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This is the story of my apartment.
at 8h45 im still trying to wake up fully and have already spoke in french for 10 mins or so (a difficult feat in itself at any hour, let alone an hour before noon). The repairmen tell me that they will be doing repairs on the building for the next 3 days. there won't be any water during the day. while one of the coverall (or raveware, depending on the setting) clad repairemen is explaining this to me, the other has started making marks on my tile floor and is readying the jackhammer. Apparently they're going to be working until thursday night. It's tuesday morning. My explanation is cut short by the violent pounding of the jackhammer against the tile floor and an explosion of dust and tile shrapnel in the air. jars start falling off my spice rack and break on the floor, adding clouds of flour and cumin to the general chaos in my apartment. The man leaning over the jackhammer doesnt notice the breaking jars and i get hit in the face by a piece of tile that rockets off the floor. Apparently there was a notice that was supposed to tell me about all this happening.
by now im awake, covered in dust and garding my face from further shrapnel attacks. i leave the apartment. I reread the notice posted in the hallway, it says that there will be work happening in a few of the apartments and that those apartments won't have water during the day. It says that the work is only going to last until wed. It doesnt say anything about dust and jackhammering, it doesnt say anything about thursday night.
The blurriness is from the dust in the air.
This work is for the whole building and im the lucky apartment owner who gets to have it all happen in his apartment. Im always the "lucky" apartment owner it seems. Here is a list of problems i have had with my apartment since moving in:
-Every month or so the septic system backs up for a couple days and im unable to use any water in the apartment. Being the i am on the ground floor, everytime somebody above me uses any water (showering, flushing toilet, washing dishes etc.) my toilet, sinks and shower gurgle angrily and eventually water starts coming out of the drains. Its not just water though- its toilet water. toilet water carrying with it everything that goes into toilets. This generally fills up the shower and toilet, a few times it overflows and seeps into the living room and into the kitchen sink. Apparently this happens due to a tartar buildup in the pipes. Every time this happens i call the landlord who calls a repairman who comes and tells me he has fixed the problem....until the poo demon returns with a vengeance the following month.
-Lately i've been enjoying an infestation of small flying insects. Not flies nor mosquitos but more annoying than both. These don't bite nor fly very fast. But they do breed quickly and die in crowds around the kitchen. There large numbers and preference of commiting what i can only assume to be large cult like suicides in my kitchen and living room is what is most annoying. They die and create a squishy mess. in exploring their deplorable habits i found out that they werent being attracted by rotting fruit (as fruit flies would be) but instead were flying in and out of the vents in the walls of the building. Apparently my appartment kitchen is the best place to die en masse in the whole building
-2 times this year i had to deal with the sudden and unanounced arrival of a roomate. This roomate was already living in another part of the building and both times we met for the first time when i was returning home from a trip. I would usually find that the roomate had already made himself at home and had rummaged through everything in my kitchen, helping himself to what he pleased. Eventually i duct taped him out of the apartment and i can only assume that he returned to the basement of the building where him and the other mice have been living. At night if im real quite i can hear them scratching in the walls. Being that they're french mice, they are too evolved to fall for the mouse trap which so easily kills american mice.
-one day when returning late at night from a trip, my key wouldnt turn the lock and i found that my lock had seized up while i was gone and had broke. I spent the night at a neighbors and the next evening had to watch a "locksmith" drill through the lock and charge me 90 euros for his labor. He then wanted another 240 euros (a little more than 75,600 US dollars with the current exchange rate) to put on a new lock. He told me this after he'd already drilled through the old lock and showed me how the lock should have been replaced years ago as the insides were already broken. i called the agency who represents my landlord and yelled at them. They sent someone to install a new lock. He installed it upside down.
-In the middle of cooking for a potluck, the hotplates that serve as my stove broke suddenly and short-circuited the apartment. I went the rest of the day and that night without electricity. I had nothing to take to the potluck. It took more than a week to get somebody to bring over a new plac (stove top). The one they installed was too big and now my fridge doesn't fit properly underneath it.
-there as been a rolling set of electricity outages and short circuiting throught the year in my apartment. I keep a ready supply of candles.
-there is splotchy black and brown mold thats taking over the bathroom and area under the sink in the kitchen. Its not as bad as the mold that has been growing in my neighbors apartment. Their mold ate a hole through the wall and is fuzzy.
-chunks of the wall fall out when ever there are any vibrations (ie- loud noises in the street, a door slamming in a near by apartment, etc.) A picture frame once fell from the wall while i was sleeping. I was startled awake by the noise of it clattering against the floor, i was kept awake by the large chunk of plaster that subsequently fell of the low ceiling and broke into tiny pieces when it hit my head. These problems with the wall keep my floor in a perpetually dusty state near the walls.
-when the apartment was "renovated" the set of large single pane windows was never replaced or fixed. The glass is encased by old wood and neither of the windows close tightly because the wood has long since warped and the layers of paint used to cover the gaps, hinder more than help. The problem was solved by installing 2 space heaters under the windows, unfortunately, only one of them work. Any heat that i could get from that space heater is usually lost to the cold air that blows in through the perpetually almost-closed windows.
Look at all the dust on the bed. It's EVERYWHERE!!12h00- returning from work i walked into the building at the time the workmen said they'd be done. They werent and instead one of them met me at the door to the building. We walked the few steps to my apartment door where he said "Bienvenue au Beirut" before opening my door.
Atleast he has a sense of humor. The inside of my apartment is a chalky white from a thick layer of dust covering everything. My apartment is split in two by a giant crevice running across the floor. The gapping scar in the middle of the tiles is marked on each side by 2 large piles of broken cement, piping, and shattered tiles. I try to say something to the repairmen but instead start coughing from the dust. While i was staring at this from the doorway the other repairman had his head in the crevice and came out pointing another part of my apartment where he proclaims the next trench will be dug tomorrow. My apartment looks like an archaeological site in the Sahara and the dust is so think on the floor that i can clearly see the tracks of the soles of my shoes in the dust. Thursday night can't come fast enough.
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