OK, so here it is… THE LONG-AWAITED COLUMBIA RANT! (And like I said before, this entry is not in any way shape or form an attack on my former-roommates, so if that's what you're looking for, just don't even waste your time.)

Let's start at the beginning shall we? Early last June Emily and I left our respective homes to come up to the city and find some new digs! So we looked at a bunch of ads, we talked to an apartment finder service, and we happened across an ad hanging on a doorpost. We found the address listed and took a look. It was nice, or so we thought.  Late last July moving day rolled around, and the apartment looked exactly the same as the day we looked at it before. Meaning the place had not been cleaned. And by that, I don't mean that it had been given a once over so that it at least met minimally livable conditions ... NO. While the landlady had told us that the carpets had been cleaned, amazingly we still managed to fill an entire full-size vacuum bag with all the crap still on the floors the first time we vacuumed. Funny, usually when someone has the carpets cleaned professionally all that crap gets picked up, not left for the tenants to pick up with a normal vacuum. Sarah (the landlady) also mentioned that the whole place had been re-painted before our move-in date. Once again this is very amusing because there were stains from a beverage that had been splashed or something on the walls and ceiling of the front room.

Since we're on the topic of the front room (for those of you familiar with the layout this became known as the sunroom, the blue room, or my studio) Other problems with the front room included baseboards so filthy that my mom and I had to scrub them with a toothbrush, and they were still NASTY. Not to mention the screens that were on the windows, that is, if you can call those screens. The windows that actually had screens on them had screens that had so many slices and holes in them that they might as well not have even been there. Screens are usually in the windows to keep dirt and bugs and the like outside… well we'll get to the bug problem in a minute, but let's just say I was less afraid of ANY bug that could have flown in my window than those already dwelling in the apartment. But I digress, back to the windows and screens. Throughout the apartment, the majority of the windows did not stay open on their own. Instead they had to be propped open with a large assortment of items, from fans, to other screens, to pieces of wood, to phone books and pens. This was not the only problem with the windows... I should mention that in several of the windows there was a large collection of cigarette butts, pennies, garbage, candy wrappers, and other assorted filth that had no business there if someone had supposedly cleaned before we moved in.

Moving on back to the living room we'll address the most significant of problems that seemed to get its start here. BUGS! And when I say bugs, I don't mean we had an ant problem or even cockroaches... Cockroaches I could have dealt with, but no, instead we had something that was a cross between the nastiest, creepiest, and crawliest of bugs... It was what appeared to be half silverfish and half centipede.  Now admittedly, as far as girls go, I'm not the most feminine or girly, but the sight of one of these things crawling on the wall, or ceiling, or floor was enough to make me squeal, and get on top of a table in terror. Unfortunately my roommates were apparently even more terrified because I usually had to "be the man" and take care of it. My skin is crawling now, just thinking about these suckers, so let's move on.

I suppose that since we're on the topic of pests, I should mention that for a brief time we also had mice... It's not really a fun thing to be sitting on your floor, and catch a glimpse of something moving only to find on closer inspection that it is, in fact, a small grey rodent winking at you. These are not the kinds of little friends I want in my place of residence. 

My room is next in line, so let's just go there. I'm going to pretend that I didn't know it was an easy little walk for the critters who made their home in the living room, because I only ever saw one or two in my room, and that was only at the height of their existence when they were in EVERY room on occasion. My room wasn't really supposed to be a bedroom, it was originally planned as a dining room, but once I had curtains up it wasn't so bad as a bedroom. I actually rather liked having it up in the front because it afforded me privacy and space that the spare room (the tiny room that should have been my room) could not. My only real beef with my room was less with the location of my room, and more with the location of our building. But since this was a problem I experienced most often in my bedroom I'll go ahead and place it here. My room was located on the east wall of the apartment building, and this means that it abutted an alley which was frequented not only by the normal traffic of cars, but also by thugs looking for a fight, drunks looking for a place to pee, and the assortment of neighborhood bums… but all these things are a part of living in the two - six, so these were the least of my problems. The real problem came around between 6 and 7 AM on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Yes, that's right; the garbage men don't care if you're a snoozing college student who has just pulled an all-nighter to get your lab results and your research project in APA format for your 9 am class, or if you're trying to sleep off your hangover from last night's drinking binge, they just care about dumping that dumpster, and doing it in the loudest and longest possible way. After enough of this, we not-so-much-morning-people seriously consider homicide as a very serious option. Unfortunately the knowledge that the garbage company would just send another truck with more guys makes this a less-than-practical option to start the homicide for beginners program. Other than that, my room was pretty sweet.

