A recent 4:30AM. Tallulah is happy-kid babbling in her room. Just as I'm falling asleep again, she starts wailing. Not that Come-Get-Me-I'm-Bored-Wanna-Watch-Dora-Now kind of whining-crying. This was more like Rabid-Raccoon-Dropped-from-Sky-into-My-Bed kind of dying-crying. We were prepared for blood.
She wasn't cold, wet. thirsty, sick, bloody or maimed. The marker that she uses to draw in notebooks before bedtime had run out of ink. Gave her another one, put her back in bed. No problems.
I think our just-turned-two year old girl is trying to tell us something: The inability to create = Agony.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
My thirteenth dwelling.
Holding to an unofficial count, and if my memory serves me well, I will soon be leaving the 12th residence of my short life and entering my 13th. This decision has been reached by "mutual agreement" between my family and our landlords, however it is certainly unjust. No one could have forced us to move for any of our behavior as tenants, yet we have decided to part ways with the current, lovely house where we live because we are, well, we're just tired of being dogged by one of our landlords.
This whole "moving issue" is a sore spot with me, because we're being asked to leave because we're "filthy." This is by no means an adjective I would use to describe my home. Our landlord first threatened he would would "have to ask us to leave if things didn't change" a few days after we moved in and we put a single scratch on the dining room floor. I understand that great care had been put into making this home livable before we moved in, so I assumed it was an overreaction. Similar threats followed when our lawn wasn't mowed often enough, when a cobweb was found outside our kitchen door, when we had dishes in the sink the day the landlord came to fix our water which had been out since the night before, and when dust bunnies were found in our laundry room.
Our landlord had often stated to me, "Now, this isn't how this place looked when you all moved in."
Well, of course it wasn't. When we moved in, the place had no furniture. It also had no occupants. It definitely didn't have a small but mobile child running about. So, some days laundry doesn't get done because we've spent our spare time doing dishes. And some days the dishes pile up because there's yard work to do (all Sean, by the way, he's incredible), and some days I don't pick up the living room because I WORK A LOT.
Based on our landlords expectations, I would assume that many of the two dozen + homes I visit weekly to give in-home piano lessons would also be kicked out if they were his tenants. By pointing this out, I'm not calling a single one of my clients "filthy" as he called us. I'm saying that our home is just as clean as theirs. I have a reasonable idea of what the expectations of cleanliness should be. Perishables were never left out in the open. Even if there were dishes to be cleaned, they were rinsed and in the sink for further cleaning. We have no bugs, no vermin. I've done a reasonable job of decorating the place to my tastes. We are basically being asked to move due to CLUTTER. Unsorted items and papers. Clothes that are clean but haven't been put away just yet. It's been maddening to deal with this knowledge.
I'm not kidding about any of this. I found our landlord to be overreacting in every sense of the way. Also, the fact that these thinly veiled threats of eviction had been going on for several months, I had trouble not believing that there was some ulterior motive involved in driving us to move. The landlord seems more than happy that we're moving in November, and in fact called me a few days after informing him with the November move to ask: Have you moved out yet?
Really?
This completely goes against all terms of our lease. And what he was calling "filthy" was truly nothing more than what I call "toddler clutter" (You can't pick up after one all hours of the day! And I inquired with friends who had visited what they thought of the space, and "toddler clutter" has been the best, universal description) paired with a good lot of unpacked boxes we were recently going through to find things to donate to our church yard sale. Again, I'm not kidding you.
I explained that to our landlord and was met with no sympathy. Then I invited our landlord into the living and dining room to see what care I had taken in arranging wall art and furniture, to assure him of how much I loved this house and was actually proud & happy to live in it. None of this seemed to matter, all due to a sink full of dishes, a few dust bunnies, and some cobwebs outdoors. I am by no means a "filthy" person nor do I live in such conditions, and I was so insulted by his demeanor (and it's obvious ulterior motives) that, ya know, fine, we'll leave.
In the move, we'll be sacrificing two office spaces (Sean and I each had our own), a few hundred dollars to cancel our contract with DirecTV, a lot of kitchen space, and overall about 300 square feet. However, we'll also be losing our electric bill, getting back our security deposit, and we'll be gaining two bedrooms larger than our current two, a close friend as a neighbor, an extra half bathroom, and the simple pleasure of no longer having to answer to a landlord with ridiculous expectations. We'll also be within walking distance of a grocery store and a library. I'm delighted by the idea of being able to walk to a library.
