The Move

Rachel and I officially moved into the new apartment last weekend (pictures to follow). Finally. I was beginning to worry and wonder whether the move was actually going to take place or not. When we originally talked to Mark about the apartment in May, his original timeline had us moving in during the middle of July. The middle of July turned into the last week of July…which then turned into the first week of August…which turned into the weekend of August 6th. The only part of the timeline that didn’t change, was the fact that we needed to be out of the apartment by August 9th because Mark needed 2S to be painted and ready by August 15th for the new tenants.

As August 6th approached, it was looking doubtful that we would be moving. The biggest obstacle was the stove. Mark had replaced the stove in 2N, removing the old stove but left the new stove in the garage. The new stove was a compact stove which would fit on the opposite wall of the old stove. Mark needed the electrician to come in to not only replace the fuses with a circuit breaker, but more importantly, install an outlet for the stove. By Friday, the stove was in the apartment, but there was no where to plug it in. Since Mark needed us out of 2S, we came to an agreement that we would move into 2N with the stove unhooked, with the condition that either he would move the compact stove to where the old stove was or the electrician would be back by Monday to install an outlet for the stove.

After Mark left Friday, Rachel and I closed off the hallway that joins the two apartments and opened the doors to both apartments. While Rachel and I cleaned 2N, Gerald and Sasha wondered freely from the two apartments, while Zonks hid under the bed. The first thing Rachel did was man-handle the fridge, which Rich and Kim (the previous tenants) left absolutely disgusting. The apartment didn’t have electric since they moved out, so the puddle of rancid meat juices was quite gross. Rachel may be poor at day to day upkeep, but when there are huge projects such as cleaning rancid meat juices out of a fridge or scrubbing a bathroom, she jumps right in. She gets double points for that.

Diddy came over later that night and the three of us decided to get ahead of schedule and start moving stuff over. The three of us moved a majority of the stuff from the bedrooms, consolidating two bedrooms worth of stuff into one. Sasha made herself cozy in 2N, while Gerald walked between our feet, roaming from 2N to 2S with curiosity. Zonks made the occasional appearance, which usually consisted of her poking her head in the doorway for a few seconds, then running back to 2S to hide.

Scratches in the floor

Rachel and I spent the night in 2S that night, so we had to cat wrangle Sasha and Gerald from 2N before heading to bed. Rachel had a prior obligation at Rowan to attend to for enrolling in grad school and wouldn’t be home till around noon. While she was at Rowan, Mark and the electrician were in 2N. I pointed out a few things in 2N that Rachel and I had noticed, (a few nasty scratches in the hardwood floor in the living room and two windows that had been painted shut). Mark said he would make note of the floors in our new lease and would have the painters open the windows. Since Mark kept getting in the electricians way, he was leaving for the morning, but would be back to clean up the kitchen and help us install a board in the window for the air conditioner.

By the time Rachel got home, the electrician had left for the day but told Mark that he would be back during the week to finish the job (the electrician still hasn‘t returned). All of the electric was working, he only had to finish changing everything over to a circuit breaker. For the time being, all of the electric would run on fuses, which we were already accustomed to using from living in 2S.

Mark returned in the afternoon, and we discussed the windows a second time. The two of us went through the apartment to check all of the windows, when I noticed three wasps in the bedroom window. At first Mark thought they were outside of the window, until I pointed out that you could see the front of them, so they were obviously between the window and the screen. Upon further inspection, Mark noticed a wasp hive in the corner of the window. He bangs on the corner of the window, causing about seven or eight wasps to come flying out of the hive. After telling me that he was allergic to wasps, he then devises a plan where we would open the window to open the screen in hopes that the wasps would fly out of the window. I’ve already decided that there was no way I was going to stick my hands in the window, so I call Diddy to assist. When a wasp flies into the apartment, Mark nearly cringes when she picks up a sneaker to kill the wasp resting on the window. After Mark leaves for he final time, Diddy and I head to Shop Left to buy some Raid to take care of the wasps. After she sprayed the hive, another eight wasps flew out from the hive, dropping to the bottom of the window in agonizing pain.

Bees - 0, Humans - 1

By Sunday night, Rachel and I were completely moved out of 2S and nearly finished with unpacking 2N. There would be no cable or internet until this past Friday, when Comcast came to install the cable and modem. Rachel made the appointment for Friday and they were supposed to come between 11 and 1, calling before they showed up to our apartment. Rachel and I were very surprised (and quite pissed) that they showed up at 9 am, two hours before they were supposed to be here. We had literally just woken up and were still laying in bed when we here someone at the door. At least we have cable and internet now.

After spending the first night in 2N, and using the bed rather than the futon, I had to wake up extra early for the plumber and painter on Monday. It was the return of Creepy Carl on Monday morning, who needed to fix the slow drain on the kitchen sink and the way the toilet flushed. Creepy Carl did a horrible job on the kitchen sink we realized later that night, when Rachel went to wash a couple of dishes. It took about 15 minutes for the sink to completely drain (compared to a five minute drain time before he “fixed” the sink). Not only did the drain take extra long, the faucet was now leaking.

Creepy Carl returned on Tuesday morning, with an attitude. We spent the first five minutes arguing about the way the sink drained.

Creepy Carl: There is nothing wrong with this sink.
Me: It drains slower than it did yesterday. What do you mean there is nothing wrong with the sink?
Creepy Carl: No two sinks are alike.
Me: Really? Your telling me that in all of the places that I’ve lived, I’ve never had a sink drain like this. They have always drained “normally.”
Creepy Carl: There is nothing wrong with this sink. It’s draining normally.
Me: Are you calling me a liar? Do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than have the plumber come out for imaginary problems?
Creepy Carl: I’ll look at the sink again, but there’s nothing wrong with it. What’s wrong with the faucet?
Me: It wasn’t leaking until you came out and messed with the sink.
Creepy Carl: It was leaking yesterday when I was here.
Me: So you didn’t fix it then?

Needless to say, Creepy Carl kept his mouth shut for the rest of the morning and fixed the sink and faucet. I keep meaning to call George’s Plumbing to complain about the way Creepy Carl behaved, but I want to talk to Mark first to make sure that he wasn’t charged for two days of work, rather than one. I may not agree with the way Mark runs his apartment building, but it would be unethical if George’s Plumbing charged him extra for Creepy Carl’s mistakes.

Of course, between worrying about when we were moving to the actual move, I would up getting myself sick. I’m not battling a nasty head cold, that seems to not want to go away. I’ve spent the last few days lounging around the apartment doing absolutely nothing except getting frustrated with Rachel’s unpacking techniques.