House from Hell, part II
on 2002-11-23 at 11:17 a.m. House from Hell, Part II

So I'm painting, room by room. I finish the kitchen, white on the bottom, a blue-gray steel color on the top. Goes well with all my white appliances. Then the living room, a khaki color, looks cool with all my black furniture. Then my bedroom, Red, blood Red, goes well with the light gray painted wood furniture. Both bathrooms got a fresh coat of white with new chrome fixtures. And finally, the guest bedroom, which is probably the best of all, got a light green paint to go with dark wood furniture. Got all the electric, water, cable, etc.. running and everything is going smoothly. I'm paying too much rent, but that's okay because I was still under the impression I would be buying the house. Got all the air conditioners running, and the house is coming along famously in early September when I get a call. My landlord lady wants to know if I'm ready to buy the house. I say no, my old house has not sold, and I cannot take on a mortgage until it does. She flips out and tells me that she cannot wait any longer and is going to list the house for sale. I'm stunned as I have now done all this work. The next day she and her real Estate agent stop by the house to see about listing it for sale again. ( Why would you agree to a one year lease if you had no intention of waiting for a year for me to buy the house?) I had to work, so my girlfriend, crnflkgirl, was there.

The ladlord seems to be pleased with all the work I've done, as she should be because I've now paid her to fix her house. She even raises the price of the house $6,000.00. All without offering to repay me one red cent. So I immediately stop painting, much to the chagrin of the Real Estate agent who constantly asks me when I plan to finish painting. The last time, my answer was "when hell freezes over." Speaking of freezing, in mid-October we get our first really cold spell of the fall, and as I don't get cold very easily this is the first time I consider turning on the heat. I turned the thermostat up to about 70 and go to bed thinking by morning the house temp will have evened out. Well, morning comes around and it is colder than I ever thought it would be inside. The house is old, the windows are old, the doors are not sealed well, it is drafty, and cold. I go down to check the thermostat and it reads 50. Most likely because that's as low as it goes. I go down to the basement and look for the furnace, as I know not what I'm looking for. I find a big metal box in the floor that is all rusty and funky looking that has "Esso" stickers on it. (For you younguns, Esso is what Exxon used to be called, and they delivered home heating oil.) Needless to say the last time it had a sticker, was from 1979. I'm getting an uneasy feeling about it. I wrote my landlord a letter, stating the heat did not work, and that she needed to have someone out to fix it right away. She wrote back in no uncertain terms that the heat was working when I moved in, and that because I agreed to "Repairs" that it was my problem and not hers. I thought, okay, I'll call a plumber/heating person and find out what's wrong. If it is something i have done, I'll fix it, if not I'll write her back. The heating guy comes in and tells me that not only is it unfixable, but it is not a new problem. He turns the water on to it and it pours out all over where the rust spots are, and he points out that this is why it is rusted. He says it is a busted boiler and a new furnace would cost @$2800.00. At this point I decided to contact my attorney. He looks over all the lease and correspondence and decides that "Repair" and "Replace" are two seperate issues, and that by her boldface lie, that the heat worked when I moved in, I had a way to break my lease. He said that, should i need to go to court, the furnace guy could testify, and recently I've secured another potential witness in my next door neighbor. I've enlisted his help moving when he tells me that the people before tried to get her to fix the heat and she would not, and now she claims it was working when I moved in??? Then come to find out it needs water and electricity to run properly, neither of which had been turned on for 6 months prior to me moving in, how could she have known whether it worked or not?

So in conclusion, and to sum up a humongously long story, I'm moving out, after 6 months and thousands in lost rent, deposit, blood (stuck my hand through a window), sweat (6 weeks before air conditioner was installed), and tears (well maybe when I stuck my hand through the window and beld all over my kitchen). Not to mention all the money spent in supplies. And to tell you the truth, loosing the money hurts, and having to move again sucks cause I've got old, heavy furniture, and the mother of all TV's, but I'm not one bit sad to be leaving that piece of shit behind, yeah and probably won't miss the house much either.

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Wisdom tells me I'm Nothing.
Love tells me I'm Everything.
Between the two my life flows.
~Nisargadatta

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