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Settling in
And then we were moved. After a solid four days of almost non-stop moving-type activities (packing, throwing away, loading, unloading, unpacking, arranging, rearranging, etc.), our new place is beginning to look a little like a place we'll be able to live. A little. There are still many boxes to unpack, the furniture arrangement is still up in the air, and we're seriously flummoxed with the sorry state of the kitchen. How could we have missed the fact that there's almost no cabinet space and that which does exist is rotting (literally) and falling apart? Yeah, that's right. There are a total of five drawers in our kitchen, all very small. Of the five, two are missing their fronts—they apparently pulled right off. Two of the other three are about to lose their fronts, as well, primarily because the drawers are warped and swollen and barely move on their tracks. Great.
How do you persuade your landlord you need an entirely new kitchen?
Of course, that's not going to happen. Judging by other little details of this place, our landlord—who I must stress seems very very nice and who I like a lot—has kind of skated by, doing the minimum in maintenance for some time. In addition to the tiny, falling apart and otherwise completely substandard kitchen, the bathroom exhaust fan was broken, the walls are scuffed and pocked with holes, and there are about four strange little dead spaces at different points around the place. These dead spaces are little closet-type spaces containing the guts of the apartment—furnace, water heater, electrical panel, random plumbing and wiring, and other machinery I cannot identify. That's fine; every house/building must put these things somewhere. The trouble with this place is that all of these mechanicals have been positioned randomly and w/out any forethought, then they were enclosed in the same manner, thereby creating huge pockets of "dead space"—meaning space that is almost completely unusable, wasted. We're talking maybe close to 20 square feet or more of space that you mostly can't do anything with; you can store boxes or something in part of it, but otherwise, nada. This is a tragedy in an already small apartment.
But enough of the whining. The place is growing on me, and we're going to save $300-400/month (the savings vary b/c we don't pay utilities so I'm counting the variable costs we used to pay in utilities as savings). Plus, I've already replaced the bathroom exhaust fan, so there's one complaint out of the way. The bathroom is the size of a small closet and L. could not cope with the lack of circulation in there; after I'd replaced the fan, I realized she was right. Other big pluses include a cool covered and locked bike storage area in the entryway; access to the back "deck, including gas grill and patio furniture (w/prior approval of the landlords who live upstairs); and a dog park right across the street. No more walking a block and a half just to let the animal get her ya-yas out. (No, a block and a half isn't far, but it gets a little old when you do it 3-4 times/day and/or when you're in a hurry to get to class or work.)
So we're settling in. This is the third time we've moved in the last 15 months, and I'm hoping it will be the last time for about two more years. Moving blows.
I was going to write something about how much U-Haul also blows because they jerk you around w/your reservations and never have the equipment you reserved and their trucks smell bad and are in poor repair, and and.... I was going to write all that, none of which I need to write because if you've used U-Haul you know what I'm talking about already, but I'm holding off on that to see if their "SafeMove" insurance policy will save my buttocks. A big blemish on this recent move was that I sort of, um, got too close to a parked car w/the truck and pulled its passenger-side mirror right off. Oops! The repair bill is going to be upwards of $300, and I just don't have that right now. So now I'm waiting to hear back from U-Haul's insurance company to see if they will cover the claim. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you?
Posted August 18, 2004 11:06 PM | life generally
Good luck with U-Haul! I agree, they suck, but Ryder also sucks, and for all the same reasons.
Posted by: Shelley at August 19, 2004 12:39 AM
Yeah, Ryder isn't much better. I remember once I called and reserved on of their little trucks and showed up the day of to find they only had large trucks. And I mean large in the sense that to get any bigger you'd need a tractor trailer and a CDL. But on the plus side, I never had to worry about the insurance issues when I inevitably had my "little " accidents. There was the gas pump on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the car whose (whole) drivers side I backed into and the big truck (obtained above) that I took the top edge off of; that one is really their fault. I wanted a small truck for a reason.
So, you guys going to send us yer new address or what? Maybe you could swing something with your landlord and get money off for doing the work. Then, if you were going to stay, you could do it the way you want. Of course, then you'd have to do the work yourself... But yer a handy person.
Anyway, our love to L. And enjoy the new place.
Posted by: Famous P. at August 19, 2004 12:19 PM
Almost every landlord I've ever had is big on the minimum maintenance thing. My favorite is the one I had in college who left a big hole in a closet wall from a plumbing repair which, as it was open to the basement below, allowed an intrepid possum to enter our house. My current landlord's philosophy seems to be to put you off ("It'll be a couple days." "We're sending someone tomorrow." "If he doesn't show tomorrow, I'll come do it myself!" "Wait--he'll be right over!") until you give up and do it yourself. (Plus they recently tried to screw me on the rent. I ain't paying any more than the paper I signed says I'm supposed to pay.)
Surely you can work out something with the landlord, though. I think you have a right to drawers with fronts and drawers that open--don't they need to be in operable condition if they are supplied?
Could be worse, though--I only have two drawers in my kitchen. :)
And remind me to tell you about the time the Saturn dealer managed to remove my passenger-side mirror in the car wash.
Posted by: raquel at August 19, 2004 02:07 PM
I can't remember if it was U-haul or some other evil company, but my roommate got completely screwed by them. Among other accidents, he ran into a branch of a tree. He was actually on the street at the time and traffic was diverted to the curb lane, but the tree had a low hanging branch and punched a nice hole in the storage space above the cab of the truck.
Although he had paid for insurance, the company refused to use it to repair the truck. They claimed that he was at fault, because the insurance policy did not pay for accidencts involving insufficient clearance, even though he had a police report saying that traffic was diverted and he was on the street and he hit a tree and so on. Basically, someone could have fired a cannon at the truck, and if it hit the top, he would have been at fault for insufficient clearance.
He was going to get a tv station to do one of those exposés about consumer fraud scams, but I can't remember why it didn't happen. He ended up paying huge dollars for that.
Crossing my fingers for you.
Posted by: Elevator Ride at August 19, 2004 08:41 PM
Ugh, I've had horrible problems with U-Haul. They're one of the sleaziest corporations I've ever used. If they can nickel and dime you, they will.
I know this doesn't help you now, but after one too many bad encounters with U-Haul, I found a local truck rental company in my area. They're fantastic - cheaper than U-Haul, better insurance coverage, easier to deal with. I'm always going to go local from here on out.
Posted by: transmogriflaw at August 19, 2004 11:22 PM
