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On Friday Jake started talking about getting a bookshelf for all his books that he has lying around and in a big ole box in the closet. After fretting about where we would put it I remembered that Cat helped re-design a house before using her Sims program. I called her up and asked if she could help. Within minutes I was being sent different options on where to place all of our furniture. Here's the current design and the one we chose. She even offered to come over and help with Mark so we could get all the heavy furniture moved. I cannot even begin to say how much I appreciate all that they have done for us. Besides being tired Mark still said yes and within a few hours we had everything in place. The next day it was back to Hell. Ikea-Hell, that is. I cannot even start to talk about how much Burbank is like the fifth ring of Hell for us. Especially at that fucking store. The people are pushy, cranky and it's almost like war in the pick up area. After returning the extra flooring for a 200 dollar credit (yay!) we ventured our way back into the bowels of Ikea to look for a bookshelf. Jake wanted to high tail it out of there but I said no. I'll be damned if I was going to make another trip to this place... EVER (unless Cat or Mark needed something). We found a decent one and bolted for the door. After paying for the bookcase Cat suggested we head over to Islands for dinner. Since they knew where it was I waited for them to get their car. I thought I saw them and pulled out of my space (big mistake). When I realized it wasn't them I pulled to the side and hit the hazard lights and waited. Some complete idiot pulled up behind us and started flashing his lights. I rolled down my window and waived him on... nothing. He just sat there. He yelled something and I yelled back, "Don't you know how to go the fuck around!" With that I gave up and headed for the entrance... with the idiot in tow. He followed us all the way around the corner before parking and jumping out of his car. He slammed his door, stomped to the passenger side, opened and slammed that door too. It was... odd. We made it to the restaurant and tried to cool down while Mark laughed about how we manage to get the biggest idiots to deal with. We're lucky like that. :/
[keywords: Rant Friends boyfriend jake apartment home stupid-people ikea]
Posted by Diva on August 13, 2007 | Comments (0) We have our floors! It took longer than I expected and the side panels still need to be put back... but the floors are in and *most* of our stuff is back in place. Friday night Kitty and Caufield came over and we started ripping up old carpet. What we found underneath was stained carpet pads (probably from previous owners dog/cat) and cracks in the cement (Earthquakes, baby!). After getting rid of all that nastiness (the effects of which JakeD is still dealing with) it was time to pop out the floor boards and rip up the carpet tacks. I learned a lot about carpeting and flooring these past few days. For instance, uneven cement is a bitch to lay flooring over. Between earthquakes and sloppy work the floor underneath was bumpy. Still... the guys managed to bite the bullet and did a fantastic job putting the flooring in place. You can check out the work in progress at my Flickr page. It's still a bit messy because of the extra flooring we have to take back (Yay for less cost!) and I don't want to put everything back until the side panels are back up. I want to extend a HUGE thank you to Caufield and Kittyroze, and with a heartfelt thanks to JakeD for all the hard work they did on these floors. I love em! This is going to be a busy week for me, so don't expect much. I'm going to be pushing myself to pack away all my things so that we will have an easy time of moving furniture come Friday. Saturday we'll be busting our asses putting in the floor and Sunday we'll be enjoying a nice, new place... compliments of Ikea and my two friends who graciously offered to help. So far the place is looking great as far as newly painted walls go. Who needs a new place when you can do a little touch up here and there for half the price. Woo hoo! So many things to do... and such a big limit on the credit card. It's so tempting just to charge it all and pay off later. If we just got the floors, the paint, the tools the put them on and the A/C we'd be okay. That is... until the bill arrived. Then I'd have to come up with a way to pay it. I'm okay with it until Jake starts mentioning other things... then I start to worry. We need to write down a list of what we want in the order of need VS desire and the cost. Everything goes below his teeth, which are more important. I think the biggest issue is moving the idea into