.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

Dear Internet,

I baked.

OH HOW I BAKED! I baked and I said “ooh! I’m going to take pictures and I’m going to share these with you, internet!”

Here’s what you need to know.

Midwest, what is wrong with you?

1. We just wanted to buy some fresh veggies to have at home for dinner…They were full of insects when we got them home from the farmers market.

2. That above scenario happened with the vegetables we bought from THREE different farmers markets.

3. I tried to make rye bread. Total disaster.

4. Tried to make whoopie pies…too humid here for them to set.

5. Made ice cream sandwiches…which, even though we transported them immediately to the freezer, melted into a giant puddle of ice cream sandwich.

Maybe it’s true what they say, if you don’t use it, you lose it.  For now I’m frustrated with you, Midwest.  I’m going to try again. Maybe I’ll try my old recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies which wouldn’t work in the Northwest.  I was unprepared for the learning curve of baking skills.  I had forgotten how many messed up batches of everything I made after my first move.

Internet…stay tuned.

This is a public service announcement. You can have it be with guitars if you so desire.

(Does anyone know what I’m talking about when I say that or does everyone just think I’m crazy?)

Anyway.

To all future landlords:

Look, I get it. You happened upon this house, you want to rent it out. I APPLAUD YOU. Those of us who will probably be lifelong renters, we love you.  I lack the commitment to stay in one place long enough to purchase, so, yes, I’ll rent. I’ll happily rent! I’ll keep your house clean! Probably much cleaner than any other renter you’ve ever had! Just ask my Republi-Dad, he understands my neuroses! I use natural cleaners! I bake REALLY good Christmas treats that I will bring to you!

That is, unless you’re like the past 3 landlords I’ve had.  Look, I’m not that difficult.  I mean, wait, maybe I am. But the thing is, I lived in 3 different apartments from my start sophomore year of college until my 5th year senior year of college and I had 3 AMAZING landlords, who never acted like I was some sort of problem.  I left those apartments looking nicer than when I happened upon them! I mean, you should just ask The Nicest Lady Ever about the Daycare House. I forgot some stuff when I moved out, but I KEPT THAT PLACE NICE! And occasionally when I got bored I cleaned the daycare. NO ONE COMPLAINS ABOUT THAT. I am not that difficult. I just require that things be clean when I move in, in working order, and in general not sucky. The place doesn’t even have to be THAT clean, I understand that I’m insane and will have to clean no matter what.  You think you’ve cleaned everywhere, OH I’M SORRY YOU DIDN’T CLEAN THE INSIDE OF THE DISHWASHER. OH YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE TOPS OF THE CABINETS? YOU FORGOT TO VACUUM OUT THE WINDOWS? OH TOO BAD!

I GET IT.

But seriously, when there’s mold, that’s your job.  I’ve now lived in THREE consecutive places where the landlords have casually disregarded my problems with the mold in their rentals. Dude. It’s mold. That’s gross.

But, internet, let’s forget about the problems with the old places and just focus on this new place. OH THIS NEW PLACE.

The sister came down to scout out some homes and said this one was the best of all of them. The others must have really been shining examples of awesome!

SO! The New Landlord (NL) told her he was showing the house again that night and I guess gave her the impression that we needed to jump on it or we’d lose it. SO I DID. He was pretty insistent that we get him money AND FAST! SO I DID. Then he says “we’re going to set your move in date for Tuesday! But if the current renters are out by Sunday night, you can move in Monday!” OKAY! GREAT! FABULOUS! NL calls and says “They’re out! I need to do a few touch ups, but you can move in!” So I consult Republi-Dad, who says “Well, I have Monday off, let’s move all your stuff into the garage.” SO WE DID.  Then we walked in and I was able to inspect…

the “touch ups” were laughable, whole walls needed to be painted, the paint was dirty and scuffed and gross.

The “clean carpet” is filthy and tearing up in places.  I have only been able to vacuum one room so far and my vacuum is so full of cat hair it hardly runs.

The bathrooms are full of mold and water damaged paint.

He “touched up” paint in the bathrooms with a different color, then repainted the walls but didn’t paint all the way to the ceiling, leaving an inch of a different color.