Up next is the kitchen. Our green tiled kitchen that had tiles coming off the walls, a linoleum tile floor that had been blackened from lack of cleaning, an oven vent that very obviously had been CHEAPLY replaced with a vent that did not fit the intended space, a garbage disposal that despite being "fixed" three times worked for a grand total of about a week the whole time we lived there, and assured us of having only one properly functioning/draining side of the sink... Obviously we were making great strides at quality in the kitchen. The fridge was ok until the start of August, but rather quickly declined in functioning thereafter. And so the landlady came twice to have it "fixed" as well, but when it's the middle of summer in the city, in an apartment with no air conditioning, and the fridge and freezer are consistently as warm and stale as the inside of the dishwasher, we got a little tired of having to wait for a repairman. Eventually, after a few attempts at repairing the old crap-hatch fridge, and once all our food had spoiled, and Emily's insulin became questionable we asked for a replacement. We got one.

 Next came the room that was originally intended to be my room. The tiny spare room was just that, tiny. We never really used it for anything other than storage, so no real problems there. Moving on down the line... We head to the bathroom.

 The pink bathroom was such a joy to all of you who experienced it, wasn't it? For those of you who didn't ever have the pleasure of seeing it for yourself, it was a tiled wonder, roughly the shade of pepto-bismol. Toilet function was fine, sink function was fine, so the regular temporary daily guests never got the full understanding of the joys of the pink bathroom. Those who had any extended stay started to understand. But only living there can make it fully rant-worthy.  From the day I moved in until the day I moved out we told Sarah (landlady) about the tiles coming off the wall in the shower. For those of you who  A) did not see this particular case for yourself, or B) don't know anything about tiles in showers, this problem could have been easily solved with a little bit of silicone caulk if it had been taken care of right off the bat. And like I said, on move-in day I could see this being a problem, so I went ahead and mentioned it to Sarah to try to nip it in the bud before it became a bigger problem, but she didn't bother to fix it when it was easy, water seeped into the cracks and the wall rotted away to nothing, and the tiles fell off to reveal a big nasty black hole. Of course, when I called to tell Sarah about this, it wasn't fixed right then either. It took her a couple of weeks to get back to me and then she just decided to put up a shower curtain on the window side to prevent more water from getting in the hole in the wall. Three months later, when it was time to move out, the hole was still there, but it was no longer our problem. On more than one occasion we had to call in the plumber because taking a shower meant that the water you were showering with would turn into a bath for your feet and ankles, often right up to your mid calves. This doesn't seem so bad on the face of things, but when that water SLOWLY drains away, you are left with the nastiest layer of scum and filth on the sides and bottom of the tub that you can imagine… You don't realize just how grubby you are until your shower drain stops working.

As far as the two back bedrooms, the adjoining room and the other bathroom, I can't really comment on them because I was never back there. (That was pretty much exclusively the roommates' domain, so I didn't spend much, if any, time back there.)

So there you have it, the Columbia Rant. I hope it lived up to all your expectations, and I'm sorry if you guys think I left something out... If I left anything out, anything about the apartment itself that I bitched to my readers and friends about, just let me know, and I'll write up any necessary amendments. Otherwise, I think this rather lengthy entry about covers it... Damn near 2,000 words on the matter.

As far as the new place goes, just about all the very small kinks ironed out. The dishwasher is fixed, the walls were painted the day after we moved in, the tiles in the bathroom were replaced, and now all we have to deal with is the occasional hiccup with the building's internet network, and the way that our kitchen sink has been a little off since we got the dishwasher fixed.

That's that. So here's the quote of the day:
QOTD
7.25.04 - "Can you imagine passionately moaning 'Oh, Larry'?" ~Jennifer talking about Larry.

7.26.04 - "Bring me your groin!" ~Chris (fortunately she's a trainer!)

7.27.04 - "Where did you find this boy, a magical treasure chest?" ~ Kirsten