL DAY LONG. We are checking in with her and our landlord simultaneously. We want to know every move they make so we know when this transaction will go down, that is, if it does go down. We realize the horrible truth that that day was Colombus Day. Banks are closed. We beg our landlord to move the deadline to the next day. She obliges. (She is the nicest. I can't believe she was so forgiving and understanding. God bless her please.) The next day we don't hear from FIO until I text her at 1:30. She answers that she's on her way to our landlord right then to put the money order in our landlord's hand. (Why we didn't hear about it, we don't know, but at least it was happening.) She texts us the transaction was complete and that our landlord would cut our checks that day. The landlord calls us to verify. Crisis solved, although not without tons of stress, a few borderline anxiety attacks, angry outbursts, and hostile texts/emails.
On another note, Gina texts me two days ago to tell me she's been released from work early. She has a fever. Yesterday she goes to the doctor. I meet her at home last night and she mentions to me the doctor thinks it may be the swine flu.
Never a dull moment.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Who Wants My Job??
This past weekend was a great one. Had a really successful 201 class, got to go to lunch with my west coast bestie in beautiful weather, shopped the one and only Ikea, got my cable and internet installed, got most of my house put together, had a long convo with my east coast bestie, and relaxed a whole bunch. Most of all, I got really excited to move on from my job at Reveille. The fear of leaving is finally over, and now its just excitement to get on with my life. I have a plan, and I'm not worried at all about executing it.
I came to the realization this past week that even though my boss may have a timeline for me, my timeline for myself will always be more important. He offered to talk with the head of our company about giving me a raise. Which, is terrific. I'm glad he thinks I'm a great worker and deserve to be compensated for ALL the extra shit I do. He mentioned that he'll talk to him first and then I can pull up the rear and solidify the whole thing. He also said he isn't sure 1) If I'll even be granted the raise or 2) If I am, when it will take effect: right away, or in January. That was two weeks ago. To this day, even though I am ready and he KNOWS I'm ready, he still has yet to talk to Lee. He keeps mentioning that he has to, and doesn't. He also mentioned that he's not going to push for it to start right away. I'm beginning to think this offer for a raise is more for his gain and not so much for me. I mean, that's how he operates anyway, so why would this be any different? He's trying to keep me here. He's playing the game.
And you know what? I'm okay with it. Because, in January, I'm outta here. Whether this raise starts now, never, or in January, my timeline that I have set for myself is more important than sticking around to see if I ever get this 30% raise. If it happens in the near future, great. A few extra bucks before I leave. If it doesn't, no skin off my teeth. I'm not going to put what I really want to do on hold while I see if I can make $17 an hour. I'm not emotionally invested enough, and this is DEFINITELY not what I want to do. It doesn't make me happy, and frankly, I hate it and feel like I'm wasting my life.
I also recently realized that all the connections I've made here, the people I have come to know, are still going to be here when I leave. I can still call them up and ask to meet with them, give them my casting documents, etc. I don't have to work here to stay in touch with these people. They have come to be my friends, and I know they will take care of me no matter whether I'm sitting at this desk, or enjoying my life.
I'm excited for what 2010 is going to bring, and I'm glad that I'm not living in fear. I'm honestly optimistic and full of anticipation. I've been ready since the day I moved here (and before) to do what I really am meant to do, I've just been so scared. Now is the time, and I feel like its right.
I came to the realization this past week that even though my boss may have a timeline for me, my timeline for myself will always be more important. He offered to talk with the head of our company about giving me a raise. Which, is terrific. I'm glad he thinks I'm a great worker and deserve to be compensated for ALL the extra shit I do. He mentioned that he'll talk to him first and then I can pull up the rear and solidify the whole thing. He also said he isn't sure 1) If I'll even be granted the raise or 2) If I am, when it will take effect: right away, or in January. That was two weeks ago. To this day, even though I am ready and he KNOWS I'm ready, he still has yet to talk to Lee. He keeps mentioning that he has to, and doesn't. He also mentioned that he's not going to push for it to start right away. I'm beginning to think this offer for a raise is more for his gain and not so much for me. I mean, that's how he operates anyway, so why would this be any different? He's trying to keep me here. He's playing the game.
