Further Explanation

[kiffie]

So. This new place I'm in.

It's kind've a long story.



Sometime in the last six months or so, random_redshirt and I decided that the place we were at simply wasn't cutting it anymore. The landlords had always been lax with their upkeep, but it had taken a bad turn when they allowed an ill-sealed gutter to leak into the wall between our bedrooms for nearly a month without making any attempt to fix it. I lost a few good comic books and several boxes to mold. random lost a bookcase. Then came the total lack of respect for the distinction between random and my accounts -- they attempted to get moneys from one party that was owed by the other, without telling either of us what was going on. If this was simply lack of organization or some sort of attempt to trick more money out of us, I don't know. Either way, we'd had it.

We began to look for a new place around January. At the time, many places were renting and there seemed to be a great selection open to us. I visited several and put in applications, but remained non-committal -- our lease didn't expire until June. But, the months went by without any sort of reply from any of the apartments or houses I'd applied to. By April, I was concerned; we both needed to find a place, soon.

I found an apartment in Morro Bay, about ten minutes North, that seemed like a nice enough place. Most of the residents were older, it had a beautiful view of the ocean, and the rent was relatively low. random and I went to check it out. As we met with the manager, we learned two things: they didn't allow fish, and random couldn't practice her clarinet. That was out of the running.

I found another place in Morro Bay, also for fairly cheap, and in a nicer neighborhood than the first. We put in our applications, turned in credit checks and bank statements, and had our fathers agree to cosign. We were turned away because neither of us had jobs. Full-time students simply don't make enough doing side-work to pass muster.

We put in still more applications to apartments, but, suddenly, the well seemed to have dried up. Where I had been finding five or six places a week within our price range, now I could hardly find one. I put in for a servant's house on a ranch, for duplexes in Los Osos, for anything and everything that might work. Every so often, I peek at the single-occupancy rentals. Sometimes, I'd go out and look at them. It's not that I didn't want to live with random again, but by May, I was wondering if I wouldn't be living out of my car for a while. (I'd even gone so far as to price Airstreams and how much it would cost to get a tow-hook put on the Flying Bean.) Finally, random told me that, if I found a place that would have me, go ahead and take it. I'd turned down one once before because I though we might have a chance, together, at an apartment. It didn't pan out, and I lost the little single room on the beach.

I looked around for about two weeks, visiting places and asking around. I went out to Arroyo Grande, to a working ranch that had a small loft for rent. The entire property seemed to be built on deep, loose sand. The MINI hated it. It got stuck twice on the way in. On the way out, I swear it tried to kick the gate. I found a bachelor apartment, above a garage, immediately next to a small, local airport. I was put on a "call list," for when the owner got back from Van Nyes, in a week. I looked at trailers and teeny, single-rooms. I was losing hope and starting to consider the merits of a Volkswagen Camper. A man in San Jose had one for sale for fairly cheap. At least I'd be able to keep my fish.

On a whim, I checked for two-bedroom apartments. There was something for rent in Oceano-- far, but not too far --that might work. random couldn't come along, so I went off on my own. The place was huge -- a triplex with a full kitchen and two spacious bedrooms above that (one slightly smaller than the other), two bathrooms and a fenced-in, private backyard. It sat on a street with early 90s-style family homes and butted against a church. The landlady was polite and genuinely interested in her property. She had the air of someone who very much enjoys owning a building and seemed to take a keen interest in who lived there, how they kept up the place, and how (but not necessarily what) they were doing. I liked her immediately. She wanted to rent out to a small family, or to friends. I asked if I and my roommate could apply right then. She frowned and said no. If my roommate was to be on the lease, she'd have to meet her. I wondered, what if I applied, got the place, and my roomie were to join in on the lease later? She considered this, then nodded -- that would be fine. But she'd have to apply and go through the process like I had. I filled out the application then and there and went home to print out my credit report.

A few days later, I went off to look at another place for myself. I hadn't heard back from the lady in Oceano, but I didn't necessarily have high hopes. On my own, I doubted my chances; the other two people applying were women with small children. The landlady wanted more than one person in the apartment, even if that person was a kid. The place I went to look at was in Arroyo Grande, a little closer than Oceano, but with such a completely different topography it might as well have been on the other side of the mountains. It was at the crest of a hill that overlooked an avocado orchard, mixed evergreens, and farmland. Getting the MINI up the little one-lane road felt like coaxing a mule across a bridge. The house-- and it was, indeed, a stand-alone house --was oddly-shaped, with triangle windows and a roof that didn't quite match on either end. It had a teeny wooden gate and a succulent garden out front, and a view that allowed you to see the ocean. Inside, it had exposed beams and wood paneling on every wall, save for the bathroom, which was covered in painted canvas. Interior and exterior fixtures mingled freely in every room. 1970s modern, with a dash of backwoods cabin and a sprinkle of WTF for good measure -- I loved it.

