Victim of Crime Part II

So after Jim and I got home from the cop shop last Saturday, Sara mentioned that while she was out in the lobby mopping the floors – she recently got a part time job with the same company that Jim and I work for – some crazy lady approached her to ask her for a light for her smoke. Sara said that she did not have one and tried to return to her work. The next thing, she is chasing after this chick who apparently just took it upon herself to walk straight into our apartment. As Sara was going after her, Katie looked up from what she was reading and noticed this strange woman standing in the middle of our living room.

Both of them confronted her, demanding that she get out of our home ASAP. Good for them, yet still kind of creepy. The girls obviously shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like this either. Anyway, later on that day, I went up to work in the same unit that my purse had been taken from the night before. About a half an hour into my work there, I heard the handle of the front door. It was as if someone was shaking it or trying to get into the unit. I quietly walked down the hall to look out of the peep hole to see who it was but I couldn’t see anything. All of a sudden I heard Jim’s voice asking someone why they were trying to enter this unit.

As she was about to answer, I opened the door to see Jim and this obviously cracked out woman standing in the hall. From their right, I also noticed that Sara was now coming down the hall. I asked her if this was the same woman that was in our apartment earlier today and she said yes. I read the riot act to her, especially as she is not even a tenant of this apartment building – sadly, she is actually somebody’s mother!

I’ve had a couple of run ins with this lady. Recently, I found her standing in the middle of our lobby nodding off. I had to wake her up from her nod to find out what she was even doing there. To Jim’s earlier question, she had some lame answer that she thought that this was the apartment of the guy she was supposed to meet for dinner. A bloody likely story I might add. When I told this to my Regional Manager, she said that this individual had beern caught the week prior trying to get into units at the sister buiding right beside ours. She is now going to get a trespassing order taken out on her so that it will be illegal for her to even be on any of these properties.

I am pretty confident that she was the one that beat me for my purse that Friday night also. Nothing I can do about it now although I am sure glad that she didn’t get any cash from me.

Tags: LIFE, TENANTS, WORK

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!!!

Day By Day

Well our first day went as well as I had hoped. It kind of dragged the first part of the day but once we had finished lunch, the rest of the day went along at a nice pace. My nerves are not so much of an issue any more which obviously is a good thing. Right in the middle of all this chaos I decided that lowering my daily dose of methadone would be a great idea. Duh!!!

The first week that I dropped – I went from 80ml to 75ml – didn’t even seem to notice the drop although I somehow managed to go to the clinic each day at approx the same time so I was on a pretty regular 24 hour schedule. Today I didn’t manage to make it to the clinic until just after 6pm and by this time, almost thirty fours hours had elapsed since my previous dose. While I didn’t feel that it was glaringly apparent I was out of kilter, I definitely felt a little off.

I had none of the tell tale typical “withdrawal” side effects but by the time I was finishing up work for the day my body certainly was starting to feel achy all over as well as becoming kind of stiff. My skin also started to become extremely sensitive to near everything. The contractor that arrived to steam clean the bedroom that is to be Sara and Katie’s had been working barely ten minutes – plus I was three rooms removed from the room that he was cleaning – when I could feel my skin start to break out rapidly in hives. I could not get out of our new apartment fast enough. It was most disturbing.

So what we’ve decided would be the smartest thing to do is to go to the clinic each day in the morning before we have to start work. Even though we have yet to move over to the new building, we have started to manage it and currently we are working Monday to Friday 9am until 5pm so we’ve got plenty of time to get our daily dose prior to work. This way also, we’ll have the benefit of the methadone’s full effect I should imagine as well as continuing with a fairly regular schedule.

Plus the last thing that anyone really wants to do after a full day at work is to have to face a crowded forty minute bus ride halfway across town. Much better to get this all finished first thing. No more worries.

Bright Beginnings

OK so in just over an hour I am due to start my new job. To say that I am nervous would pretty much be the understatement of the century. Yes, I am definitely excited and extremely grateful that I have a new job to go to considering it has barely been two weeks since I lost my last one. But, still…

I’ve not yet recovered from the fact that very shortly we’re to lose what I have come to consider our home. We’ve been displaced for all intent and purposes. It sickens me and has made me more bitter than anything else has ever done before in my entire life. This alone is something to be sure.

Now I Am At Peace

Well we are now pretty much settled into our new job and home. The first month is behind us and seeing how we both managed to survive the insanity of managing a 240 plus unit luxury highrise thus far, it can only mean smooth sailing from here on in! So far, so good. I wasn’t quite sure what I would actually think about this position when we first started, but now I have to admit that I actually really enjoy it.

Our “hours” are 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday plus we are “on call” every other weekend and every Tuesday and Thursday night, so not so bad. We got our first full pay check almost two weeks ago and after taxes, we cleared just shy of $1200 which is pretty darn good when you take into consideration that our rent, utilities, cable, phone and internet is also looked after before we actually receive this pay. We literally have no bills to speak of any more, so when this is factored into the whole equation, a net amount of $2400/month to use as our disposable income is pretty kickass. It’s definitely the best place financialy that we’ve been able to manage this past decade.

On top of this, I also receive $565/month from my father’s estate and I will for the next fourteen months to come, plus, Jim gets $200/week or approx $800/month from his parents and will continue to receive for the next few months also. So altogether, it looks as if we now have a take home income of $3765 each month for the very near future. Finally I’m in a position to buy new furniture for our entire place – have already started with new furniture for our bedrooms and dining room!

