Thursday, April 27, 2006
'Tis the Season for Eviction!
You'll probably recall my eviction rant back in September when my asshole of a landlord decided it would be easier to kick my roommates and I out of the house than conduct a little pre-rental research and discover what landlords are and are not allowed to do once they've signed a contract. Back then, he had no legal grounds to actually give us the boot, but come February, he claimed to want to move back into the house, and sent some incomprehensible relative to give us our official ninety days notice. Not really a big deal, since we were well on our way to finding a new place anyway. Since our, ah, slight disagreement in September, my roommates and I had been actively searching for a new place to stumble back to after a night at the bar. Finally, just this month, we signed a new contract with a landlord who actually knows what she's doing, and now, at long last, the sun is setting on our last night in the evil dwelling we've occupied for the whole school year.
Still, our house has had some fun moments. Really, when you know the landlord can't claim any part of your damage deposit because he didn't know enough to conduct a formal inspection, you don't have to worry as much about little things like nailing holes in the walls or spilling vodka and Sprite on the carpet. There are maybe one or two things I'll miss about this house, like how every room had a minimum of three phone jacks. It's a shame that this small value-boosting bonus is eclipsed by the highly inconvenient fact that every room also has a maximum of two outlets. Really, I would rather be able to plug in my computer without burning the place down than have a different coloured fuzzy phone in every corner of my room. Another thing I'll really miss is our removable shower heads. There is just something so much more fun about moving the shower head around your body to rinse off soap rather than moving around yourself under a stationary one. Once again, however, this little fun part of my day was usually ruined by the complete lack of water pressure coming out of the shower head. Really, rinsing yourself off with it isn't as much fun when it's not powerful enough to spray in the right direction when you turn it upside down.
There are plenty of things that I really hate about this house, which are nice to think of now that I'm finally able to leave it for the last time. For example, I'm really looking forward to moving into a bedroom that isn't the size of a matchbox. I have a single bed, four pieces of extremely tall, skinny furniture (including a desk), and still, if I drop a pair of jeans on the floor, they'll take up almost the entirety of my remaining floor space. Also, the bathrooms alone have a list of flaws that have been driving us all crazy the entire year. The hot water tank, for some inexplicable reason, won't release enough hot water into the bathroom pipes for any us to have a hot shower lasting more than five minutes, all the sinks, showers, and bathtubs in the house are disgustingly rusty, one of the toilets never ever stops flushing unless we turn the water off completely, and the bathroom fans, although completely ineffective, sound like jet-engines, which is never pleasant first thing in the morning or right before bed when we shower. The general house list goes on too. Our basement is unfinished, dirty, and infested with spiders; despite the presence of several bird feeders and a lovely little birdbath, birds refuse to enter the airspace above our backyard, much less land on any of our tree branches; our neighbour across the street is the renowned bitch of the U of L bookstore and our next-door neighbours are constantly allowing their boyfriends to park in my spot outside our house; the paint job on the outside of our house is vomit-green, and we're entirely surrounded in creepy, reclusive trees to shield us from the supposedly mean lady on our other side whom we were unwillingly pitted against when we first moved in. The thing I'll be most glad to be rid of though, is the unidentifiable sex noises that sometimes haunt the upstairs bedrooms. Really, The three of us upstairs spent the first few months of our residence thinking that one of the others had snuck in some boy and was having hours and hours and hours of extremely loud, extremely good sex with him. Eventually we were able to discover that the sounds were actually coming from outside, but never could figure out what exactly was causing them. What on earth could make a noise that sounded like a couple moaning and groaning together?
It'll be wonderful to finally be out of this place, as you can probably understand by now. Once we're gone and all back at our respective permanent addresses, please feel free to commit as much vandalism or send as much junk-mail as you like. As long as I've got an alibi in Calgary, I feel no guilt or remorse whatsoever in giving you the address: 83 Pensacola Court W. Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 4R7. If the landlord and his family really are planning to move back in (doubtful), then presumably they'll able to put a stop to it when they arrive. If they aren't moving back and just used that as an excuse to kick the four of us out, then I'm sure they'll come around sometime and figure things out. In either case, they'll get what they deserve for trying to rip off a group of students who just wanted a decent place to pass out after a night of fun.
Still, our house has had some fun moments. Really, when you know the landlord can't claim any part of your damage deposit because he didn't know enough to conduct a formal inspection, you don't have to worry as much about little things like nailing holes in the walls or spilling vodka and Sprite on the carpet. There are maybe one or two things I'll miss about this house, like how every room had a minimum of three phone jacks. It's a shame that this small value-boosting bonus is eclipsed by the highly inconvenient fact that every room also has a maximum of two outlets. Really, I would rather be able to plug in my computer without burning the place down than have a different coloured fuzzy phone in every corner of my room. Another thing I'll really miss is our removable shower heads. There is just something so much more fun about moving the shower head around your body to rinse off soap rather than moving around yourself under a stationary one. Once again, however, this little fun part of my day was usually ruined by the complete lack of water pressure coming out of the shower head. Really, rinsing yourself off with it isn't as much fun when it's not powerful enough to spray in the right direction when you turn it upside down.
There are plenty of things that I really hate about this house, which are nice to think of now that I'm finally able to leave it for the last time. For example, I'm really looking forward to moving into a bedroom that isn't the size of a matchbox. I have a single bed, four pieces of extremely tall, skinny furniture (including a desk), and still, if I drop a pair of jeans on the floor, they'll take up almost the entirety of my remaining floor space. Also, the bathrooms alone have a list of flaws that have been driving us all crazy the entire year. The hot water tank, for some inexplicable reason, won't release enough hot water into the bathroom pipes for any us to have a hot shower lasting more than five minutes, all the sinks, showers, and bathtubs in the house are disgustingly rusty, one of the toilets never ever stops flushing unless we turn the water off completely, and the bathroom fans, although completely ineffective, sound like jet-engines, which is never pleasant first thing in the morning or right before bed when we shower. The general house list goes on too. Our basement is unfinished, dirty, and infested with spiders; despite the presence of several bird feeders and a lovely little birdbath, birds refuse to enter the airspace above our backyard, much less land on any of our tree branches; our neighbour across the street is the renowned bitch of the U of L bookstore and our next-door neighbours are constantly allowing their boyfriends to park in my spot outside our house; the paint job on the outside of our house is vomit-green, and we're entirely surrounded in creepy, reclusive trees to shield us from the supposedly mean lady on our other side whom we were unwillingly pitted against when we first moved in. The thing I'll be most glad to be rid of though, is the unidentifiable sex noises that sometimes haunt the upstairs bedrooms. Really, The three of us upstairs spent the first few months of our residence thinking that one of the others had snuck in some boy and was having hours and hours and hours of extremely loud, extremely good sex with him. Eventually we were able to discover that the sounds were actually coming from outside, but never could figure out what exactly was causing them. What on earth could make a noise that sounded like a couple moaning and groaning together?
It'll be wonderful to finally be out of this place, as you can probably understand by now. Once we're gone and all back at our respective permanent addresses, please feel free to commit as much vandalism or send as much junk-mail as you like. As long as I've got an alibi in Calgary, I feel no guilt or remorse whatsoever in giving you the address: 83 Pensacola Court W. Lethbridge, Alberta, T1K 4R7. If the landlord and his family really are planning to move back in (doubtful), then presumably they'll able to put a stop to it when they arrive. If they aren't moving back and just used that as an excuse to kick the four of us out, then I'm sure they'll come around sometime and figure things out. In either case, they'll get what they deserve for trying to rip off a group of students who just wanted a decent place to pass out after a night of fun.
