Apartment

So, if you've never seen Joe's Apartment...



... now you have.

And you've got an idea of what I've been through in the last few weeks.

I'm usually a good sport.

I try to keep to myself and don't complain that often.

Recently, my apartment has gotten a bit more interesting.

I'll start my story off with my very first apartment in Illinois.

The place was run by a little self-motivated guy who owned a couple of apartment complexes - two 4-family flats and a house with a garage.

The first day that I went to see it, I called ahead of time. They guy simply said that he left the door open and I could take a look around.

I liked the place, a small efficiency with all full-size appliances and a little table with a chair.

I told him that I'd take it.

The next day, he told me to fill out the application and grab the keys from the mailbox. Then deposit first and last month's rent in the garage's mail slot.

I never saw my landlord for a year, but I knew that whenever I called maintenance, the problems were always fixed within days.

My landlord moved on, selling the apartment to a tenant that creeped me the hell out.

I decided to move again, staying with that same landlord, to a property down the street - a mobile home.

The floors were carpeted and the neighbors were nice. I moved using a rented van and was done in a couple of days.

I decided that my best option was to go ahead and use my free space with my new relationship to build a home.

I figured that once I had collected enough "things" then we could make our way to a full-size brick-and-mortar sort of place... the kind where you pay it off after 30 years.

Plans, as they always do, changed.

I moved out of the mobile home after about 6 years. A combination of the rat infestation, squirrel bombardment, and the sewage problem that droned on for weeks ended up driving me away. I loved the neighborhood, but the house just wasn't cutting it... and my love life had faded before my eyes.

I moved, by myself, to an apartment on the Missouri side. This would be the first time in 20 years that I called anything in that state my residence. I promptly changed my ID card and registered to vote.

Everything was fine. The neighborhood was nice. Plenty of people walking by and smiling. The laundry facility was right downstairs and the grocery store within 15 minutes of walking distance... as well as work.

I was enjoying the proximity of everything. I even checked a website that rated how well the walking distance was for a residential area and found that mine was in the top 20%.

I was feeling quite good about my abode, when I suddenly got the call: Bed bugs.

You've already seen my previous blog about it, so I won't go into detail. But what I discovered is that there is not just one spraying... nay... there are THREE!

If you've ever got the courage to google it, I'd suggest you read up. These things are tragically horrible and I hope they go back to living in the bat caves.

For now, I am where I am. The good thing is that the maintenance guys have been pretty nice and actually come to fix things. Just recently, my shower got a total facelift and is now covered in ceramic tile instead of that plastic-y all-in-one thing that you glue to the wall.

I think I've managed to take care of the pest problems on my own (*knock on wood*). I want nothing more than to complain endlessly about the place, but I figured it's not really going to get me into any better of a living situation. So for now, I'm just going to hold off.

I do feel lucky that I've been able to maintain a home of my own for a while. I hear of so many hardships nowadays and feel grateful for the bit of life that I do have. I do want more. I'm just learning to be careful of what I ask for... and from whom I ask it.