I know that its only money and up to this point of my life, I have been the farthest thing imaginable from materialistic, but as my girls get older – and I guess as I, too, get older – it suddenly has started to seem kind of important. Spending the previous five years living pay to pay certainly hasn’t done anything to help this mindset either I must admit. Please don’t crucify me yet, either as I’ve not suddenly taken to getting down on my knees to thank the god almighty of money – not yet, anyway!

One Day At A Time

Well I guess that I should fill you all into what has actually been happening in my life recently. Me and mine have been fairly busy as we attempt to adjust to our new home as well as new jobs, not to mention the simple fact alone that I’ve had to adjust to the fact that I was actually returning to work after such a long period of time off!

With my arm being in the shape that it is now in, coupled with the fact that I had pretty much burned myself out doing tech support just prior to my leaving my job last year, I knew that once the decision had been made for me to return to work that I was going to have to have some form of plan in order for me to be able to try something completely different.

Well, I am pretty confident that I’ve succeeded way beyond my wildest dreams in this particular area.

So please bear with me a little bit. Yes, Jim and I have been doing great with our recovery and MMT, and we certainly are no longer spending the shocking amounts of money that we had been just a year and a half ago. By some sort of miracle we have also managed to dig ourselves out of a pretty deep hole and are no longer in debt. Period. Full stop. Yet, at the same time, we also found ourselves struggling to make any significant financial headway. I know that a combination of events somewhat sabotaged us – my arm breaking didn’t help but it did pretty much result in us having only one provider which just happened to occur at the same time that we experienced another adult sized person joining our family. Yikes. At least we managed to stay afloat.

This situation certainly was fine for the short term but I was beginning to find the whole thing somewhat untenable. Each time I came back from looking at the size of apartment that ideally I wanted in a luxury high rise, the more frustrated everything became. Realistically we were going to have to pay approx $1500 plus on average each month for what I wanted. That amount seemed pretty far out of my reach for the immediate future. Or was it? One day I had a magical and utterly brilliant idea.

Jim and I own a 23 unit, three story walk up apartment building about a half an hour out of town and have owned it since December 2000. This is to be our Freedom 55 as the mortgage will more or less be paid of by then so that when we “retire” we’ll have 23 units multiplied by whatever the rent will be then all to ourselves – less any monthly operating costs, etc. Currently Jim also draws a monthly salary from this business and does the lion’s share of any work required which ends up averaging approx 15 days per month give or take. We also pay one of our tenants a small monthly stipend to keep an eye on everything as we don’t actually reside at the property.

From here, I more or less expanded my idea in the hopes that we could apply – and hopefully get hired – to some of the more desirable high rise apartment buildings in London for the position of Building Manager. I ended up spending a good six plus months researching the various property management companies as well as the types of properties that each company owned. I finally narrowed our choices down to three although I was a little bit unsure of my third choice. As it so happened, we actually got hired by my number one choice so you can well imagine how utterly excited and happy I was. Jim and I are now Building Managers of the property in the photo above this entry.

We started our jobs exactly 12 days ago so we are very much newbies to this particular experience. When I was doing my research, I based my choices on said company’s properties with no actual knowledge of what kind of renumeration that would be offered. As it turns out, this company not only has spectacular buildings, they also have a renumeration package beyond compare.

As well as receiving a three bedroom, two full bathroom 1425 square foot apartment valued at $1500 per month, the company also pays for all of our utilities, telephone, cable, internet and newspaper delivery daily at our doorstep. In three months, we will also have a full benefit package. Our starting salary is $36 000 with a raise also in three months and from then on, a raise on an annual basis. On our third day of employment, I received a call from their main office advising me that our computer was ready for pickup!

I sure am hard pressed to find too many more companies like this one! Of course, I’m sure that you are all thinking that there has to be a catch somewhere and I don’t blame anyone for thinking that either. I sure as heck was waiting nervously for the other shoe to drop so to speak and as of today, I’m still waiting. All of their employees are long term ones with the average length of time with them approx ten years. The only reason that they even had an opening was that they had just completed building a brand new sixteen story building.

Wow, eh? What absolutely blows my mind right now is that we no longer have any bills at all to pay. I asked Jim what I was going to do with my daytimer from now on…That’s not an absolute truth as we still have to pay $300 total each month for our methadone but this too shall disappear in less than three month’s time now. Cool n’est pas?

A Time To Live

A wee bit of excitement on the home front these past two weeks or so. The day before my 43rd birthday, my daughter’s cat had a litter of five kittens. The mother seems to be doing exceptionally well too. This is my first experience, believe it or not as I was denied the privilege of having any kind of pet as a child! I was just as excited as the kids were.

My birthday came and went with relatively little fanfare. You reach a certain age and I guess you really don’t need to be reminded of your diminishing youth. My Mother took me out to lunch which was quite nice all things considering. By this I mean that I have just recently started interacting with my Mother after a seventeen month separation – this is too long a story for today but shortly I think that I’ll be strong enough to share all of its miserable bits with you. My girls bought me a beautiful blank notebook for me to use as my journal and another “coffee table” book on decorating cause that’s one of my passions!

Monday of this week there was a bit of a tragedy in our house as one of the kittens passed way. Unfortunately it was Sara that made the discovery when she had gotten home from school. Jim and I were on our way home when she called us screaming and crying. She took it exceptionally hard and spent most of the night crying and mourning over the loss of the little kitten. We talked quite a bit and the next day she came to me to say that while she was still upset, she would be able to get over it.

So life and death were the two themes of the past half month but at least we’ve all been able to see that silver lining. I will remain an optimist a bit longer it would seem. Cheers!!!