Where have I been?

I had kind of a bad month. I was having a lot of trouble with my apartment. The set up was such that it was a basement apartment, and the laundry room for the house was in a room off of there. This meant that in order to do laundry, my landlady had to go through my apartment. The agreement was that she would only use it when I was at work, and that she would be the only one using it. Not ideal, but I figured it wouldn't be a problem because it wouldn't really affect me much, and the rent was fantastic.

Fast forward a few months. The internet kept going down (wonder why I was on her so sporadically?) and they had to dig a huge hole in front of the entrance to my apartment in order to fix some water piping problems. They expected me to walk across wobbly boards. They eventually filled in the hole, but then I was stuck dealing with traipsing through mud every day. They said they'd fix and make a nice little path- and then they kept not doing it. The landlady's boyfriend practically moved in with her. He needed to do laundry, and kept insisting on coming down late at night to do so. At one point, he almost walked in on me naked. They had a lock that kept me from getting into the upstairs, but I had no lock on my side of the door. He started hitting on me, inviting me up when his girlfriend wasn't home and suggesting that we "do something" on a regular basis. Normally when you're faced with an obnoxious man hitting on you, you can just leave- it's a completely different matter when your land-lady is telling you that you have to let the guy into your own apartment, your private space. Sometimes, I'd come back and things would be moved around and drawers would be gone through.

I sent the landlady a certified letter explaining the problems and how many of the things she was doing an that were going on in the apartment were against county and city law. She refused to stop. I finally called the city's Landlord Tenant board, seeking advice. They informed me that she didn't have the required permit to rent the apartment out, and they reported her.

I got a very, very angry phone call at work one day, with her screaming at me about how I had caused so many problems. Apparently, she found out that the city knew about her permitless-ness, and she was blaming me. She sounded scary enough on the phone that I was scared to sleep there, and I was concerned she would mess up my stuff. The guy at the Landlord Tenant board told me that my lease wasn't legally binding, since she wasn't legally allowed to rent out the apartment in the first place. So I did a sudden move-out. With the help of my father and boyfriend, that night we rented a U-Haul and moved all of my belongings out and into storage.

I wasn't even packed. Things (like the cord connecting my camera to the computer) just got thrown into random bags and boxes. I moved to stay at my grandparent's house.

I found the perfect apartment to move in to, but it wasn't available until January 9. I spent the month in between with my grandparents. It was a really depressing month. Grandma's memory is going, and Grandpa spends all day sleeping. Both of them are massively depressed. The depression in the house rubbed off on me, and I was pretty miserable too. I was grateful I had family I could stay with, but that doesn't mean that I was happy there. To make matters worse, they keep their house set at almost 80 degrees, and the incredible heat was making me lethargic. To make matters worse, I got a really, really bad cold, and for the last week I was with my grandparents, I had to pretty much quarantine myself in my room whenever I wasn't at work, because they are older and have weakened immune systems. I didn't feel much like doing anything, much less blogging.

I did get a couple of posts in when I went home over Christmas and was in a better mood (and set some to delayed posting), but then lost any desire to post when I got back.

I finally moved into the new apartment a week ago, but then had some…issues with the internet (that's going to have to be a whole other post, I think- I don't want to sideline this into a rant about Verizon). Finally- finally- on Wednesday I got internet.

The move-in sucked. Living on the top floor (of three) sounds like a great idea when you think about not having noisy people living above you. It does not seem like such a great idea when you're moving your stuff in.

The apartment isn't fully unpacked yet, but it's getting there. I just ordered a very nice set of nightstands and a dresser, and can't wait until I get them. My very favorite part about the apartment is the oven/stove. It's a gas stove. Food cooks so much more evenly! I love love love love love it (yes, I do like to bake…).

I have been knitting during this break; I just haven't exactly felt like posting much. I will be posting knitting pictures soon, I promise. There will probably also be apartment pictures, but I'm embarrassed to take them with the mess it's in right now.