Sunday, August 31, 2008

Week Before Grad School: the Bad

Now, for "the Bad" of this week before grad school. And believe me, the crappy things that have happened far overshadow the good.

The Roommate
I met my roommate for the first time in the leasing office. He seemed nice enough, but he was very indecisive! It took him like half an hour to sign the lease that he had agreed to sign with me. He kept going, "Yes . . . umm . . . maybe . . . I think." No, none of that, this is America. Either yes or no, and if no, I will strangle you for bailing on me. He wanted to sign a lease that was shorter than a 12-month lease, but that doesn't really exist around here. So he had pretty much no choice.

Later, once we were in our apartment, we were deciding on who was to get the larger bedroom and who was to get the smaller bedroom. I could see he wanted the larger bedroom, but I was entitled to it seeing as I went through the trouble of finding the apartment, looking at the bus routes, putting the electricity in my name, and now have the internet in my name as well. So I wasn't just going to let him have it. He attempted to passive-aggressive me into giving it to him. But I don't yield to passive-aggressiveness, I just get pissed at it.

Eventually, we settled on an agreement. If I were to have the larger room, we'd split rent 50/50. If he were to get the larger room, we would split rent 60/40 with him paying the 60% part of the rent. 2-3 days after being in the large room, I realized that I don't really need it, haha. It was actually too large for me. It was large enough to fit ALL of my stuff (also every sound I made echoed in the room). So I made a new agreement, as I feel bad for him paying 60% of the rent. I would take the smaller bedroom and pay 44% of the rent and he would pay 56% of the rent. All utilities would be split 50/50. Oh yeah, my roommate pretty much left everything up to me. Sigh.

School of Public Health
So I talked to my advisor about my "unique" situation, being that I would only be here for 1 year for my MPH before going to MCW for medical school. I wanted to still get my MPH degree in this year, or somehow stretched out over the 4 years of medical school. The fact of the matter is, an MPH from my school is far stronger than an MPH from MCW, so I really would like to get my MPH here.

In any case, my academic advisor told me to speak to the epidemiology academic coordinator and the cirriculum committee. Well, that's a daunting task - speaking to the esoteric cirriculum committee. How do I even contact them?! Well, hopefully I'll be able to get an appointment to talk to my academic coordinator on Tuesday or something. Honestly, sometimes I'm going back and forth about doing my year of MPH and abandoning this degree, and fighting on to get what I want for myself here. Whatever, I just can't seem to get a break in anything!

The Apartment
Okay, now for the real rant. All the problems above are overshadowed by this. So I signed my lease on Friday, August 22nd. Note that all leases end July 31st and begin August 14th, giving the cleaners 2 weeks to clean all the apartments. Now the kitchen floor and the bathroom of the apartment I signed the lease for was incredibly unclean. By that I mean dirt, mud, rusty nails, and some kind of algae or something growing in the toilet bowl as well as dried urine on the toilet seat. Now that's all disgusting and the leasing office told me they'd try to get it done by Tuesday before we moved in that evening.

On Tuesday a few hours prior to move-in, I called the leasing office asking about the state of the apartment. The leasing manager tried to get us to hold off moving in until Thursday morning because it wasn't cleaned yet. We could not accept that as we both had orientations all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and we live too far to commute. So we moved in on Tuesday, expecting them to clean our apartment on Wednesday.

Well, Wednesday came and went and the apartment was untouched by any cleaning people. I sent a rather polite email to the leasing manager and called her twice on Thursday. She assured me that someone was scheduled to come and clean the apartment on Friday. Now know that I'm unable to unpack my kitchen stuff as I don't want to walk on the kitchen floor and my roommate and I can't use the toilet due to the filth.

So Friday came. And I kept going to leasing office to use their toilet, making sure they know I've been inconvenienced. I spoke to the leasing manager 2-3 times and each time she assured me that someone was going to show up by 6pm. 6pm came and went. I stormed to the leasing office (and the leasing manager had left) and I yelled at the employee there. Nothing she could do, but I did bully the property manager's email out of her. I returned half an hour later and yelled even louder. I left and came back 15 minutes later and my dad called them to yell, then called me to yell at me to yell at them. It escalated to the point where I was practically screaming, banging on the table, and kicked over a chair. The employee almost had to call security on me. I hope that was sufficient to get their attention at the urgency of my situation. You see, I'm unable to cook or use the toilet due to the filth left in my apartment - the filth that was their responsibility to clean. Also, I don't know if some things are damaged or simply unclean, so I can't assess all this on the form and get my mail key.

The time for politeness and passive-aggressive has passed. This is now nearing open war. I have sent 2 very angry emails to both the leasing and property managers demanding our August rent back - as we haven't been able to really live in the apartment - and that our apartment be cleaned by the time we returned from classes on Tuesday. No exceptions. I took pictures of the bathroom and kitchen floor and attached them to the second email. Tomorrow I'll send another email, and Tuesday morning my dad himself will call the leasing office to yell.

This kind of treatment is unacceptable. The apartment should've been cleaned before I even signed the lease. And I've been assured that the apartment will be cleaned the next day every day for a while now, but nothing has happened for a week now. And due to Labor Day, I need to suffer this longer. In effect, I've had to go across campus to use a toilet at a friend's place or a public bathroom. I have to tiptop around the bathroom floor to get to the bathtub, which is "clean enough" for me to use. My roommate and I have been MORE than patient.

If they don't clean my apartment by the time I return from classes on Tuesday, I will hold a grudge and I will get more than even. I will withhold September rent, I will ruin their reputation, I will tell everyone I know not to lease from them, I might call the city health department and show them what we had to move into, and I may find ways to get both the managers fired. One way or another, I will have my vengeance. You don't cross me when I'm this frustrated and angry, as I tend to become someone even I don't recognize.

1 comment:

Tris said...

Vent it out!
The previous tenants are so disgustingly appallingly. **Shudder**
You did the right thing.
I would've added a spit-in-the-face for a final touch. Like seasoning food with a bit of pepper. Right - now I'm hungry. :)~