But you get what you pay for, unfortunately.
You get wonderful things like:
- Ginormous nasty bugs The first three months I stored pretty much everything in the fridge. Cereal, sugar, flour. After it got cold, the bug invasion slowed down, but they would still hang out in the sink at night ans scatter when I went to get a glass of water at midnight. Once a bug fell from the ceiling right in front of me while I was brushing my teeth.
- Bug spraying Because those delightful bugs have infested the whole apartment complex, they have to spray all the apartments on the same day. I think we've had it done, oh, about 4 or 5 times. It's so great because you get to wake up at 7 am to clear every single thing out of your kitchen and bathroom cupboards. And since this apartment is the size of a shoe box, everything is crammed onto the living room couch and armchair. We love it when we see that little note hanging on our door that notifies us they're going to spray the very next morning. Gee, thanks for the warning.
- Crumbling walls One day the ceiling started leaking in our bathroom. Dripping water. Even better, the wall underneath it started crumbling away! I literally touched it and it crumbled away in my hands. All along the length of the wall. And when they had a repairman come, he told us he didn't even fix a leak, just re-plastered the wall. There was a fine coating of white dust all over everything in the bathroom, and all over the bookcase in the hallway.
- The lovely neighbors The people who live next door are Indian, we think. It took us a while, but we figured out that it is a mother and her twenty-something son, who goes to BYU (we think--definitely some college somewhere, at least) who live together. In a one bedroom apartment. Yikes! But the best part is that this lady loves to make what we like to call her "sacrifices" on the wall outside by our back door. The concrete is permanently stained with the oil she pours over her little leaves and tree branches, and there's always a nice pile of crumbs that about a dozen birds come to feast on every day. She also has a creepy picture of a snake hanging on her back door. She also has a shopping cart she took from Smith's sitting out in the back, full of pine tree branches. We think she stripped the trees at the park.
We like to blame the people upstairs for everything that goes wrong. If we can't find the remote, we say the people upstairs probably took it. If we run out of milk, the people upstairs drank it all. If there's dishes in the sink, the people upstairs made the mess. We mostly don't like them because it sounds like they purposefully stomp around up there. They also like to sing annoying show tunes. And at 7am on Saturday morning, they like to smash two trash can lids together as loudly as they can. (Just kidding. I don't actually know what the heck they are banging up there but it sounds like two trash can lids.) - Sewage coming up the kitchen sink One morning Mark walked into the kitchen and the kitchen sink was overflowing with orange water. It smelled so nice. Turning off the water didn't do anything. It did stop eventually, but not after flooding the whole kitchen. It was truly horrible. Mark cleaned it up really well though--the whole place smelled like lemon cleaner for a week--no joke. When the repair guy came, guess what he said the reason for the flooding was?
THE PEOPLE UPSTAIRS!!!!
Apparently they dump everything down the sink, even though it doesn't have a garbage disposal. And it all backed up into our kitchen. I glared at the back of their heads in church that Sunday.
The day of the flooding was pretty much the breaking point for us. We had had enough and withing two weeks we found a new place to move into and sold our contract to some other unfortunate couple. I felt bad pretending that the place was so wonderful, but I'm pretty sure the only reason they wanted it was for the cheap rent. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way.
The decision to move out was reaffirmed on Wednesday when our apartment started filling up with smoke. Turns out, two of the washing machines located just downstairs from our front door started smoking. There was so much smoke I'm surprised the things weren't on fire. Mark stopped the machines and I put a note on them saying "Broken. Don't Use." I called our manager because she wasn't home, letting her know what happened. Not an hour later the crazy lady everyone avoids (because she will complain about her life to you for 15 minutes) went down to the laundry room, ripped the signs off and threw them in the garbage, and then threw all her clothes in the machines. Yep.
Lucky for her, the machines have yet to start smoking again.
The manager never did call me back.
But it's ok...
Because before this month is over, we are GONE.
FOREVER.
I CAN'T WAIT TO MOVE!!! YIPPEEEEEE!!!!
