Jim's Apartment

Jim’s apartment

Let me tell you a tale of the shittiest little hellhole I ever lived in.

When I first moved to town, I was given 5 days to find an apartment. My situation was a little odd, because I was moving away from my wife who had a job that would allow her to transfer, eventually.

I was in the market for a small one bedroom apartment with no lease, all inclusive, and in decent shape. It would seem the first two criteria were most important. I looked at a few places around 600.00 per month, but they all required a minimum of 6 month lease, since I had no idea when my wife would be here, I wanted to be able to up and leave when she got here.

It was on my 4th evening that I found an ad for a 400.00 per month basement “suite” with utilities included, close to my new job and with no lease. This sounded way too good to be true, and for a reason. I agreed to meet with the lady and look at the apartment. It was in the basement of a house that had been made into 4 apartments. Mine was at the bottom of a concrete stairwell where bugs and rain gathered, unable to escape.

“Mind the water Hun”

I didn’t mind the water, it was the beetles and dead flies floating in this stagnant water that had accumulated from the rainfall we had 3 days earlier.

“The drain needs to be cleared”

Not that she was going to do it; this was a suggestion for me to look after, if I moved in.

So through the thin, low doorway we went. The ceiling was 6 feet and 2 inches from the floor, and since I am 6’1… without shoes, I had to walk around in a crouch. The place stunk of smoke, and it was filthy, the bathroom was really dirty.

****Note to do it yourselfers, hanging ceiling is a poor choice for non ventilated closet sized bathrooms. ****

I knew time was short and that this was about all I was going to find for that price with no obligations, so I paid the first and last month’s rent and it was settled. I am gonna be a basement dweller. The first order of business, bug spray and a drain snake.

On the fifth day I went to the store and got the most corrosive noxious chemicals I could find and started cleaning, I scrubbed the place over twice and managed to make the walls white again. I vacuumed and windexed anything that I could reach, which, thanks to the 6 foot ceiling, was everything. Finally I felt like I could stay here. I got my things together and piled them into the place. I decided I only needed one room for both bed and living room so I set my air mattress in the living room and set the TV up. Lucky me, cable was left on, I could watch the Roughriders play.

Over the weekend I got the computer set up and sprayed the bugs. It seemed ok. But there was a presence in this apartment that could not be killed by Raid or Bug B Gone. I named him Fred.

Stay tuned for “Wife’s first encounter with Fred”, and “The bowl that warmed my arse while I made poopy”.