Home Sweet Home

I think it was Rachelle that suggested (some time ago) that we get a blog. At the time we joked that because we didn't have kids there was really no point to it, though we could definitely write and post pics of our apartment and Chris' moped. So, the blog about and pictures of the moped will have to come later... and I don't have pictures of our apartment to show to you... but! I do have, hopefully for you enjoyment, as much as ours, the "Chronicles of Our Apartment".

I must preface though, by giving 3 bits of background...
1-Marne (Chris' sister) mentioned how they always look back at their first apartment (full of spiders) with fond memories... I think we know what she means... we'll definitely have a lot to laugh about for years to come. All I have to say is I pity our landlord! =D
2-Our apartment: Is fantastic! It's a little one bedroom, built in the 70s and comes furnished with the original furniture (we really need to get pictures up!). We have one of 6 apartments, and our apartment is one of 2 that are 1 bedroom. From the street, it looks like one big house. We have a VERY quite "complex". The landlord(s) are very picky about their tenants to keep it quiet, plus they charge a low rent and could easily get a lot of "riff-raff". We really do love our apartment, it has been a HUGE blessing, as it is considerably cheaper than anything else in our area, and quite cozy.
3-Our landlords: (aka "Mr. and Mrs. B") are a great couple! They are a bit older and their 40-something year old son lives with them as he had to have major back surgery a year ago. He has stuck around to help take care of the place because his parents' health is slowly failing.

The Chronicles of Our Apartment:
-end of September/beginning of October:
Mr. B dropped the fuel can when filling up the lawn mower, he cleaned much of the mess up, but A LOT was spilled. We came home and our apartment, which shares a wall with the garage, smelled like a gas tank. A tank, not a station.... wind airs those out...
I woke up and could practically taste gasoline, yum. Chris couldn't understand why I was so upset about it until we figured out I was pregnant... as my sense of smell was heightened, I could probably smell what he smelt x10 (or so)

-November:
Our water heater stopped working. Mr. Fix-it came and got it working again, but explained that since it was the original it may stop working any day... it would probably need to be replaced. We started to notice things were a little weird pretty soon after that. When I say weird, I should probably say moist, or perhaps, humid. We started noticing salt coming out of our kitchen cabinets, water below the sink, water on our windows. And then we had to do laundry. Most of which we hang dry in our apartment. I think it was still a little damp when, after 2 days of hang drying, we left for Thanksgiving in NY. The water heater was replaced while we were gone.

-December:
Technically the problem started in November. After complaining about the gas and the water heater, we were a little slow to complain about this, but when it gets cold... you can only last so long... Our heater worked. Sporadically. Initially we got heated air about 40% of the time we turned the heater on (or flipped the fuse box to get it working right). At some point in December it got pretty cold and our heater decided to work a lot less often. It blew air, but it was COLD air. The problem was fixed and it turned out that our thermostat and a gage on the heater had to be replaced, both were sending and receiving confused signals. Half the time both our AC and heater were running, the other half it was just our AC.

-January:
Our drain in the kitchen started slowing down. We don't have a garbage disposal, but decided to just be even more careful about food getting down there. Once again, we didn't want to complain. It got really bad. Chris had, at some point, accidentally dropped some macaroni noodles down the drain and thought that was the problem. Macaroni noodles dissolve though... Finally, I caught the sink doing something I thought it had done in the week or so previous. When previously empty, it suddenly started having water in it. Rising water. It didn't get very high, but I knew there was something going on that wasn't related to our macaroni noodles. I told Chris and when we walked into the kitchen we realized that at some point the water had started rising again, filled the sink, and spilled over the counter onto our floor. Mr. B's son came with someone the next morning and worked on the septic tank and our pipes. They asked if we sometimes put coffee grinds down the sink as that can often gunk up the pipes... He noted though that our upstairs neighbors (who also don't have a washer or dryer) have never brought out their laundry... and detergent often gunks up the pipes too.... =)

-Last night:
Chris was vacuuming our living room and working on the entry way to our bedroom when he noticed a dark spot on the floor. Then, he realized there was a drip causing the dark spot. Soon the drip became a stream and then there were two, and then there were two more in our bathroom. It was quite the adventure! Our upstairs neighbor, suffering from some serious jet-lag accidentally left a faucet on... and created a nice little waterfall in both our apartments. It was pretty minor in ours, but I can only imagine the water she had to clean up!