i've patched and spackled a lot of shit in my day, but the hole in ian's ceiling is in need of a professional's help.
my neighbor likes to blast music really loudly at like 8 am - and she only ever listens to that mary j blige song and "no one" by alicia keys. but i've lived with so much worse.
― bell_labs, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link
and this morning i found a monster cockroach on my floor, dead thankfully. i think my cat killed it! go cat!
most of the roaches i've had have been smaller, and they mostly got killed off by an earlier spraying. they are renovating a bunch of disgusting buildings on my block though, so i hope it's just that and not indicative of monster cockroaches everywhere.
― bell_labs, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
did i tell you guys about the time a few years ago, dif apartment, my kitchen ceiling had a bubble form and expand in it and then a few days later half the ceiling collapsed/fell down because the upstairs neighbours had a long-time washing machine leak? IT WAS GROSS and then the landlord's henchmen came in a few days later and tore out all the rotted wood etc and put it in a few garbage bags in the backyard and then basically did this elaborate spackle job that of course never got painted over
― rrrobyn, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:06 (sixteen years ago) link
bugs are still the worst tho and i hope they never happen to me fingers all crossed
― rrrobyn, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:07 (sixteen years ago) link
bats are the worst
snakes are the best
― deeznuts, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:13 (sixteen years ago) link
I lived in a place once, there was a **massive** hole in the ceiling of my bedroom from a leaky bathtub that NEVER got fixed. Nine, ten months later I got a subleaser, moved out. Two months after that I get a call from my landlord. Everyone in my old place, subleaser included, DISAPPEARED owing several $thousand in back rent. He took me to court. I paid their debt. There's actually an interest story about how I tracked down one of the absconded former roommates and cut the amount I paid in half. But I'm about to fall asleep. Another time maybe.
(Note. Took a few years to pay off because I worked as a dishwasher for Old Country Buffet at the time. How. Miserable. P.S. I love bats and snakes.)
― RabiesAngentleman, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:14 (sixteen years ago) link
"interesting"
― RabiesAngentleman, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:15 (sixteen years ago) link
a friend of mine had to beat one to death with a broom once & he said it shrieked & stuff. :(
good thing theyre just giant bugs
― deeznuts, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:16 (sixteen years ago) link
mookieproof, you must live across the street from my friend's place (in cgardens)
bingo!
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:16 (sixteen years ago) link
my kitchen ceiling had a bubble form and expand in it and then a few days later half the ceiling collapsed/fell down because the upstairs neighbours had a long-time washing machine leak it was full of thousands of baby spiders
this is what i was expecting in a urban legend stylee
― elmo argonaut, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:17 (sixteen years ago) link
Ah I'm still here...
One time as a kid I saw a rabbit across my back yard and thought it'd be funny to scare it (I don't know WHY). I threw a rock. If I'd been trying to hit it I would have missed by a mile, but of course I had to be aiming for a near miss. THWACK!!!
This is how I learned that rabbits SCREAM.
― RabiesAngentleman, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:23 (sixteen years ago) link
My leccy still out -- cannot use anything in my room that has to be plugged in, because the ONE OUTLET that I can reach with my extension cord has just gone on the fritz. I could prob reach someone else's but then their fuse would overload so that's not a solution. Landlord will do NUFFINK -- the cost of living in a crappy industrial space where you can do whatever you want is that you also have to do whatever you DON'T want.
Do I read up on wiring and try replacing outlet box myself? I fear roommates are never going to do it.
― Laurel, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:23 (sixteen years ago) link
I think to myself very tiredly "I am too old for this shit" but then I remember how cheap my rent is and how much I like to go out.
― Laurel, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:24 (sixteen years ago) link
No structural shit's happened to my place yet (tho there are gaps between the windows and the actual frames that you could squeeze a phone book through). I live in the middle floor of a 3-family house -- downstairs girls have yippy puntable dogs, upstairs bro (landlord's son) seemingly wears workboots and fucks like Hercules, but I've learned to tune out the dogs, and upstairs bro & I worked out our shit. The landlord actually changed a light fixture in the dining room before I moved in because I didn't like it. Two pre-installed A/Cs, washer / dryer in apt, dishwasher, electric range -- I fear that if I move into another apt, this experience will have spoiled me. I think I'm dragging my feet on bitching about the busted light in my bedroom for fear of killing the dream (and causing the bedroom wall to collapse).
My only true apt-related downer is that the mom & pop sandwich shop place @ the end of my street closed down not 2 months after I moved in -- the owner made the best fried rice, and once made me paella w/ extra vodka so I could "score with the ladies". Then, he disappeared, and the place shuttered up. I bought a steak sub UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP and got violently sick. RIP fried rice bro.
― David R., Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:28 (sixteen years ago) link
I've done plumbing, walls, painting and wood work.
Electrical is the one thing I would never try fixing myself.
― felicity, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:32 (sixteen years ago) link
should be pretty east to replace outlet box. turn off the power first tho...
This thread is reminding me that the next time my friends give me shit about buying a house and turning into a boring grown-up type, i will go on a screed about how 20 years of shitty landlords forced my hand
― John Justen, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:35 (sixteen years ago) link
When I moved in to my new place 4 months ago they'd replaced the bathroom suite but didn't bother to clean the surrounding areas so eurgh bathroom gunge of complete strangers, blah.
I've got to get an electrician in to put an outlet under the counter for to plugz my new fridge/freezer.
