Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Warning: The Following Post is an Exercise in Venting

Well, Mike and I just put a deposit on a new apartment. It's nothing great but it's not the place we're in now. It's expensive but the guy doesn't care about us having the dogs; he just said if we ruined anything not to expect our deposit back. That's fine, I never do. Even if I don't think anything is wrong, like normal wear and tear. I only ever got a deposit back once from a really old woman who was super nice and honest. A lot of the time I think the people don't even have the money to give back to you. So this time around we rented from a man who has been renting for forty years and it's his business. I think he will be more stable of a landlord. Like we actually received a receipt for the deposit amount, although having been screwed so many times we brought a bank check just to be extra safe - no more cash exchanges for me.
So the main catalyst for this move was our apartment getting broken into. Property of much value was taken - I don't really know how safe it is to divulge the specifics on the Internet. I imagine anything written here could feasibly be incriminating. More than the actual items stolen, what makes me the most angry is the invasion of my privacy and the effect it had on my dogs. They were throwing up and had diarrhea all the next day and into the following night after the whole incident. That says to me that they were most likely terrified and sick with fear or perhaps the thief gave them some kind of food to get them to back off. The woman who lives behind us said that the morning we found our house robbed she found a huge chunk of rotten hamburger in her yard. She has a really big German Shepherd and maybe someone was trying to get him to shut up too, but he's really old and not used to people food and didn't eat it. Our dogs would because Mike cooks them their own food every day. Like they get chicken or hamburger cooked with rice and vegetables and they even get their own vitamin supplements (we don't have kids if that helps explain such oddness). Plus, they're assholes when we are home but I don't know what they would do if we weren't there. I'd like to think they put up a fight but for all I know they jumped up and licked the intruder.
Anyway, it's no mystery who it is when you get robbed - I mean there are those flukes when a total stranger breaks into a random house but in most cases you know the perpetrator. In our case, it's really easy. There are only two choices. I guess it's sad and pathetic in a way that I know for sure. But I do because only two parties know where we live and what was in our place since we moved there. And the doors were damaged but had been locked upon exit by whoever broke in. There is only one person I know who could accomplish that and he happens to be in the running. The other people who could come in and take shit and re lock the door would be the guy downstairs who rented us the apartment - he's not supposed to have a key to our place but I'm sure he does. We obviously have pad locked everything now for the next two weeks till we move.
Any locksmith type people out there??? Is it even possible to force entry into a door with a bolt lock and then have it back in place upon exit without having the key??? Does that make sense?? I wish I had pictures of the door. In fact, I need to get on the visual scene regardless of the stupid door. I need a profile picture and I want to post pics of the dogs and Mike's glass pieces - he blows really nice glass and I want to show it off - that will be my priority after this whole hellish episode blows over.
It's just really bothering me. If it was the people downstairs, I can at least see their logic - they feel owed because I refuse to pay full rent with no heat in the building. They don't see it as a problem. I'm like, you lied about the amenities this place had, we moved in here based on a string of lies - there's no heat included, no cable, no Internet, and the place is generally shabby, leaking and in overall disrepair. The police told us we don't legally have to pay at all and referred us to the court house dealing with civil matters in Newfane. In fact, the day this happened and the police came, they informed us that Dan, the guy who rented us the place, was in no way a legal owner of the property. His brother who lives in North Carolina or something actually inherited the house. The brother seems like he wants nothing to do with it because he didn't show for the funeral and he's not paying the taxes apparently. So maybe this is a blessing in disguise because we got out now before the place is condemned or foreclosed on. Blah, blah, blah I know this probably doesn't make much sense to anyone but me. My thoughts are so scattered, I feel so violated and angry. We work so hard and then someone just comes along and scoops up the bounty we've been slaving over. It makes me want to vomit.
The second guy who could have done it I really thought was a friend. And that hurts my feelings more than anything. If he had just asked for some money or help we would have given anything we could spare.
This whole thing sucks because it's really enforcing my bias against people who have any sort of addiction. I mean I know there are good people out there who are addicted and recovering. I'd like to believe I'm one of them and I have one really good friend who I met in a women's group at my old clinic. She is honest and clean and responsible and a great mom - so I know there are exceptions. But once we are in our new place - NOBODY is coming over except for immediate family and Katie. That sucks because it just fuels my own disease not to be able to have a social life but I feel like I can't trust anyone I haven't known since before I could talk. Any new potential friends will be put to a rigorous set of tests - I'm not really joking.
Most people are like, "If someone broke into my house, I'd fucking shoot em. Let's go fuck them up!" But that's just not our style. I just want people to leave me alone. If I have nice things it's because I work hard for them, they don't fall from the sky because I'm blessed. Both culprits do not have jobs and they figured easy money I guess. I just want to count my losses and thank God my dogs are not severely injured which could have happened and I'm looking into alarm systems for the new place. I want to believe that I may have learned something throughout all of this. I'd like to hope that I will not make brash decisions like taking someones word about an apartment and renting it without inspecting it first. I know I sound naive, maybe I am. I like to believe people are genuinely good but maybe I have to reevaluate?

2 comments:

Robb said...

.. Re-evaluate. Definitely. Trust is nice and good, but place it upon those who you have come to know well. Humans, regardless of who they are or what they do, are prone to screw-up.
.. It's one thing to (pardon the expression) take a dog in off the street and another to expect it not to crap on your rug or chew the bejeepers outa your couch. Same goes with people. Mind you, if someone started to chew on your couch... time to call the guys in the nice white coats. {8-O
.. Glad to hear that you've found a new place, with a better landlord. All to the good, hm?

Keep The Faith*
Robb

Gledwood said...

I'm no expert on home security but I do know that an outward opening door with a metal frame (the frame's just as important as the door) makes it way harder to get in. also you can get special toughened windows that can hardly get broken at all

home security is ridiculously lax in this country

I know you CAN get good quality doors because I saw on TV the other day police try for 5 minutes to get a certain door open with no success... they got in through window in about 1 second..

VV is the shit

VV is the shit
We all have to love VV