growing up is crazy part 2/2
In late September my lease was about to expire, and I had a new place lined up with a roommate I found on Craigslist. At the last minute, I decided I wanted to live alone, and stayed with my parents for about two months as I searched. It sucked because my parents don’t even care if they’re near cool bars or my work, and I had to take lots of cabs and spent like 2+ hours commuting each day. They’re first world problems, I know.
Anyway I found a place I liked on Craigslist and checked it out. It totally reeked of gas but was otherwise gorgeous, so I emailed the agent to see if the landlord would check it out. She sent me the following reply:
Hi Arianna,
The landlord went to the apartment and didn’t detect any leaking gas with his gas sensor. He said that there is definitely some strong “empty apartment funk” in there, but he turned on the heat and opened the windows to get some fresh air in there. Hopefully, it will smell better in there next time you go there.
And I emailed my parents like, BUT IT SMELLS LIKE GAS! And then I moved in, expecting the problem to fade away.
Some movers schlepped my stuff from my mom’s in the suburbs to my new place in Bucktown. (Unrelated to anything: I was trying to find my mom’s cat as they were hauling stuff out to the van, and one of the dudes yelled “gatito, gatito” and I have since wondered if cats have like, any capacity to learn words in any language.) Dudes walked up to my apartment and said that I should call the gas company right away, because otherwise I might fall asleep and not wake up. (Also unrelated to anything, I kinda wanna buy beers for these dudes in addition to tipping but that wasn’t possible and it’s too late now.)
The gas company found a giant leak in the meter from the guy below me, and the gas was traveling up. They asked floor two guy, “Do you ever smell gas?” and he was like, “Yeah” which still blows my mind (cause you know, maybe he should have called). The gas smell remained and I called the gas company again a few days later, and they disconnected my stove on Wednesday, so I did not get to make these sweet potato empanadas and ate at a taquería on the morning of Thanksgiving before meeting up with my family.
(These are pumpkin empanadas I did make a while back)
When I hung out with Tyler and Danielle on Friday, I took a call from my landlord, who got really annoyed and started to tell me I “wasn’t in any danger” like 100 times, and said that he would let his daughter stay where I lived. He told me that if I didn’t feel safe I could break the lease, so I set out to find other apartments on Saturday morning. I saw one that I liked but when I told my landlord, he said he had to think about breaking the lease. He reminded me that he was coming with his guy around 1 p.m. to investigate the gas situation.
My Bucktown apartment still smelled like gas, and I had a regular gas-company installation appointment scheduled for Saturday. I tried to get the gas company to call me at a coffee shop, but it’s their policy not to make any calls whatsoever. I saw the truck driving away while I was holding a coffee cup in my hand, and I chased after it, and it was raining, and the coffee spilled upwards onto my hand, and I started fucking crying while chasing a People’s Gas van down Western Avenue.
(recreation of the chase)
The gas company guy got there at the same time as my landlord, and I texted some people “SHOWDOWN.” Gas company guy—who actually was wearing a cape and riding a horse—told my landlord that women are more sensitive to gas (FEMINISM) and also that the amount of gas in the apartment was enough to make me nauseated, and also that he was going to shut off the gas in my apartment until the landlord fixed my situation. And the landlord agreed again to break the lease, although he didn’t respond to an email confirmation I tried to send today. I just dropped off my app for the other apartment.
Anyway it was all very stressful but I sorta feel like I got it taken care of. It’s certainly easier when your parents live in the same city. I felt some remorse for the landlord when he started to apologize, but then my friend Matthew set me straight.