The doors to several of the other rooms are hollow core doors…with holes in them. Nothing screams “WELCOME BACK TO MIDDLE AMERICA” like white trash holes in your hollow core doors.

We have one of those side by side fridges with the ice maker and stuff in the door, which doesn’t function, I wouldn’t mind this other than the fact that THE ICE MAKER TAKES UP 90% OF OUR FREEZER, plus someone left us 2 bags of ice, an ice bucket and then we had 3 ice trays, SO MOST OF OUR FREEZER SPACE IS GONE.

The windows have water damage which has caused the paint to fall off and mold to grow, but after telling him this he said “oh that’s because of the sweat from the AC, you just have to deal with that.”

the lights in the kitchen and living room do not work, well, that’s not true, about every other time you try they work.

The disposal switch is bad, The Boyfriend offered to replace it and NL said “OH NO, I’LL HAVE AN ELECTRICIAN COME IN TO LOOK AT IT”

This is where my main problems lie, NL has said he’ll be in EVERY NIGHT since we’ve moved in, we still haven’t been able to fully unpack because of the work he plans to get done, but never seems to actually do.  WE EVEN OFFERED TO JUST DO THE STUFF AND TAKE SOME MONEY OFF OUR RENT SO THAT WE CAN GET IT DONE.  I’m just really not awesome at living in chaos and so far my home is chaos, my classroom is chaos (but much less so than my home.) and I’m pretty much freaking out at every turn.

I really truly thought after we left Old Landlord that things would be better, no more having to deal with horrible landlord and his inability to take care of anything! I WAS WRONG.

So here’s my advice, future landlords of America.

JUST DON’T DO IT.  If you don’t ACTUALLY want to perform some upkeep on your rentals, DON’T HAVE THEM. Or at the very least, give your renters the ability to do the work themselves so it gets done in a timely manner.

OH! and in closing. MOLD IS NOT OKAY. MOLD IS NEVER OKAY. MOLD IS NOT SOMETHING YOU JUST GET TO IGNORE.

Love,

FTHW

P.S. I’m going to work in my room stinky today because we don’t have any shower curtains because NL decided he was too busy to come over last night and finish the bathrooms. <3<3<3

Wow. Long time no see, internet.  Sorry about that.  I do really really promise that within the next two weeks I’m going to bake something.  But before all that gets to happen some other things need to happen.

Let’s start from the beginning….

About 2 and a half weeks ago a giant ABF freight truck showed up to our lovely townhouse and I packed about a million boxes into it and it was a pain and I ended up with bruises the size of Alabama all over my arms and legs.  The Boyfriend really just watched and clapped as I stumbled up this steep ramp with boxes that weigh 500 pounds.  He really wasn’t any help at all. (You know he doesn’t read this blog so it’s okay to say that. haha)

Now you’d think it’d be so nice to get that moving part out of the way, right? If you think that you would most definitely be wrong. We moved everything out of the house and were then sleeping on a twin sized air mattress with no pots and pans, BUT DON’T WORRY I KEPT OUT SOME SILVERWARE AND PLASTIC PLATES! Mostly ever since then we haven’t been able to eat real food and have survived on fast food.

I’M NOT SURE IF YOU GUYS KNOW THIS ABOUT ME OR NOT, BUT I BASICALLY DIE AFTER I HAVEN’T EATEN REALLY FOOD IN ABOUT 2 DAYS.

I always THINK I’m really going to like not having to cook and not having to clean up, but then I start to get all those preservatives into me and it’s like my entire life stops. You’ve eaten nothing but frozen meats, FTHW? OH WELL, HAVE FUN. YOU’RE PROBABLY GOING TO YELL AT EVERYONE THAT WALKS NEAR YOU. START YOUR LIFE AS A CRAZY HOMELESS PERSON IN PIONEER SQUARE!!

So anyway, we somehow survive the days between truck leaving and us leaving. We pack up the car with the remainders…OH BOY WAS I HAPPY WITH THAT SCENARIO.We got the car alllll packed up, but the only way to fit all of our stuff into the car was for my seat to be pushed all the way forward and the back leaned straight up. Look, I can hardly handle sitting in a car 10 minutes, let alone 2 and a half days, and sitting like that WAS GOING TO BE AWESOME. We had a couple of Netflix movies and I had my laptop and a little outlet thingy to be plugged into the whole time, but it didn’t really help, even then we had to get out of the car like every 7 miles so I could run around.  If you guys have kids and want them to go somewhere but don’t think you can handle them in the car that long, send them to The Boyfriend, my car riding skills have trained him well.