― suzy, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:36 (sixteen years ago) link
my current landlord is trying to selectively ignore the 60 day notice clause in my lease in order to try and trick me into placing an ad to rent the apartment on my own dime or cajole one of my friends into moving in. fuck yooooooooo
― John Justen, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:39 (sixteen years ago) link
i think the worst one was the place where there was a 8 inch diameter pipe to the outside that they never closed up combined with them forgetting to pay the utility bill so the heat didn't get turned on until JANUARY.
either that or the place where they refused to fix the increasingly leaking roof until we had a huge rainstorm and the leak spread into the electrical conduit, causing the fire dept to come and the city to file a lawsuit.
you haven't lived until you've woken up in the middle of the night to sirens and walked out into your hallway and seen water pouring out of the ceiling fixtures.
― John Justen, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 15:44 (sixteen years ago) link
oh yeah we also have ants, not the cute ones with the "z" like in the movies either.
― Jarlrmai, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 16:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Ooh, my brother's house in CA had ants, BAD. The best way to get rid of them is/was not to leave any food out, obv, but also to use some kind of kitchen cleaner WITH BLEACH spray bottle b/c it destroys the scent trail that the other ants are following.
― Laurel, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 16:24 (sixteen years ago) link
Bedbugs trumps all other pest problems except for rats eating your newborn child
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
....which is why we don't allow infants in our apt.
― Laurel, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
re roaches: this shit really works and doesn't put toxic fumes into the air the way spray does.
http://a1061.g.akamai.net/7/1061/5412/home/www.walgreens.com/dbimagecache/333595.jpg
― get bent, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:00 (sixteen years ago) link
I read that if you see one cockroach out, it means that all the other spaces are taken. Seriously.
― roxymuzak, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link
but how do you catch the roaches to give them the giant roach destroying shot??
― rrrobyn, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:21 (sixteen years ago) link
Roxy, I imagined that post in a Wednesday Addams voice. Nice work.
― suzy, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link
i've seen this work: you put a dollop of gel near where the nest is, then the parent roach bites off a little gel, brings it back to the nest, bites off some more & brings it back to the nest, lather rinse repeat and soon everyone's DEAD.
― get bent, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:25 (sixteen years ago) link
The best stuff is the stuff where it kills other roaches that cannibalize the dead ones.
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:47 (sixteen years ago) link
-- suzy, Tuesday, April 8, 2008 1:23 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
Suz: when I was a kid, everyone told me I looked just like Wednesday Adams. Sometimes I still get it!
― roxymuzak, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:50 (sixteen years ago) link
someone should remake cannibal holocaust with roaches.
― get bent, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 17:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Paella has vodka in it?
― felicity, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 19:31 (sixteen years ago) link
My roommate caulked our bathtub, and now the water runs outside the tub. :(
My main issue with our apartment is the man who lives below me who has the coughing disease. I've bought earplugs but I haven't put used them yet.
Otherwise, our landlord seems pretty no-nonsense, and is the only landlord I've ever heard of to not raise the rent at lease renewal time.
― Virginia Plain, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 22:13 (sixteen years ago) link
any landlord who doesn't automatically raise the rent is a keeper IMHO.
― ian, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 22:39 (sixteen years ago) link
aww ian's in love
― jeff, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 22:48 (sixteen years ago) link
don't get smart, boy.
― ian, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 22:49 (sixteen years ago) link
I am a landlord, but I live with my tenants as roommates and they are long term friends. This prevents most problems from going on for too long. Right now I am replacing the third component in our gas oven, hopefully the damn thing will work now or I'm out $250.
I also work for a property management company fixing stuff like the things described in this thread, and it always makes me mad to read stories like these about landlords not caring. We get on that shit fast! Then again Oregon has fairly strong renter's rights laws, so our choices are limited.
Ian if I lived in NYC I would come put up a 4x4 piece of drywall or whatever. Definitely take felicity's advice.
― sleeve, Tuesday, 8 April 2008 23:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Check out tenant.net if you're in nyc, there's a lot of very serious tenants' rights people on there. Be very careful about doing anything that might make your landlord even think about starting any kind of court case against you, as that can lead to you being blacklisted in perpetuity thanks to the shitty tenant screening background check companies that all LL's use. These companies basically report that a court case was filed against you but never say that it was dismissed, or thrown out...or 100% based on the LL's shameful slum lord ways. This can haunt you forever and even get you rejected by a co-op board (happened to me).
― saudade, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 01:46 (sixteen years ago) link
we're raising our renter's rent $50 for the first time in 3 years.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 02:13 (sixteen years ago) link
So last night my neighbor called me into his apartment to tell me that he saw the super take mail (supposedly, my netflix) out of my mail box. My building was just bought by a new company. I'm really fucking sick of my netflix going missing but no one wants to earn the wrath of their super. Any thoughts?
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link
call the cops or talk to your super, or talk to the management company
― Mr. Que, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
I think I want to call the cops because this is the management company: http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/02/tenants_charge.php
j0n l3wis, my neighbor and sometime ilxor called about stuff any they didn't reply
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Is it worth calling the USPS? Do they send in Kevin Costner and levy 50,000 fines
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:34 (sixteen years ago) link
there was a dead bird in my bathroom this morning. it wasn't there last night. i have no idea how it got in or how long it had been staying with me. fucker owes me rent.
― chicago kevin, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Call the Chicago bird morgue:
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c7/amypetlover/Hawk.jpg
― felicity, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:43 (sixteen years ago) link
or you could just rent from Kim's, jw.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:44 (sixteen years ago) link
Mr Kim is an evil man. Did you ever see that movie he was involved in?
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:44 (sixteen years ago) link
THREAD FOR THE DEAD DEAD BIRD
― Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 15:45 (sixteen years ago) link
jon - that's fucked! i'd have the cops on him so fast! but then again i don't have to deal with - what i'm learning are - NY's shitty renters rights.
― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Wednesday, 9 April 2008 16:11 (sixteen years ago) link