ibeachalot's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Home Sweet Dump I�m coming to the conclusion that our apartment complex is a dump. The building isn�t exactly ancient, built in 1987, but is old enough that several things have had time to go really wrong with the place. The appliances leave alot to be desired, the outside paint is chipping in places and fading in others. The sidewalks are sinking and pieces of the planters are busted away. These are minor things - things we can live with. In the weeks that we�ve lived here, we�ve discovered things that are far more serious. Like what I discovered Sunday morning. After a month or so with no measurable rainfall, Thursday evening, it finally began raining. The rain didn�t stop until last night. Saturday night and Sunday morning we experienced some of the hardest rain I�ve ever heard in all my almost 37 years. It woke me from a sound sleep Sunday morning. It was deafening. I then became aware of another sound. The sound of water running. Was someone in the shower? No. Was someone flushing a toilet? No, my kids don't flush the toilet. Hehehe... Was it Kevin starting a load of laundry? No, I thought, remembering that ... a) we don�t have a washer in-house anymore and b) Kevin is forbidden from doing laundry anyway ... I realized that the running water was in my bedroom. I sat up and found water running, in sheets, from the air conditioner vent on the wall!! Kevin was already awake for the day, being his turn to deal with Griffin. I screamed down to him to come upstairs. We tried unsuccessfully to stop the water. It didn�t stop until the rain let up a few minutes later. We dried the wall, the carpet and our dresser to the best of our ability. The water continued to drip down the air vent to the air conditioning unit under the stairs, below our bedroom. It plagued us with a loud, �DRIP! DRIP! DRIP!� sound for the next several hours. Our first thought, as may have been yours after reading this, was to call the office. However... We have a small problem. I�m sure you�ll think this to be horribly dishonest of me, but we have a bit a secret we keep from the office. Two of them, actually. These two secrets are furry, have tails and shit in a box (most of the time). After we heard what this complex charges to keep pets, we opted to lie and deceive. Whatever. I already know I�m goin� to hell. If we were to call the office and they were to come out, they would discover our feline companions, we would either be charged back cat-rent or be thrown out, something I�m sure the management would love to do after the debacle of them giving us the wrong unit when we first signed our lease. So we�ll live with Niagara Falls from our air vents. They can deal with it after we�re outta here in a few months. We have a step on our staircase that�s dangerously close to coming off. If you stand on the edge of it, you can rock back and forth. I try to skip it when I go up and down the stairs and encourage the kids to do so as well. As I mentioned, the rain started Thursday evening. This is also when the sprinklers came on. We were amused. We were shocked Friday when the sprinklers were still on. Saturday- when after two days of soaking rain - the sprinklers were still running... we were pissed. We�re not exactly hard-core environmentalists, but this was maddening. How many gallons of water are being wasted? We stopped in the office on our way out Saturday and asked if they knew what was going on. This is what we were told. See if you can make any better sense of it: �The lawn care company who operates the sprinklers accidentally set them to go off automatically. They won�t come out to turn them off without charging us time and a half, since it�s a holiday weekend. We decided to leave them on until they can come out Tuesday morning and turn them off without charging us.� Okay. Let�s dissect this. Why is the lawn company the exclusive operators of these sprinklers? Why, in the event of an emergency (or rain) doesn�t the apartment management have the ability to operate them? Second, if this was done in error by the lawn care company, why would the apartment complex be charged anything? Third, what would cost more... paying time and a half to have someone come out and spend three seconds turning sprinklers off or letting water run through an entire 30 building complex for five days?? I bet they won�t realize this until they get a $20,000 water bill. Any bets on whether we get a rent increase come October 1st? Oh, a little side note. It�s Wednesday morning and the sprinklers are still going!!!! I know I promised to write about the neighbor who threatened us, but I�m out of time. You�ll just have to look forward to that, nnkay? Nnkay. 10:36 a.m. - 2003-09-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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