Anyway, we’re talking about chaos, not my inability to sit still.

So, anyway, The Worlds Worst Landlord comes over the morning we are to leave and I proceed to be angry and yell at him because 1. I haven’t eaten real food in a week and 2. he’s awful. WWL won’t even speak to me by the end of our walk through.  Something to do with me telling him if he wants to be a slum lord that’s his problem, not mine. I don’t know, whatever.

Then we drive. And we drive and we drive and we drive and one day we get to my Republi-Dad’s house.  OH BOY YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. Republi-Dad is all “Hey favorite child, let’s get you some fruit! Let me make you a salad! Let me shower you with love and praise!”  I love my Republi-Dad.  I love that we were watching TV and Republi-Dad turns to me and says…”Man…Who really thinks pro-life is the only option?” UM HELLO REPUBLI-DAD, I THINK YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO THINK THAT. That’s what the elephant says!

So onward, There is stuff everywhere. Stuff on a truck in Republi-Dad’s driveway, stuff in The Boyfriend’s car, Stuff in The Republi-Dad’s house! STUFF STUFF STUFF STUFF STUFF. I HATE STUFF.  I love things when they’re put away but man, sitting around everywhere makes me want to die.

THIS IS WHERE THE CHAOS STARTS TO SET IN.

There is still stuff in the new rental.  Previous tenants havent’ moved out. OH NOOOOO. Once they finally do, they leave a house full of walls that are scuffed and messed up and broken things and THEY SAID I COULD MOVE IN ON MONDAY. Monday turns to Tuesday and Tuesday turns into “we’ll have to come by next week and do some work on the house while you’re already moved in.”  So we were able to move our stuff in, but not able to actually put it away.

This resulted in me screaming at The Boyfriend at the top of every hour because I CAN’T FIND ANYTHING WITH THE HOUSE LIKE THIS! and IF HE WOULD JUST WORK A LITTLE FASTER OUR FURNITURE WOULD BE PUT TOGETHER BY NOW! and WHY AM I THE ONLY ONE UNPACKING BOXES!? WE DON’T NEED THE INTERNET RIGHT THIS SECOND IT CAN WAIT!

Really, it was a rough few days. PLUS! halfway through the move I realize, uhhh, where is my computer? Have you seen my computer? No? WE LEFT IT AT REPUBLI-DAD’S?! OH GREAT! So Internet, I wasn’t just letting you down by telling The Boyfriend he couldn’t set up the internet 12 seconds after they turned it on, I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A COMPUTER SO IT DIDN’T MATTER.

This post is to be continued because, well, THERE IS STILL JUNK EVERYWHERE. You know, I love my The Boyfriend, but there are a few things about him that BASICALLY WANT ME TO CUT HIS ARMS OFF AND STICK THEM UP HIS NOSE. For instance, as we were packing I said “hey, I’m making a bag of things to send to goodwill, if you have anything, put it in there and I’ll drop it off before we leave.” and he says “I don’t have anything to get rid of!” Yeah? YEAH? IS THAT RIGHT? YOU MEAN THAT CLOSET FULL OF T-SHIRTS THAT YOU NEVER WEAR NEED TO BE SAVED?! Look, I understand, I own somewhere around 3494357980 pairs of shoes, but, I purged like half of them when I moved up the first time, and purged about half of that when we moved back. Moving less crap means LESS WORK. And when I’m the one doing all the packing, it’s time to purge.

So, today, I’m going to spend the day making my classroom look less like the mess at my home while The Boyfriend deals with The Landlord and The Junk.  Then, hopefully, maybe, before long I can bake for you. The Boyfriend is really dying for Whoopie Pies and for some reason The Sister (who I might call The Stupid on this case) thinks she isn’t going to like them. If my Republi-Dad read this blog, he would tell her to stuff it, because I made him whoopie pies when he came up to visit and he and The Boyfriend ate them all in like 10 seconds.