And you know what? I'm okay with it. Because, in January, I'm outta here. Whether this raise starts now, never, or in January, my timeline that I have set for myself is more important than sticking around to see if I ever get this 30% raise. If it happens in the near future, great. A few extra bucks before I leave. If it doesn't, no skin off my teeth. I'm not going to put what I really want to do on hold while I see if I can make $17 an hour. I'm not emotionally invested enough, and this is DEFINITELY not what I want to do. It doesn't make me happy, and frankly, I hate it and feel like I'm wasting my life.
I also recently realized that all the connections I've made here, the people I have come to know, are still going to be here when I leave. I can still call them up and ask to meet with them, give them my casting documents, etc. I don't have to work here to stay in touch with these people. They have come to be my friends, and I know they will take care of me no matter whether I'm sitting at this desk, or enjoying my life.
I'm excited for what 2010 is going to bring, and I'm glad that I'm not living in fear. I'm honestly optimistic and full of anticipation. I've been ready since the day I moved here (and before) to do what I really am meant to do, I've just been so scared. Now is the time, and I feel like its right.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
It's Been a Bad Week, Nothing New For October
Its been a rough one. The world knows how to file me down to the lowest bloody cuticle of annoyance, self loathing, jealousy, and remorse. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but its been once of those weeks.
October has always been a really weird month for me. I don't know if its because of the moon and sun aligning a certain way at this time of year, but October always seems to be the month I go bat shit in one way or another. I move, or change my mind about BIG things, or some other life altering change in lifestyle, all around this time of the year. Its beginning to not be a happy time for me, when it should be. I am beginning to fear my own self when October rolls around. And this past year was no different.
My LA anniversary is approaching and I should be looking back on all the things I've accomplished in this past year. For some reason this week, all I can reflect on is all my wasted time, failures, and regrets. I just keep thinking of what I was doing this time last year and how I miss it. I can't see how my life has gotten any more exciting. It seems like I started out great, then slowlyyyy got into this boring, weird normalcy. Blah-ville. I can't determine if I'm happy or not. I wish I could rewind and play this year over again and do SO many things differently. Maybe this was my big year of learning. Maybe I'm supposed to have a love/hate relationship with this past year. I can never have a do-over, and that bothers me.
I need to vow to myself that 2010 is going to be the year for me. I'm going to heal all the wounds that late 2008-2009 left behind. Most of all, I need to start a trend of making October a good month. How? No idea. But it needs to happen because I can't keep acting out in extreme ways. And I can't live in this fog anymore.
The best revenge is success. And that's all I have to say for October.
October has always been a really weird month for me. I don't know if its because of the moon and sun aligning a certain way at this time of year, but October always seems to be the month I go bat shit in one way or another. I move, or change my mind about BIG things, or some other life altering change in lifestyle, all around this time of the year. Its beginning to not be a happy time for me, when it should be. I am beginning to fear my own self when October rolls around. And this past year was no different.
My LA anniversary is approaching and I should be looking back on all the things I've accomplished in this past year. For some reason this week, all I can reflect on is all my wasted time, failures, and regrets. I just keep thinking of what I was doing this time last year and how I miss it. I can't see how my life has gotten any more exciting. It seems like I started out great, then slowlyyyy got into this boring, weird normalcy. Blah-ville. I can't determine if I'm happy or not. I wish I could rewind and play this year over again and do SO many things differently. Maybe this was my big year of learning. Maybe I'm supposed to have a love/hate relationship with this past year. I can never have a do-over, and that bothers me.
I need to vow to myself that 2010 is going to be the year for me. I'm going to heal all the wounds that late 2008-2009 left behind. Most of all, I need to start a trend of making October a good month. How? No idea. But it needs to happen because I can't keep acting out in extreme ways. And I can't live in this fog anymore.
The best revenge is success. And that's all I have to say for October.
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