the reality phase. Telling me that starting a savings account is all good until three months later when nothing has been saved and we need to buy things. *sigh* Goals... We've decided to rip out the old carpet and put wood floors down in our apartment. The carpet we have now is beyond nasty and I am at my wit's end trying to clean it. I've used deep cleaners and the water still turns black. After HOURS of cleaning I was finally told it was the layer underneath the carpet that disintigrated from being so old (the building was built in the 1950s). After Caufield and Kitty offered to help I decided it was time to make a change. Plus, seeing their new apartment made me dream of the day we can move into something bigger. I asked for the time off and we started to make a game plan. The only thing left is to find out if the manager says it will be okay. Before that we also have to find out if the place is going to be around for a while. Here comes the sob story.... A few months back the city building inspectors made their rounds and wrote up our building for a few small issues... and some big ones. They painted my bathroom, kitchen, the bedroom ceiling and even installed new outlets that were grounded. After the guy came through and gave us the okay the manager received a notice about the four apartments on the side of the building. Aparently they're illegal. Oh joy, oh rapture. A hearing date was set to decided what to do about them. I believe it was in July. Four apartments is a lot of money to lose if they decide against the building and my guess is the owner won't want to keep it. Considering all the nice new apartment buildings popping up around us our place could go for a pretty penny... and be torn down for something a LOT nicer. We can afford to move if we have to. We just won't be living as comfy as we are now. I'd rather stay at my current place (I literally pay HALF of what a new one bedroom costs) and save money for a house. Yesterday I started calling my manager to see if the verdict was in and he had any idea of what was going to happen. I got his answering machine both times. Today... same thing. Now I'm getting antsy and have been robodialing his phone to see if he answers. So far... nothing. I don't want to leave a gazillion messages but it's getting a bit annoying. I'm also running out of excuses for making multiple calls. Pick up the damn phone already!!!! GAH!
The ivy is gone! W00t! I took the first day off so they could work on our apartment. Jake's day off is today. Antonio arrived at 11:30am and we pointed out what needs to be done. He walked into the rooms, shaking his head. I was so embarrassed. I have been griping about how much I loathe this apartment for quite a while now, yet always found a reason to keep living here. Lately it's been the price. With rent control I'm living in a one bedroom for at least $200 less than most people. The landlord mentioned a two bedroom that had just opened up for $1,400. I almost died. No way could I afford that. After walking through my apartment, showing all the flaws, I am completely miserable about living here. *sigh* I was hoping we'd move after Jake graduated so it would be more permanent... and out of California. The weather (usually) is great, but the people... not so much.
Antonio tackled the easy jobs first. Changing the sink knobs and putting up the vertical blinds. They're buuutiful! I put a picture of them in my Flickr account. He then went into the bathroom and started filling the cracks from the earthquake. I kept a steady supply of water going to him. I can't imagine working in those conditions. Afterwards he went to the bedroom for the grand finale. After The vines had grown behind the metal part of the window and made it impossible to pull out the screen. He had to cut the screen and bend it out. Then he pulled off both window panes and started ripping the vines from the wall. Fuck the 20 ft ladder! At least for now. :P I took a picture of the ivy by leaning out the window before he put the glass back on. The vines are so thick! Today I'm going to try and take a picture of the ivy from the outside. 4pm came and Antonio packed up and left. Thank goodness! The place was so hot I couldn't wait to take off my clothes. I walked into the bedroom and leaped back out the door. No blinds. As you can see from the picture the bedroom is in full view of traffic, pedestrians and three apartment buildings off to the right. Lovely. After a few hours of playing 'dodge the public' we managed to hang the lace curtains. As long as the light was off no one could see in. Yay for public sex! I'm just happy that I'm going to come home to a newly painted apartment that has a breeze coming through the window. :D When all else fails: whine!