I feel that every move in my life, both literal and figurative, is positive at this point. Our next move demands that we rid ourselves of more of the items that held us to our pasts, be it a sweater, a chair, or what have you. I feel that fewer possessions in life is one of the many keys to living freely. Given a "smaller fishbowl," we'll put more stock into the things we own. I'll think twice about bringing home something from a thrift store or freebies from the aftermath of a yard sale. This minimalist approach is something I've always appreciated in others and am happy to integrate into my own lifestyle.
This whole "moving issue" is a sore spot with me, because we're being asked to leave because we're "filthy." This is by no means an adjective I would use to describe my home. Our landlord first threatened he would would "have to ask us to leave if things didn't change" a few days after we moved in and we put a single scratch on the dining room floor. I understand that great care had been put into making this home livable before we moved in, so I assumed it was an overreaction. Similar threats followed when our lawn wasn't mowed often enough, when a cobweb was found outside our kitchen door, when we had dishes in the sink the day the landlord came to fix our water which had been out since the night before, and when dust bunnies were found in our laundry room.
Our landlord had often stated to me, "Now, this isn't how this place looked when you all moved in."
Well, of course it wasn't. When we moved in, the place had no furniture. It also had no occupants. It definitely didn't have a small but mobile child running about. So, some days laundry doesn't get done because we've spent our spare time doing dishes. And some days the dishes pile up because there's yard work to do (all Sean, by the way, he's incredible), and some days I don't pick up the living room because I WORK A LOT.
Based on our landlords expectations, I would assume that many of the two dozen + homes I visit weekly to give in-home piano lessons would also be kicked out if they were his tenants. By pointing this out, I'm not calling a single one of my clients "filthy" as he called us. I'm saying that our home is just as clean as theirs. I have a reasonable idea of what the expectations of cleanliness should be. Perishables were never left out in the open. Even if there were dishes to be cleaned, they were rinsed and in the sink for further cleaning. We have no bugs, no vermin. I've done a reasonable job of decorating the place to my tastes. We are basically being asked to move due to CLUTTER. Unsorted items and papers. Clothes that are clean but haven't been put away just yet. It's been maddening to deal with this knowledge.
I'm not kidding about any of this. I found our landlord to be overreacting in every sense of the way. Also, the fact that these thinly veiled threats of eviction had been going on for several months, I had trouble not believing that there was some ulterior motive involved in driving us to move. The landlord seems more than happy that we're moving in November, and in fact called me a few days after informing him with the November move to ask: Have you moved out yet?
Really?
This completely goes against all terms of our lease. And what he was calling "filthy" was truly nothing more than what I call "toddler clutter" (You can't pick up after one all hours of the day! And I inquired with friends who had visited what they thought of the space, and "toddler clutter" has been the best, universal description) paired with a good lot of unpacked boxes we were recently going through to find things to donate to our church yard sale. Again, I'm not kidding you.
I explained that to our landlord and was met with no sympathy. Then I invited our landlord into the living and dining room to see what care I had taken in arranging wall art and furniture, to assure him of how much I loved this house and was actually proud & happy to live in it. None of this seemed to matter, all due to a sink full of dishes, a few dust bunnies, and some cobwebs outdoors. I am by no means a "filthy" person nor do I live in such conditions, and I was so insulted by his demeanor (and it's obvious ulterior motives) that, ya know, fine, we'll leave.
In the move, we'll be sacrificing two office spaces (Sean and I each had our own), a few hundred dollars to cancel our contract with DirecTV, a lot of kitchen space, and overall about 300 square feet. However, we'll also be losing our electric bill, getting back our security deposit, and we'll be gaining two bedrooms larger than our current two, a close friend as a neighbor, an extra half bathroom, and the simple pleasure of no longer having to answer to a landlord with ridiculous expectations. We'll also be within walking distance of a grocery store and a library. I'm delighted by the idea of being able to walk to a library.
I feel that every move in my life, both literal and figurative, is positive at this point. Our next move demands that we rid ourselves of more of the items that held us to our pasts, be it a sweater, a chair, or what have you. I feel that fewer possessions in life is one of the many keys to living freely. Given a "smaller fishbowl," we'll put more stock into the things we own. I'll think twice about bringing home something from a thrift store or freebies from the aftermath of a yard sale. This minimalist approach is something I've always appreciated in others and am happy to integrate into my own lifestyle.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)