The landlord lived on the adjacent property. He invited me back to his house to discuss things. I remember thinking that I should wait, see what happens with the property in Oceano. Then the landlord offered me a key. I couldn't wait. I needed a place to stay. I might have been able to live out of the MINI, but the fish would have ended up in a petstore -- or worse. I took the key.

For only having one bedroom, the house was surprisingly roomy. The bedroom lay above the kitchen, accessible by a narrow flight of stairs. The kitchen opened directly into the livingroom, and a small, oblong reading room sat just off of that. The ceiling in the livingroom was high and the exposed beams made me feel stupidly happy in a way that I can't explain without a lot of sappy, dumb emotional goop getting in the way. It only had one phone jack which, thankfully, was in the bedroom, but seemed to have an overabundance of electrical outlets; some were in the oddest places imaginable. I knew I'd find a use for them all somehow. It seemed perfect. I knew there had to be a catch. Even as I moved things in, little by little, I kept expecting there to be some hidden horror waiting for me in the closet, a dead body in the crawlspace, something to make the place unlivable.

On the second weekend of moving things (because I was still in school and things took time), I found a pile of sawdust in the middle of the livingroom. Confused, I looked to a block of cedar that I'd kept in with my clothes to ward off moths. A mouse must have gotten to it, chewed it there on the floor, and left the bits for me to find. I shrugged, vacuumed the sawdust, and set traps. Mice I could deal with.

The next weekend, Hissy and my parents came up to help me move the big stuff -- bed, davenports, desk. I absently showed her some of the sawdust I had yet to clean. She made a face, "That's not sawdust. That's termite poop." I think I might have cursed. A lot.

The night after they left, I spotted the mouse. One of the mice. By the following night, I'd caught it. The next day, I came home to find another mouse in the traps. Satisfied that the traps were working, I laid a few more and focused on the termites. I sprayed down all of my furniture with an orange oil pesticide at Hissy's recommendation -- invertebrates hate the stuff -- and hoped that the bugs didn't have a taste for my desk or bookcase. In the interim, I caught two rats in the laundry room, and a third that managed to get the whole of its body in the trap, so that the teeth came down on its tail instead of its neck. I let it go down the road. I thought, by then, that I had everything under control. And I did. Mostly.

A few nights ago, I heard squeaking. Not the occasional squeak that mice make in the walls, but a constant, searching, hungry squeak. I found a baby mouse in my bathroom. As the little thing was standing on a towel, I bundled it up and threw the entire thing out the front door. Baby or not, it belonged outside. The next night, I came home from school late. It was dark and cold already, and I'd forgotten to leave the porch light on. I opened the front door and was greeted by three little pairs of eyes. They looked. I looked. They squeaked. I facepalmed. I stepped over the three little mouse pups, got the broom, and gently putted each one out onto the deck. That had to have been the lot. Surely there weren't any more in the house.

I hate being wrong.

The last pup was in the oven. Well, not in the oven, itself, but in the insulation behind the oven. By the time I managed to get it out, it was dark and cold outside. The pup was clearly the runt. It had trouble walking, and seemed to not quite understand how to navigate around things. I felt bad about putting it outside when it was so late, so I took the lid off one of my moving boxes and put the mouse inside, along with a gallon jug filled with hot water. The pup curled against the jug and went to sleep. I talked to my mom on the phone that night, and she asked if I was going to keep him. I wasn't sure. The next day, the rat-catcher came by. I showed him my catch, and he sighed. I'd caught a kangaroo mouse pup. Endangered. There went any plans to keep it. He had me toss it outside. I pulled all of my lethal traps, save for one in my bedroom, and plugged as many holes as I could. I wouldn't be catching any kangaroo mice.

Today, I burned out what was left of the mouse nest in the oven's insulation. It stank horribly for two hours, then just awful for another hour, finally settling into annoyingly nasty for the last hour. I figure I can live with that. It's certainly better than buying a new oven.

And that's where we are now. The termite guy is due in a week, I'm constantly on alert for endangered rodents, and I'm living so far up a hill that the internet can't even find me. It's awesome. :3