The phrase "things are never quite what they appear" comes to mind as I write this. When I originally saw this apartment I liked it. It had two separate rooms, a kitchen, it was cute, the price was right, and my cats were allowed. I also liked the idea of not living in a basement. Of course I was also very sick at the time. Let this be a lesson to you: don't agree to take an apartment in-between fits of vomitting.
Anyway, I signed the lease and moved in. Then several things became very apparant. The first thing I noticed was the multitude of ants in my living room. It seems they had a lease agreement too. Then there was the bathroom that wasn't cleaned out, not to mention a missing screen in the bathroom window. Over time, Ray and I noticed the missing smoke/carbon monoxide detector and the fact that even if I turned the stairway light on before I left the house at night it would always be "accidently" turned off by the time I got home. I started getting texts asking me not to keep any lights on when I wasn't home (including the hall light so I could see SOMETHING when I walked in). There were holes in my kitchen wall, sockets that weren't screwed in very tightly, outlet cover plates that were all missing in the bedroom, severely peeling paint in the bathroom, and a kitchen light that only turns on if the hall light has been turned on.
Thankfully the ants and the messy bathroom were quickly taken care of with ant traps and the use of my landlady's maid for a day. Ray took care of replacing outlet covers. The rest....well....I gave my landlady a list at the beginning of August of the above safety concerns/repairs that needed to be made. I left it alone for two weeks. I then sent her a text asking on her thoughts about the list. She responded that she threw my list out without reading it and asked if I could make her a new one. I did and then gave her another week before asking her what her thoughts were. She honestly didn't have many, but she did mention maybe getting an electrician to come in. She also asked if I could buy the smoke detector, deduct it from my rent, and ask Ray if he would install it.
I didn't have a problem with this, but Ray did want my landlady to pay for his time spent installing the detector. His reasoning was that since it was a legal requirement, it was her responsibility to have it installed and if she wasn't going to install it herself, then she'd probably be paying someone else to install it. I sent my landlady a text telling her what the situation was: Ray would be more than willing to install it for a fee or she could install it herself/get someone else to install it. I wasn't mean, or threatening, just telling her the facts.
Shortly after this I received a phone call from my landlady cursing me and Ray out. I haven't been this verbally attacked since working customer service several years again. Even so, I was getting paid to listen to what the customers said. I was furious. She called me a lier, said that she's never had a tenant who harrassed her so much or wanted so much changed in the apartment, and that I was running up her electric bill. She then said I could have my deposit back. She also mentioned that Ray had said some not so nice things to her daughter a few weeks ago. I was speechless by the end. Somehow I ended the conversation without cursing her out in return. I wanted to cry and punch something at the same time.
After I was able to calm down, I started praying that somehow this would all get resolved peacefully. Later that day, Ray and I went down to talk to my landlady again. The conversation went better than I had hoped, but there was still quite a bit of tension in the air. I continued to pray that somehow God would soften my landlady's heart. The tension remained all through Monday.
On Tuesday afternoon I came home and my landlady broke the silence by saying that she had talked with her daughter and it turned out that the incident between Ray and her daughter didn't happen the way she thought and that Ray's version of what happened was accurate. She then apologized for the misunderstanding! She further went on to say that someone would be by to install the smoke detector by the end of the week.
A few days ago, the smoke detector was installed and the other items on my list were addressed. They haven't been fixed yet, but I've been told that they will be. In the meantime, my landlady has been leaving the outside lights on for me every night and has even smiled at me - a living testimony that God does, indeed change hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment