Trash Queen

Rachel and I have lived in the Langmore for almost four years (I think). When we originally moved into the building, the place was packed with every unit being rented out. Since the death of Mark and the building being purchased by Tracy, the humans dwelling in the building as dwindled down. With the exception of the store fronts below us, there were only two apartments being rented out consistently for the last twelve months.

Amy lives above us on the third floor, and has been an anti-social weirdo since we moved in. Conversation between has never existed. I have always been polite to her, saying hello, asking if she needed help during the hurricane last summer, dropping off her mail that was mistakenly put in our box, ect. My attempts of friendliness are returned by her with grunts, stares, and more grunts. Even with the grunts, I have still maintained a level of friendliness.

Everything changed when I accidently filled her garbage can up with our trash. It was an honest mistake and was not intentional. Rachel and I were in the process of overhauling our apartment in preparation for moving David’s furniture into our apartment. David is my amazing father-in-law, who is in the process of moving to England with his wife. Rachel and I threw a lot of shit away, filling up our trash bin in record time.

Each apartment has a separate trash and recycling bin which is taken out on Sunday night for Monday morning pick-up. On Saturday night, I went to the trash area and pulled out an empty trash bin from what I thought was one of the empty apartments. The two of us pulled up our trash bins to the building, along with the empty bin and finished filling them with our trash. We also didn’t see any sense in pulling the heavy, filled bins back to the trash area in the back of the property since we would be taking them out to the curb the following day. We finished cleaning up and called it a night.

The following day, Rachel went to work and I hung around the apartment doing my usual Sunday cleaning. At one point, I headed out to the porch and noticed that Amy was in a mood and a half. She was already in her car and peeled out of our parking lot in a rage, creating missiles with the gravel in the parking lot and two huge black marks skid marks.

I headed inside in disbelief and noticed I had a text message from Tracy asking if anyone knows why Amy’s trash bin was filled. I didn’t think anything of it, especially since she had recently rented out the apartment next to Amy. The new tenant had been dumping crap into our bin all week, but I didn’t make a huge deal about it. Obviously there is something wrong with this weirdo that she went running to our landlord about her trash can being filled. I headed back outside to double check to make sure that my car wasn’t dented from Amy’s temper tantrum and finally noticed why she was so pissy: I had accidently grabbed her bin.

In my defense though, trash is picked up on Monday morning and taken to the curb Sunday night. Think about how much trash you take out in your house during a given week. By Saturday night, wouldn’t there be some trash in your bin? I grabbed an empty bin on Saturday night (at about 2 am).

When Rachel got home from work, I gave her the run-down of what had occurred today. She too thought the situation was funny, especially Amy’s reaction to her trash bin being filled. While we were having a good laugh, Amy pulled back into the lot. I waited outside so that I could apologize to her and explain what had happened. At first she tried to avoid us, hoping that we would go back inside before she had to head into her apartment. When she finally came upstairs, I attempted to apologize, but she cut me off before I could even explain what had happened, calling me “unorthodox.”

I was speechless that this douche bag had just cut off my apology to call me unorthodox. Does she even know what that word means, let alone how to properly use it? I responded by telling her that I “was trying to apologize, but fuck it. You don’t deserve one.” Rachel quickly cut me off and calmed Amy down by literally talking over her to get her point across. I sat there in stunned silence that Amy was such an ass and in amazement over my wifey’s communication skills. It honestly was mesmerizing to watch how Amy went from irate bitch to plain bitch in a matter of minutes.

Needless to say, Amy and I barely even speak. I refuse to say hello to her and she refuses to even look at me. She has been much friendlier with Rachel, saying hello to her and actually initiating conversations with her.  I have heard through the grapevine that she’s still trying to cause trouble, such as telling Jackie (the owner of the salon below us) to put our trash bins in front of my car. As always, I will have the last laugh in this situation since I plan on pissing the bitch off in small ways, such as throwing random shit into her trash bin and parking really close to her car.

Trifecta

I just finished Night by Elie Wiesel for our book club, which was a very big mistake to read before going to bed, especially when I actually have to set an alarm clock and be up early in the morning. Instead of lying awake for any longer, I figured I would do a little bit of writing and watch some Jersey Shore before trying to rest my eyelids again.

Random grocery store somewhere on the East Coast...

For those who have been living under a rock for the last week, the east coast has been rocked with an earthquake, a hurricane, and a few tornadoes over the last few days. First came the earthquake, which occurred on Tuesday afternoon, and pretty much scared the shit out of anyone who had never experienced a quake. I was actually at my friend Pat's house, during the quake, where the language arts department was having a meeting of the minds. While sitting at the table discussing UbD, the entire house started to shake, which resulted in Pat hollering at her daughter for running around in the basement. After her daughter came upstairs and the house was still shaking, everyone in the room quickly realized that something wasn't right and we all ran outside to investigate. We quickly realized that we weren't the only one's on the street whose house vibrated. All of the adults in the house immediately began using our cell phones to try to reach our loved ones, out of curiosity as to whether they had felt the rumbling from below.

Cell phones were not operational for about an hour, since all lines were jammed with people trying to reach their loved ones. Diddy finally sent me a text telling me that an earthquake had occurred in Voorhees (where I was presently at), completely unaware that I was actually in Voorhees. I chuckled at the thought that she actually thought the earthquake was in Jersey, let alone in Voorhees. After several texts back and forth, she finally realized that the quake actually occurred in another state, but we both agreed that it was a scary, yet exciting experience.

After getting home and reading the humorous status updates about the quake on Facebook, I soon realized that a hurricane was quickly approaching the east coast. "Are you fucking kidding me," was my first reaction, followed by rationally trying to prepare my brain for how to prepare for a hurricane. The idea of a major storm faded from my brain until Thursday night, when Rachel's daddy called her about the mandatory evacuation of her Aunt Pepper from the Jersey shore. Aunt Pepper is Rachel's 76 year old great aunt, who loves the casinos and cigarettes.

Rachel and I decide that Aunt Pepper would stay with us for the weekend, and developed a game plan that involved picking up her brother Paul on Friday morning, then head to Longport to pack up her house and prepare it for the storm. Aunt Pepper lives less than a block away from the ocean, in a beautiful shore house, where she lives all year round. After arriving at her house, the three of us pack all of her patio furniture from the front and back porch into her living room and outdoor shower. Out of fear of losing power for an extended amount of time and losing some of her frozen food, Aunt Pepper packed some very tasty foods for her weekend in the Langmore, such as filet migon, shrimp, hamburgers, eggs, cheese, breakfast sausage, and butter. After loading up her bags and food into the car, we then made the trip back to Mullica Hill, with Paul driving her car back.

On the way home, Rachel and I witnessed a Wawa cyphon gas from the pumps, in preparation for the hurricane. Even with the mandatory evacuation of Aunt Pepper, the severity of the storm had not actually fully hit me until witnessing the gas being cyphon at Wawa. After getting home, Rachel, Paul, and I began to prepare our building for the storm, removing the community patio furniture and rubber mat from the first floor porch, removing an extremely loose plank of wood from the outside of the building, and helping the Mullica Hill Flower Shop put away some of their flowers. Rachel and I then dropped Paul off at his house, and ran out the store to attempt to find water and fuses. Of course, water by this point was a rare commodity, but we eventually found some at Big Lots. Nobody had emergency candles in Jersey, so we had to settle with cheap, stinky candles from Big Lots also.

The following morning, Paul met us for breakfast at the Harrison House. After a hearty breakfast, the ladies headed back to the Langmore once again, where we planned to brace the storm. The rain started around noon, and Rachel and I both realized that our garage was bound to flood during the storm. After moving our cars to the safest location in the parking lot, the two of us tackled the garage, creating a barricade using Rubbermaid containers. We also had some empty crates in the garage, which we flipped over to create a platform to keep a wooden bed frame, a window fan unit, a box fan, and two of my kitchen chairs off the ground, in the hopes that they wouldn't become water logged. We also brought in a few important things from the garage, such as two containers of old video game systems, a box of dolls that Rachel's mom had been holding onto from Rachel's childhood, and a box of childhood books that her father had recently given to Rachel.

Moments after we finished our project, the rain began to get extremely heavy, and within 90 minutes, we noticed the puddle in front of the garage was turning into a lake. I headed back to the garage to try to barricade the door with logs, but couldn't find any that were suitable. Rachel then came up with the ingenious idea of using the wooden planks from the make shift garden surrounding the large tree in the parking lot. We used the wooden planks to create a make shift damn instead.

For the remainder of the evening, the three of us watched as the rain increased and the winds began to get heavier and heavier. Around 8 pm, we briefly lost power, so when it flickered back on, Rachel and Aunt Pepper jumped at the opportunity to start making dinner. As we were eating a delicious meal of filet migon, apple and grape salad, and pea soup, Diddy texts me about a tornado that's heading right for Mullica Hill.

Shit gets fucking scary from here.

Rachel goes into panic mode, turning on the television where the television goes crazy with this annoying, piercing noise and the tornado warning scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The tornado was heading for Mullica Hill, then Glassboro and Pitman afterwards. Rachel makes us stop eating and head for the basement, where we regain our composure and start to make phone calls again. Diddy, at this point, is chuckling because the tornado warning had been lifted, while Rachel is on the other phone with her mom, whose telling her that the tornado warning was lasting for another 20 minutes. After giving the tornado a few minutes, I decide to be brave and check to see whether there is actually anything even going on in the neighborhood. I expected to see an empty street (or at least a flooded street).

Instead, I witness a the tunneling winds of a tornado coming down our street. My feet are like bricks, as I watch the winds circle, picking up leaves and water off the road into its funnel. I finally regain my composure and make a sprinting run for the basement, almost falling down the wet stairs to tell Rachel and Aunt Pepper about the tornado. I immediately call my sister to tell her that "a mother fucking cyclone is coming down the fucking road...what the fuck!"

Moments later, the power goes out, so now we're sitting in a dark basement, which is freaking me the fuck out. After roughly ten minutes, I noticed the winds have died down. We decide it is safe to go back into the apartment, and try to head back upstairs only to be soaked by the water pouring out of the porch above us. The already weak boards on our porch had given way, cracking under the pressure of the downpour of rain. After getting inside, Rachel and I start checking the apartment for damage, realizing that both the bathroom and kitchen windows are leaking, along with both windows with air conditioners in them. While searching for water leaks and damage, we also notice several spots damaged from the earthquake, such as a previously small crack in the ceiling becoming bigger.

I'm not sure whether it was the actual site of the tornado or the hype of the storm, but after checking for damage my brain went into a rational yet panic feeling. I immediately went into a calm overdrive, in which I grabbed everything I could that was important to me, and shoved it in a backpack, this way if we were forced to suddenly evacuate I would feel more prepared. Rachel, began to do the same thing, yet in a more frenzied state. After packing her bag, the two of us rearranged the entire apartment, so that the couch was in the hallway, away from all of the windows.

Later in the night, Rachel and I both shared what was in our "emergency bag," which was actually an amusing exercise. My backpack consisted of my jewelry box, my GPS, a phone charger, my safety deposit box (which contains my teaching certification and SS card), a phone charger for the car, and my wallet. Rachel's bag was much more practical, with three bottles of water, a change of clothes, and other necessities. It was actually amusing to see that I packed more sentimental items, while Rachel packed practical items.

East Lake Road
Woodstown, NJ

The aftermath in Jersey depended on the location. The shore was barely hit during the storm, while most of the inland was flooded. The bridge near our home was flooded and closed for several days, while East Lake Road, in Woodstown was completely destroyed. Every river in the state flooded, due mainly to the amount of rain fall. Additionally, flash floods occurred throughout the state, that resulted in the death of a young woman in Salem County, when a flash flood swept her car away.

The power outage at our house only lasted for several hours, but several people were stuck without power for several days. On Sunday night, Berman's family still did not have power. Rachel and I had assessed our apartment to see how we could arrange furniture so they could sleep in our apartment. Berman wound up having power in the morning, so there was no amazing sleep over for us (frowny face).

Aunt Pepper went home on Monday to a damage free house. There was absolutely no water in the house, nor any debris scattered across her porch. It was as if a storm never even occurred in Longport.

After all of the hype and talk of the storm, Rachel and I have decided we will never name our child Irene, because our daughter would wind up being a giant disappointment...

Rancid Garbage and Swamp Ass

When we moved into our apartment, we quickly realized that we were going to have a long and difficult struggle with our neighbor below us, who isn't the most sanitary man. The man is a serious hoarder and slob, leaving garbage all over his apartment. Of course, when you fill your home with garbage it's going to begin to stink. You know where I'm going with this...right?

Minus the rancid apartment, John was a friendly guy who would frequently accompany me during our nightly Tenants Association Meetings in the back of the parking lot. We would joke around about our theories of why Mark disappeared, the Harrison House, and movies. When he said he was moving I was a little disappointed, though I secretly was extremely excited. By John moving out, it meant that my apartment wouldn't smell anymore due to the odors creeping into my place.

A few weeks ago, John and his girlfriend began to move their shit out of their apartment and into their new place. Of course he didn't move everything at once, instead he left a bulk of what can only be described as garbage and his four cats in the apartment while he moved himself in to his new place. John didn't return for almost a week to finally retrieve his cats. Everything else has staid, including the car filled with trash that I complained about a couple of months ago.

John and Amanda have been gone for about three weeks. The apartment has not had electric since they moved, all of the windows are shut tight, and there is trash on the floor that spreads wall to wall. The trash includes everything from McDonald's bags and wrappers to empty water bottles.

Over the last few days, I have noticed an influx of flies in our apartment, which have obviously been traveling from his apartment into ours. Additionally, the nauseating smells of rancid garbage, cat shit, and swamp ass have been traveling through the walls and floor into our apartment. It's fucking horrible.

No matter how much I clean my apartment, I can't get rid of the smell. The smell can only be described as something died in his apartment and the corpse became reanimated, traveled into our apartment, and died a second time.

The final straw came today when I walked into my apartment and smelled cat shit. I checked all the usual places for shit (the tub, behind the toilet, under the bed) and found no shit. As nasty as it sounds, I even shoved my face near each of the three litter boxes, but smelled absolutely nothing. I originally chalked it up as Sasha being Sasha and making her extremely stinky poos, but when Rachel came home an 1.5 hours later, she immediately noticed the smell. As we griped about the smell, she checked the usual places as well the litter boxes, but smelled nothing.

I was going to contact Mark's accountant, who has become the temporary supervisor of the building, but decided to be an adult and write John a message on Facebook telling him that his apartment smelled like soot and poo. It went something like this:

John,

I don't think there is anyway polite to say this, so I'm just going to be extremely blunt. I'm not sure what you have left behind in your apartment, but the smell is extremely nauseating and has permeated my apartment. Additionally, you seem to have amassed a collection of flies that have now found their way to our apartment. Finally, your car out back is full of rats and is beginning to smell. Nobody wants to take the garbage out, out of fear of encountering a creature from your car.

I don't know when you planned on finishing your move, but what has been left behind smells and it needs to be taken care of promptly. Each day, the smell is getting worse and worse, and I will soon have no choice but to contact Philip (Mark's accountant), who is currently managing the building or the Department of Health. Ultimately, if it isn't take care of promptly, I will have no choice to contact these individuals who would be more willing to take care of it and you way wind up facing fines.

We have been friendly in the past and I really don't want to take it to those extremes. However, i can't really stand dealing with the smell, flies, and rats that you have left behind.

Hopefully, he will get the message and clean up his apartment in the next day or so, or else he shall feel my wrath.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Landlord

Out of curiosity, what the hell does one do when their landlord disappears? Mark Roth has went missing. I kid you not. The man has mysteriously vanished for over a month now, and Rachel and I are at a lost to what the hell happens if he doesn't show back up.

Our rent is due by the end of the month, though we have a five day grace period (which we utilize quite frequently). As long as our rent check is in his hands by the fifth of the month, he's happy. We can either mail him the check or drive by his house and drop it off in his mailbox. Obviously we never mail the check into him, since we wait until the very last moment to pay the rent. 

Earlier this month, Rachel dropped went to drop off the rent and found his mailbox packed to the gills with mail. Even though it was odd for his mailbox to be that filled (it's a huge fucking mailbox), she squeezed our check into the box and came home. Since we've lived in the building, I've always noticed that Mark deposits our rent on the eighth or ninth of the month, so I thought it was odd that after a week of having our rent in his possession, the check still hadn't cleared. I kept a diligent eye on my bank account, checking it everyday to see if the rent cleared. 

By the middle of the month, I realized that something was fishy. My check was still not deposited, he wasn't returning any of my phone calls about our washer, and when Rachel called about the washer, the phone call went straight to voice mail. During our daily tenant association meetings in the parking lot, the entire building (except for our anti-social neighbor Amy), agreed that Mark was officially missing. Our theories of his disappearance were reaffirmed after speaking to Diane, who tried to call him and couldn't even leave a message because his voice mail was full.

Mark may be a flaky man; (I would even go so far as to call him the skid mark of the human population); but he's a very social man. His voice mail is never full, his phone always rings, and he'll answer my text messages (even if it's days later that he gets back to me). After giving it another two days, Rachel finally had enough last week and went to his house. She found no barking dogs, the garage door still hanging wide open, and nobody answering the door. She did what any responsible, caring, individual would do, she called the police and asked for a wellness check.

After going back and forth with the police for several hours last Tuesday, the police decided that they needed to find someone who had a key to Mark's house rather than bust the door down. Never mind the fact, that the man could be dead in his house and none of his family lives in the area, they had already made the decision to not bust down the door. You have to love the fact that the police are so considerate when dealing with possible life-threatening situations.

Of course, I have several theories as to what happened to Mark...

1. Mark skipped town to join the circus. Not just any circus, a gay circus filled with big gay clowns, big gay elephants, big gay lions eating big gay lion tamers, big gay trapeze artists, big gay cats jumping through big gay fiery rings...you get the picture.
2. Mark hasn't been paying his taxes and decided to take what he had and leave town. 
3. Mark went on vacation to Europe where he was attacked by a polar bear disguised as a tiger disguised as a polar bear. He's either laying in a European morgue or in a European hospital bed with no recollection of his name.
4. Mark died of natural causes in his house, possibly of an ailment that could have been treated if the police had busted down the door when Rachel called.
5. Mark died in his house and his dog has been slowly snacking on his body to keep from starving to death. (ew...)
6. Mark's psychotic ex-boyfriend was released from prison and hunted him down. He has a restraining order on the man for beating the shit out of him (which I think happened last summer, but I might be wrong as to when it actually happened).

I think you get the picture as to what may have happened to Mark. The major problem with Mark disappearing (besides the fact that he's missing) is that he is responsible for certain things in our building. For example, a part of our rent covers the water bill, the gas for the hot water heater, and the electricity for the hallways and outside perimeter of the building. Since he's obviously not around to cash our rent, he's not around to pay the above three bills. What happens when we run out of hot water because he didn't pay the gas bill? Hell what happens when we don't have water one morning because he hasn't paid the water bill.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears because I am clueless about this situation.

Hornets Nest Round Two

As you may know, there is currently a war going on at the Langmore between bees and myself. In a span of a few days, my sister had to destroy a wasp hive in our bedroom window and I destroyed two hornet hives on the front porch outside our window. After killing what I thought were the last two hornets, I thought the war between the two sides was over, but I was wrong.

Apparently, more than two hornets had survived the hornet genocide. After posting my entry on the hornet nest, I went outside to clean up the dead bees and knock down the two hives on the porch. While cleaning up, I noticed two more hornets had returned and were trying to build a third hive within a few inches from the previous two hives. Are you kidding me?!

I took my broom and killed the two hornets and swept their tiny, little hornet bodies with their comrades, pushing everyone off the porch and into the flower bed below. I thought that I had finally gotten rid of the hornets permanently.

Of course, I was mistaken. While heading out to the grocery store the next day, I noticed a single hornet trying to make a hive within a few inches of the third hive. What is wrong with these silly little insects? Why would you continually attempt to make a hive in the same spot? It doesn't make much sense to me.

While out, Rachel and I bought more Raid (can #3 at this point) and when I got home I sprayed the new hive, along with the entire porch near our apartment. Of course, the lone hornet fell to the ground, after receiving a deathly dose of insect genocide spray. You would have thought that would have taken care of the problem, but it didn't.

Today, Rachel and her dad rehearsed for the performance at Albert Hall next month, and on our way out to dinner we noticed that two hornets had returned and were desperately trying to make a new hive.

What...the...fuck...

After dinner, I used the remainder of the insect genocide spray to kill the three hornets that were now on the porch. Apparently, they called a friend to join them in their death. There wasn't much in the container left, enough to make the hornets fall to the ground but they were still spinning around on their backs. I would have felt bad for them, had they not been trying to make a fourth hive on the porch.

Dear Hornets,
Please get the hint and stop making hives on our porch. Living so close to our window is quite uncomfortable, because you have pointy stingers. I do not want to be stung, nor do I want to commit hornet genocide on a daily basis. Is there no where else you can make home? Please, spread your wings and fly away.
Sincerely,
The Hornet Killer

P.S. Can you take the spiders with you?

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.

Trash at the Langmore

I've complained about the landlord. I've complained about the laundry. Now it's time to complain about the trash.

As I've said, the Langmore is divided into five apartments (four are currently occupied) and two store fronts. At the rear of the parking lot, there are four trash large trash bins and a yellow can for recyclables. When we first moved into the building, Rich and Kim lived in the apartment next to ours (the unit we are moving into). Rich can only be described as the "extreme-macho man" and always took it upon himself to get things done around the building (trash, tree maintenance, shoveling snow, etc). In our town, trash needs to be taken out Tuesday nights for pick up on Wednesday morning.

Since Rich moved out two months ago, the building seems to be at a loss of who supposed to take out the trash. The week after Rich moved out, Rachel and I took the trash to the street. Apparently, by taking the trash out the first week, we have been assigned trash duty in the building. It's become an unspoken fact around the building. In the last two months, we've taken the trash out six times. Six times is equivalent to 80% of the trash removal from the building!

About a month ago, we came home late on Tuesday night and one of our neighbors took the trash out to the curb. A few weeks later, Rachel and I went to Laura's for fire and meat, and I thought it I was safe to assume that a neighbor would once again take care of the trash. I was very wrong. Of course, I didn't realize this until Wednesday morning when I was heading to work. As I pulled my car out of the driveway, I noticed that the trash cans were still in the back of the parking lot. Obviously I didn't have the time to take them out to the curb by this point, and headed to work instead, fuming the entire ride there.

Once again, Rachel and I were stuck doing trash duty. Of course Mikey Mullet and Creepy Carl left the trash area a mess, with huge cardboard boxes on top of the trash bins, along with the vanity from our apartment and two heavy sinks in front of the walkway in front of the trash. Since the left the area a disaster, the rest of the building decided to do the same, throwing their trashbags on top of the recyclables container. I'm pretty sure that the plumbers were supposed to take all of their trash with them, and not leave it for the tenants to clean up, but then again we're talking about Mikey Mullet and Creepy Carl.

Rachel and I did what any good tenant would do: we drug the heavy sinks and vanity to the back of the trash area and dumped them there. I'm sorry, it's not my responsibility to lug heavy sinks to the curb. Plus, I don't even think the trashmen will take anything that's not in a trash can. After throwing the boxes left by the plumbers on top of the mess the flower shop left in the back of the trash area (don't even get me started on the raccoon/rat infestation the flower shop has created). After leaving behind all the garbage the plumbers left for us, Rachel and I finally took the remaining trash out.

Golden Rule 7: Nobody wants to take your garbage out, especially your neighbors. Pitch in and take the bins out more than twice in a two month period. Your not special!

Golden Rule 8: Contractors are responsible for the trash they may bring to the site with them and all trash they create while there. Don't expect others to do your work for you. It's ignorant and rude.

Laundry at The Langmore

The Langmore is divided into five apartments and two store fronts, with each unit responsible for the gas and electric. Each unit is not responsible for the water bill, instead Mark uses a portion of the rent each month to cover the expenses of water. Additionally, Mark installed a coin operated washer and dryer in the basement to cover the cost of doing laundry. I'm assuming that unlike gas and electric companies, the water company cannot determine how much water is used in each unit, therefore he covers the cost for the entire building.

Along with a washer and dryer, there are also two tables and a shelf for our laundry detergent and dryer sheets. The two tables are for folding laundry, however, one of my neighbors, John, has insisted that the tables are his personal dresser. He does a load of laundry, but never comes downstairs to retrieve it. The only time I've ever seen him remove anything from the dryer was on the rare occasions when he has more than one load of wash. Then he has no choice but to remove his clothes from the dryer.

Typically, he leaves his clothes in the dryer until someone else in the building needs to do laundry. When someone needs to use the dryer, they have no choice but to remove all of John's clothes and leave them on one of the tables, in hopes that he'll come downstairs and get them. Of course he never does though. Instead, they sit there, the pile slowly getting smaller as he needs things.

I've decided there is a solution to this problem. Next time I do laundry, I'm bringing a box with me downstairs. All of his clothes are going into the box and the box is going under the table. If he wants to use the basement as his personal dressing area, then he can do so through the U-Haul box I've left for him.

Golden Rule 6: When doing laundry at a public facility, remove your clothes from the dryer. Nobody wants to touch your funky underwear, even if they just came from the dryer.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

In August of 2009, Rachel and I moved into a two bedroom apartment located in The Langmore, a historical building located in Mullica Hill. Our apartment came with hardwood floors, a porch/balcony, and a garage. Our landlord Mark, can only be explained as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, since one minute he is pleasant with a touch of goofy and the next minute he is grouchy, as if someone shoved something up his pooper and he can’t get it out.

During the tour of the building and lease signing, we dealt with Dr. Jekyll. The man was eager to please, willing to negotiate the price of the nonrefundable cat deposit, going from his original asking price of $750 to $250. Of course it wasn’t until after we had already signed the lease, that Mr. Hyde came out.

First, there was the problem with the fridge. Prior to the move, Rachel and I came to the empty apartment and scrubbed the place from the floorboards to the ceiling. Rachel soon realized there was a huge problem with the fridge. Since the previous tenants had left the fridge/freezer doors closed with no electricity, it began to grow mold. The seal on the freezer had been broken and the mold spread into it. Originally, Mark agreed to have the fridge replaced, but then backed out on his agreement. He then said he would have a cleaning crew come out, but failed to even do that. At this point, we had been living in the apartment for about a month and been using two mini-fridges. Finally, after going back and forth about the fridge, he finally replaced it.

Roughly a month after replacing the fridge, the ceiling above the shower began to leak. Imagine the horror of taking a shower and brown water dropping on your forehead when you're about to get out. I called Mr. Hyde, who explained that it was normal for old buildings to leak from time to time and “not to worry about it.”

Let me get this straight, I’m not supposed to worry that there is water dripping from the ceiling that looks and smells like rancid diarrhea? Within days of the initial leak, the ceiling began to rain. About seven or eight different spots in the ceiling began to leak, then the walls started. Again, we made more phone calls, and even called the plumber. This only made Mr. Hyde even more angry, until the problem was finally fixed. (Turns out that the apartment above us had a leaking shower faucet and failed to say anything about it. The water leaked into the caulking of her tub, leaked into the walls, and eventually dripped into our bathroom).

Rachel and I decided we would only call Mark on emergency situations, and have only had to deal with him a handful of times since the tub incident. When I learned of my layoff, our neighbors, Rich and Kim, moved out and Mark had put up a notice for a one bedroom apartment for rent. Rachel and I jumped on the opportunity, since it would save us roughly $150 a month in rent. We made arrangements with Mark, with us moving into the new apartment by July 15th and new tenants moving into our apartment by late July. Prior to the move he wanted to have lots of work done on both apartments, such as the electric (changing the fuse boxes into circuit breakers), painting both apartments (the new apartment has a fire engine red dining room and black bathroom), and replacing the sink and vanity in our current apartment.

In early July, Rachel and I were both at work, when he entered our apartment unannounced. (In NJ, there are laws protecting tenants, such as landlord needing to give 24 hours notice before entering an apartment alone). Rachel and I had been extremely busy that week, and our place had become “a little” messy. Mr. Hyde had the nerve to leave a note in our bathroom sink that our cats smelled!

I’m sorry…excuse me! You weren’t even supposed to be in our apartment!

In early July, Mark gave Stephanie and her daughter, the tenants to our apartment, a tour of our place, Since we had notice of the tour, Rachel and I scrubbed the apartment from top to bottom. We made sure that every nook and cranny had been cleaned. Mark made no mention of any “funny” smells from our apartment until weeks later when he talked to Rachel on the phone about replacing the sink and vanity (which is a whole other story). Of course, in typical Mark style, he tells Rachel that our apartment smelled like cat box when he gave Stephanie the tour, and that we would have to pay a new deposit for the new apartment.

Rachel was already having a stressful day, which included her coming home from work early from being sick, and the last think she needed was Mr. Hyde getting her more stressed about the cats. During the work being done yesterday, I had to deal with Mark twice, luckily he was in a Dr. Jekyll mood. Not only did he show me the new paint job in the apartment, he also told me that the cat deposit would be waived.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Mark hates Rachel. To him, being able to tell her “No” about something evokes the same feelings as a five year old boy on Christmas who just opened his dream gift. On the other hand, if I ask him the same question (or even question his judgment) he jumps for joy for me.

Which brings me to Golden Rule #5:
Golden Rule 5: Unless I’m physically unable to speak, Rachel is not allowed to have any communication with our landlord. This also includes allowing her phone to go straight to voicemail when he calls.