Second Worse Day of My Life

Well, the very last thing that I ever expected to be sitting here writing about has occurred. I have just experienced one of the most surreal 24 hours imaginable. In order to fully understand all of the current events that I am about to write about and rant about and carry on about, you first should read an earlier entry of mine. I wrote Johnny 99 on August 2, 2005 and was fully convinced that this had now all been firmly put behind me. How very wrong this turned out to be.

Yesterday started out like any other normal work day. Jim and I had actually gotten up a bit early because Tuesdays are garbage day and the big garbage bins need to be removed from the garbage room and placed in front of the building for collection. We had just returned to our unit from moving the bins when my phone started to ring. It was the Lobby calling. When I answered, a female voice indicated that she was with the London Police. I thought next to nothing of this as the police are called to this building on a regular basis, as they had been to the last property that we had managed. When I opened the door to the two plainclothes officers, she then stated that they were actually here to arrest me on an outstanding warrant from June 2006. WTF?

Once they had stated this, I could no longer be out of their site etc. To say that my day sucked from here on in certainly would be a huge understatement! I rushed inside to let Jim know what was going on and he was as confused as I. Off I went. At least they had the decency to show up in an unmarked vehicle and in plain clothes so there was no undue attention drawn to us as we left the building. After I got processed at the police station, I was then taken down to the courthouse to begin the long wait to appear before a judge. I ended up having to wait with nine other females.

Except for two others who had spent most of their previous evening in a holding cell at the police station, the others had come over from the local jail. All of them were hoping to get released by any means possible and in any way, shape or form as they had already appeared before the judge and had been denied their request for release. Some of them were making their third or fourth appearance and were pretty discouraged by this point. Their collective mood certainly was doing little to instill any confidence in my being released.

As it was, I still didn’t yet understand what I was even doing here in the first place. As far as I was concerned, all of this mess had been resolved in May 2006. I had even served a year of probation and during that entire time did not miss, nor was even late, for a single appointment. One would think that if there was an active warrant for my arrest that whenever I checked in with my probation officer that my file would have somehow been flagged. No, nothing. Zero, zip, nada. And if I was on the “run”, I guess I wasn’t doing too much or very well in my attempt to lie low or at least not draw much attention to myself? Hiding in plain site comes to mind!

P.S. TO BE VERY MUCH CONTINUED…

Floats Like a Butterfly…

Being a Building Manager can be at the best of times frustrating to say the least. There are always a few choice tenants that insist on driving one slowly insane. This week the task has fallen to a young couple that have just recently moved into our building who initially went to great lengths to present themselves as laid back and easygoing when in fact, they couldn’t be further away from these traits. They are still desperately clinging to this notion of themselves but I for one am no longer even remotely entertaining this. The gloves are very much off!In December, they came to see a unit that they previous tenant had lived in for eighteen years and her entire time there, she didn’t get any upgrades at all by the look of things. She still had this awful shag carpeting from the seventies for goodness sakes! Not only was everything in the unit old but it also was extremely dirty. She was a heavy smoker by the look of things and towards the end, she was in pretty poor health so no cleaning was being done either. What a sight this apartment turned out to be!

I actually showed it to this couple as is and explained to them what work would be done prior to anyone else being able to take possession – new carpet, new paint, new flooring in the bathroom and kitchen, new vanity and toilet in the bathroom, etc. They were desperate to move out of his mother’s place and as this was the only one bedroom that I had available and would have for some time, they didn’t care what shape it was in. They wanted it no matter what. Estimating what work had to be completed, etc we agreed on a move in date of January 12, 2008. What this meant was that in order to reserve this apartment, they would have to leave a deposit of their last month’s rent with a pro-rated amount for January due on the day that they moved in to the unit.

My painters started begging for work the day after New Years so I told them that they could start this unit as soon as possible after their paint order arrived. They were to start on the 4th with the carpet installed on the 9th and the ceramic tile laid on the 10th and 11th. Everything else would get completed around this bigger work. There really should have been no problems except for the fact that my painters didn’t bother showing up until the 9th and then not again until the 11th so I was forced to have the carpet installed before all of the painting was completed. The ceramic tile and everything needed for this job didn’t arrive until late on the 11th. No way that this unit was now going to be ready for the 12th.

I tried contacting the new tenants for four days but unfortunately he had given me his old cell number and even though there was still an answering machine attached to it to leave messages, it wasn’t until later that I learned he never listens to them anymore. This hardly helped me as I was attempting to contact them to advise them that their move in date had to be changed.

Of course, they showed up on the 12th at which time, I advised them that the unit was not ready. The ceramic floors still needed to be installed as well as the new vanity and toilet. I said that it would be best for everyone if we rescheduled their move in date until at least Jan 15th. This would give us loads of time to complete everything that needed to be done. He put up such a fuss saying that he had a truck and that it was already loaded, blah, blah, blah.

I said that anytime I had let tenants into a unit prior to it being finished that this had come back to haunt me and that I was extremely reluctant allowing this to occur. He absolutely promised me that this would not be an issue at all, that he just had to get out of his mother’s place. I wasn’t quite as confident that’s for sure. I told him that three days with an empty unit would absolutely guarantee the work would be done, but once they had moved in, I told him that in all probability the exact same work would end up dragging on for a good ten days minimum. He would hear nothing of this so against my better judgment, I allowed them to move their stuff into their unit.

As you can well imagine, this has been nothing short of a nightmare. I knew I should have gone with my gut. Never again, ever. He has turned into the worst kind of anal retentive individual imaginable causing me all kinds of grief and one huge, never ending headache. He is all kinds of selfish and not at all as easygoing as he wants to believe that he is and actually thinks that he is…Too much!!!

TO BE CONTINUED

The Return of the Thin White Duke

And she is back…not with a bang but a whimper! Kidding. Finally, I’ve gotten off of my lazy arse and had the internet reconnected at our new place. I suppose that its been long overdue as I’m rapidly nearing my two month anniversary at my new job. My how very easily time manages to slip away.All is extremely well in my little part of the world although a little bit on the busy side but I honestly prefer it this way rather than the other. Idle hands and all…

My new job has been going spectacularly well which definitely has been an extremely pleasant and welcome surprise considering how shattered leaving the previous one had left me. Even though I was having my share of real negative and depressing thoughts regarding the whole employment situation barely two months ago, I managed to keep my head above water and did not succumb to temptation. Yes, there were some floating thoughts in that particular direction because that would have been an easy way out but these thoughts managed to float on by. I knew that in the long term this would have done no one any favors so it was surprisingly easy to ignore the short term temptations.

I wish that I had a bit more time right now to really post a proper update but I’ve got to run as it is starting to get late and although I don’t have to get up at an indecent hour for work, I do have to meet my Mother in the morning for a bit of shopping and lunch and I want to be in fighting form. The last thing I want to look like when we meet is all haggard and tired cause I’m not up for one of her lectures, blah, blah, blah. It can most definitely be a bit on the petty side on my part, but because of our history I usually ensure that I’m looking better than fine whenever we get together. This is a story for another day so for now, you’ll just have to use your imaginations although I’m sure there is another daughter out there with an identical type of mother who knows of what I speak!!!

P.S. You may have noticed that I’ve added three other posts although they’ve all got dates from November 2007. After my internet had been disconnected from our previous address but before I dismantled my computer for our move, I continued to write entries saving them to my hard drive until a moment just like this one could arrive!!!