Friday, August 31, 2012

Water, Water, Everywhere

I haven't written for awhile. It is funny that my last post was about organization, and meanwhile, everything got wildly disorganized.

The sink in my kitchen that had been giving me trouble for ages was never properly fixed.

One day, the water was turned off in our building because of construction outside of our building. I turned on the taps before I went out in the afternoon to see if it had been turned back on, and neglected to turn them off.

When I got back to my apartment, my kitchen floor was flooded, and I cleaned it up pretty easily, but later, my British neighbor came upstairs, freaked out, and asked about the water which she said had caused her ceiling to partially collapse.

Oh, it was a scene. My landlord was downstairs yelling, and the girl was freaked out, and I didn't know what to do. I waited. And waited. Then I cried and called someone from AA, who told me to go to a meeting.
I peeked out of my door, and eventually went out, wandered over to Williamsburg,and the door was locked. I wanted to leave, but texted someone from the program and she said, " It's not till 10 p.m. Wait For It!

So I waited.

Finally the doors opened, and some guys were downstairs setting up.  I sat down and asked if anyone knew an attorney, and one of them said, " I'm a lawyer." I told him my issue, and he said, "guess what - I'm a real estate attorney.  I handle landlord/tenant issues." He agreed to help me with my apartment issue.

The next morning my doorbell rang, and when didn't answer, my landlord yelled ," Get down here, speak to my mother, and see the damage you've done. Come down here, or I'm going to call the cops!"

I said nothing, then went to the door and said, " I'm calling my attorney."

I called J, the lawyer, and he said he'd give a call to my landlord, who was meanwhile imitating me in a sing-song way, " OH, she's going to call her LAWYER." Then his phone rang; he spoke to my lawyer, and all was silent.

I talked with J for awhile, who let me know that my landlord was "crazy" and that he was going to speak with them later, to "educate them".

I went downstairs to go out after a few hours, and they were still there; both my landlord and his mother, looking very dazed, and overcome; she had soot in her hair.

She walked up to me and said, " Do you wanna see what you've done? You son of a bitch!"

I gave her the finger and left. Honestly, what was I supposed to do? Afterwards, I realized I should have said, " The only son-of a bitch here is your son", but really, I guess I'll keep that for the next time I need it.

Yeah. So that was the start of my summer.