by Thomas Keister

Yeah, it looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking. Monday, yeah, no problem, the hypnotherapy worked great, still haven't had a cigarette yet, not even any cravings, at least until yesterday. That's when the people at High Park Apartments showed me they wouldn't even make plausible slum lords in East St. Louis.

Why, what happened yesterday, you ask? Glad you did. Earlier this week the same day I quit smoking), we had a pretty good rain, and a leak popped up, soaking about a quarter of the living room. Most of the water was coming in through the living room window (the apartment is partially below ground). She called the office, and the maintenance crew came over, moved some stuff, and plugged in a bigass fan and a dehumidifier to dry out the carpeting. They said they were getting right on the leak, so I figured, problem solved, right?

Never that easy.

The very same day they came and gathered up their stuff (after four days of listening to that shit run non-stop, my mom's nerves were a half-an-inch past the edge), they said they hopefully had everything straightened out. Yeah, hope may float, but thankfully, nothing in my mom's apartment does, as a quick but heavy rain yesterday not only reversed all the "progress" that had been made, but now, things were even worse.
 

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Yeah, not only a pain in the ass, as all the furniture on that side of the living room had to be moved, and the entire apartment subsequently smelling like Paris Hilton's vagina after Fleet Week in New York City, but a clear danger as well, as evidenced by the next picture:
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Yeah, that's real fucking great. The leak is running right over a fucking electrical socket. Glad to see the crack maintenance team is right the fuck on this. The culprit, to listen to them, is a foundation leak. Uh, buddy...that's a freakin window. If you can't tell the difference between a window and the foundation of the building, I think we are getting a clearer answer as to why NOTHING is being accomplished. But just when I thought my mom was doomed to spend the rest of her newly re-signed lease (amazing how this piece of shit building started to fall the fuck apart AFTER that new lease was signed) paying nearly $600 a month for this:
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The maintenance team rallied, probably sat in a semi-circle mouth-breathing and rubbing their low foreheads together, and came up with a plan. Ready for this?...
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We'll plug in some fans and shit in the very same outlet that had water running over it just a couple of hours earlier! GENIUS!!! ABSOLUTE FUCKING GENIUS!!! This was the same response (rather than actually fixing the leak) that they had come up with on Monday, and here it is, Friday evening, and not even 24 hours after the fan and dehumidifier were unplugged and removed the first time, here they are again!!!

Yeah, it's been one of those weeks, and me nowhere near a Marlboro light (I have been battling the cravings, but this shit goes on much more, who can say?) My mom's losses were minimal (a media cabinet and a couch, although the couch was a gift from a friend of mine) Can't wait to hear the bullshit excuses coming from the office on Monday, when the manager decides to show back up and pretend to do something.

I have already told my mom to not pay a single fucking penny of rent on the first, cause it's time to move. Three times this has happened in less than a year, and they obviously are not going to do anything to fix it other than use fans and shit and drive up a retired woman's electric bill. On Monday, I shall be getting in touch with the following agenices:

  1.  New Albany Building Commissioner
  2.  New Albany Fair Housing Commission
  3.  New Albany city Fire Marshall
  4.  New Albany Health Department
  5.  New Albany Plumbing, Electric, and Heating Inspectors
  6.  New Albany Zoning Officer
  7.  Floyd County Health Department
  8.  any and all local media outlets with a 'troubleshooter'
Stay tuned for more on this. And to think, a week ago, I would have just lit a cigarette and said "Ok, you're moving" Ah, the added energy one gets when they quit smoking...
 


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