You get what you pay for.

Wow, have I heard that a lot, but sadly it often proves to be true. I just thought I would share with you the kind of maintenance I have in my apartment.

I too have to admit sometimes renting sucks.

This all started one day in late October, after a hard day at work. I was walking into the kitchen to kick back and enjoy a nice cool, refreshing beer. As I was walking out of the kitchen I heard something that sounded like tapping on my kitchen wall. Oh well, I thought, just the neighbors. Then as I went back to the kitchen for something to munch, the sound continued. 

Then I noticed my magazines on the bar were huge from the water they had soaked up.

The neighbors above me were bathing and the water pipe burst and drenched my kitchen, bar and part of my living room. It had dumped so much water the floor boards actually warped under the carpet.

I called maintenance (who were closed) and about an hour later, they showed up.

By this time the ceiling had started bulging like your stomach would bulge if you had an alien in it. The maintenance man punctured the paint first and a gush of water came down, saturating my 200 CD's in their cases. Luckily the water didn't damage them so badly.

Then he pulled a hole in the rotting, sloppy drywall.

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I asked if we could go tell the neighbors upstairs not to shower or bathe until they fixed it tomorrow morning, but the maintenance guy told me he couldn't interrupt their night. I waited till he left to go ask myself, but they showered in the morning anyway (at least they don't stink).

Then a day passed, and no work done on the ceiling. Then a week passed with no work done on the ceiling. I called the maintenance people, they told me they would send someone out the very next day. Any time an apartment maintenance crew promises something, get it in writing on a legal document, signed and dated.

When I came home from a grueling day of doing my co workers' work for them again, I found a pink sticky note on my door. It said "Sorry, we came by but you were out". What the hell did they think I could do, cancel work and stay home? Did they think I was jobless? I called and they then told me it would be tomorrow. Of course the next day no one showed. I was overly pissed, and I called the office and complained. The office told me maintenance's excuse was they lost the key to my apartment. I went over to maintenance and gave them a copy of my key. The drywall in the ceiling and on the walls now has stains on it from where the water ran all along the other parts of the walls and ceiling too. Nice brown stains on the white paint. Fabulous.

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The ceiling had started leaking again - a  huge chasm now exists where the ceiling used to be. It has moldy insulation and wood, with rotting drywall hanging down. The maintenance guy came back and fixed the leak. He told me it would be a while before they could get to the drywall to fix it, they had to make sure the leak was fixed this time.

Then I never heard from them again.

The cavity is insanely unsightly! I can't have dates over to see the GQ freakin' burrow in my damn ceiling, and I can't play it off like it is a built-in water fountain. So, that is limiting my chick time at the pad. Bastards!! Just fix the damn hole.

By the time they fix it, I will be moving to a new apartment in a different complex. If you have any ingenious ideas on how to use the hole to my advantage let me know.

So, the moral of the story is if you find a fairly cheap apartment, and they offer free heat, check with the current residents to ensure they don't have huge unsightly holes in their ceilings.

-Frosty