The battle between (wo)man, nature (and the owner) continues. When I moved in the ivy was just starting to grow. At first I didn't mind it. The ivy gave us some privacy from the neighbors. But after a while it started to block out the breeze and our apartment got warmer... and warmer. I spoke with the landlord on several occasions and he forwarded my concerns to the owner. A year ago Antonio, the handyman, finally started ripping down the ivy on our apartment building. I came home one day and three forths of it was gone. Then he stopped. Right... at... my... apartment. The reason? They needed the 20 foot ladder elsewhere. Okay... After a couple of months went by I mentioned the ivy again. Aparently the issue was bringing BACK the 20 foot ladder. No one had a car big enough. I went back to waiting. A year later the ivy is still here and now It's a health hazard It's completely blocking the window... in layers! My landlord comes down and checks it out. Vines coming through the window (which will now have to be replaced) and eating through the screens. He started looking around the apartment and mentioned all the things Antonio could do. After 14 years in the same apartment I was happy to hear they finally wanted to fix something. Fix the tubs? Great! Paint the walls and fix the cracks from the earthquake? Fantastic! Just make sure the ivy goes FIRST! He nodded and off he went. That was a few months ago. Then heatwave hit. After four nights of misery I put my foot down. The ivy needs to go. He agreed and asked me to write out the list of things to fix. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Just get the ivy off! I made my list and even stopped by the hardware store last night. $150 for a ladder. I called up the landlord and asked him if I should get it. He said no, that the ladder would be here. Fine.
Jake and I decided to take days off so someone would watch the cats while the handyman was there. The shitty part is that Jake won't get paid for his day off. *sigh* In the end I had better have windows with a breeze or there's going to be some hell to pay. I loathe the summer. Seriously... My normal pleasant personality Being a quiet tenant sucks. I normally don't complain and *rarely* ask for things to be done. But when I do ask it's like I am requesting the wholy grail or something. We have the ivy from hell growing on the side of our apartment building. Some of the vines are as thick as a finger. A while back they decided to finally remove it after complaints of ivy coming through the window. They handyman came out and pulled everything right up to our side... then stopped. WTF!?! My room looks like a scene from Jumanji and he has other committments. This was over five months ago. I mentioned it to the landlord and he brought the handyman over to check it out. The problem? The twenty foot ladder was taken to another building and no one had a truck to bring it back. For some reason he thought the guy could just hang out my window and yang some of the stuff. The handyman thought he was nuts and told him so. After showing him the two windows they were coming through I mentioned the tub. My tub is separating from the tile. After the last big earthquake they really didn't check everything... and being an old building it didn't fare too well. They both checked it out and talked about replacing the windows, giving me different blinds, reinforcing the tub, etc... and left. That was about three months ago. Last night I called my landlord to ask about the blinds and hint at the rest of the stuff. The landlord, who is really cool, bitched about the owner for 33 minutes, and then said he'd look into the blinds and get the handyman to work on it when he was out next. He also tossed in the idea of repainting my bathroom. I said sure, but really wanted the blinds, vine and tub fixed first. Everytime I ask him about the vines, he tosses in something else they'll fix, like it will hold me off for a while. At this rate they're going to just give me a nicer apartment. I wouldn't mind, except the rent is so low here I don't think I'd want to pay a little more for the same sort of service. Meanwhile I'm renaming our bedroom 'the jungle room'. I have finally listed about 98% of my movies on DVD Spot. I still miss Guzzlefish, but oh well. I like how DVD Spot has an owned and wish list section. I finally have a list of the VHS I still need to buy as DVDs. I'm still going to replace that old cabinet with something a little larger and more stylish. I just loathe having to do it before we move into something larger. A nice two bedroom with air conditioning would be nice. Jake's last day on his temp job was Friday. He did one interview with a friend of mine, but it's still iffy. I'm not counting on that one, so I hope he has more soon. At least he finally signed up for classes. I'm annoyed that he's still going parttime, though. *sigh* I just want to move on with my life to something better. I can wait 4 1/2 years to move, but that's it. I wish we had a Plan B.
[keywords: Life boyfriend jake apartment DVDs relationship DVDSpot job]
Posted by Diva on June 05, 2006 | Comments (0) We need a second room. I got mad at Jake the other night and didn't even have a place to bitch about him in private. It's not like I don't tell him what I feel... but it's nice to have a place for some quiet time that doesn't involve flushing or rumpling the bed sheets. A second bathroom would be great too. I swear our bladders are in sync. We have to fight over who gets to pee first and who gets to stand at the door asking "Are you done yet?" While I'm at it I'd love a million dollars and a pony. :P |
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