1.11.2006

This Place is a Hole.

So here goes another story about our crappy apartment, and stupid landlord. The bathroom and kitchen floor have been slated to be replaced since...October. The landlord called before Christmas to tell us that they would be doing the floors on Dec. 19. When I got back into the city on the 28th, the floors were still not done. We went to Cold Lake. We got back on the 2nd, and the floors still weren't done. We then got a phone call on the 3rd, saying that the floors would be done on the 4th. They didn't show up. We got a call on the 5th, saying that they would be coming at 10am on the 6th. Russ and I got home from West Ed around 7...and the floors were STILL NOT DONE!!! So then we got a call on Sunday, that they would do the floors on Monday. Yeah. Right. So FINALLY, on Monday night the landlord called and said that they were going to be here at 11am on Tuesday. Well...they came...at 10am...and when Russ said that he thought that they had said 11, the landlord got all defensive and accused him of not listening to the message and putting everything back. By "everything", I mean, everything that was in the kitchen, dining room and bathroom. Russ said that nothing had been put back, and by that I mean that the dining room table, chairs, boxes of books, and everything was still all piled up in the living room. So Russ went to school. When we got back, the hall was filled with the stench of varnish, and our apartment door was unlocked. The landlord was still there, finishing with sealing the edges of the lino in the bathroom. He told us that instead of putting lino in the kitchen, they just took out the tiles and then he buffed down the (badly beaten-up) hardwood underneath and dumped a bucket of varnish on it. He told us that it said to put on a thin coat, let it dry, then put on another coat. However....he didn't have time to wait, so he just put on one really thick coat on. We put on a box fan to help it dry quicker. He was cleaning up as we left. When we got back, the entire floor of the building reeked of varnish. The varnish smell was so thick in the apartment that I had an instant migraine. We had to open the frickin' window! In JANUARY! On the day when the atmosphere decides that Edmonton needs snow!! It took the floor a while to dry, and the thick coat bubbled as it dried, so now the floor is so rough it feels like there is a thick layer of sand on it! Plus, there's a reason why the floor was covered up with tile. It is very battered. There's deep, nasty gashes on it where it looks like someone moved the stove back and forth 10 or 100 times, some of the wood looks almost in the process of rotting...however, we are past the point of caring. We'll be moving in April.
Classes have started, and this is my last full semester. So far, my classes are going to be a lot of work, but I really like all of my profs so far. I just hope that my new preoccupation with Gilmore Girls box sets doesn't get in the way of keeping up with my craploads of re
ading...

1 comment:

Cass said...

Totally!! It IS an illness...I hope my schoolwork doesn't suffer...