my name is karel. i'm 26 years old and reside in portland, oregon, although i'm from the east coast - new jersey and new york city, specifically. currently i'm a graduate student in school counseling. i have numerous artistic pursuits, including writing, graphic design, jewelry design, and knitting. (although i'm actually quite bad at knitting.) i have a failproof weakness for chef boyardee beef ravioli.
portland blog - my boyfriend brian and i document our adventures out west
sunshower design jewelry - my handmade jewelry business
scrawl - password-protected site for my writing (email me for access)
pdx hoods - coming soon!
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why i hate being 'managed' by idiots Labels: frustration, living
Monday, October 12, 2009
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So, as you may know (or not, and I certainly wouldn't blame you if you didn't, since this has been a pitiful blogging year), since moving here last summer we've already moved again, twice. The first time it was for financial and emotional health reasons (and, simply put, we had some issues with 'management'), and the second time it was for actual health reasons: I was so allergic to cat dander and dust mites that an allergist deemed it medically necessary for me to live in an pet and carpet free environment. Thus began a very frustrating search for an all hardwood apartment that did not allow pets in the entire building (and wouldn't you know it, Portland LOVES cats! I mean, LOOOVVEESSSSSSSSS) that was within our price range and not in a sketchtastic neighborhood.
Lo and behold, we finally found one. Not only was it spacious and already painted, but it was smack in the neighborhood we liked and next door to a delicious bakery. In our dealings with the building manager (not to be confused with the building owners - he and his wife are tenants who also look after the building), I mentioned my severe allergies and medical need to be pet free. He said that the building IS pet-free (and that is on our lease), but that there is ONE cat in a first-floor apartment, and the tenant has this cat for mental health reasons. It's an indoor cat and he's never even seen it. I can live with that. Then I asked him how often the common areas (lobby, hallways, stairwells) are vacuumed.
His response: Hem... haw... awkward face 'Well, in the summer I don't vacuum as much, because, you know, there's not much dirt being tracked in. But in the winter, I definitely vacuum more often, because there's rain and snow and, you know, so, it does get vacuumed every... more often than the summer.'
Uh, yeah. If anyone ever has the opportunity to come visit me, just step in the lobby and try not to think you've just walked into a dank, musty old library with cobwebs in every corner. I actually hold my breath whenever I'm on the first floor. Sometimes I even forget to start breathing again until I've stepped into my apartment. (We're on the third floor.)
Anyway. We decided that the carpets weren't too horrendous, because they're so old and threadbare anyway, and that we could always just clean the carpet immediately outside our door with our super duper cleaning machine. And one cat two floors below us that never left the apartment would be fine. And we were kinda sick of looking at places.
Well, last night Brian came home and informed me that as he was parking his truck and walking toward the building, he happened to glance into an open window and notice a young woman with a baby and a cat in their living room. Now, the tenant with the cat for mental health reasons lives in a different unit, and definitely does not have a baby. (We've met her.) So he puts in a call to the building manager and ends up talking to his wife instead.
She basically chewed him out for even considering this cat an 'issue', insisted that there was no other cat in the building, and that it shouldn't even matter because it was on the first floor. 'That's not their cat!' I heard her insisting over the phone. When Brian argued that he saw it in their apartment, she continued to insist that it was NOT their cat.
Well, then, I don't want that cat to be wandering into MY apartment, thank you very much.
Anyway, the gist of the phone call was that Brian shouldn't have even been calling about this cat, because it was not serious enough to be an 'issue,' and that a cat or two on the first floor really shouldn't affect my allergies. WOW, THANKS! I'm glad that a tenant who may be violating the no-pets policy is more important than a tenant who has a MEDICAL REASON to not live in a building with pets. And if they don't even care enough to investigate a possible case of a rogue cat owner, then how many other cats might 'secretly' be living in this building? What the fuck? Building manager my ass.
Oh yeah, she also claimed that it shouldn't even matter because they vacuum 'every week.' BULLSHIT! Having not worked full time since the day I moved into this building, I can tell you with certainty that based on the number of times I've heard vacuuming or seen/smelled evidence of vacuuming, it definitely is NOT happening every week. Also, the machine they use is a decrepit, dust-blowing, nothing-sucking noisebox. Having learned about the uselessness of dry filters from the silly Rainbow business, I can confidently say that even if they vacuumed every freaking day, the dirt and other yuck that is in the carpet would STILL BE THERE.
UGH!!! I HATE RENTING!!!!
This is the perfect segue into my next post... which I'll try to put up sometime tomorrow. :)
