Apartment Confidential

 

Hi. Well I’m hitting that time of year again when I move or think about moving. I’m turning into a drifter. No wonder it seems like Trump has been President forever: for me his Inauguration is 3 towns and 4 apartments ago. But I thought I would offer an exciting tour guide through all the apartments I’ve lived in since adulthood drove its tentacles in me.

 

First stop on our tour guide is 33 Windermere Avenue in Vernon, CT. This is the only place on the list I saw for the first time the day I moved in. My dad found it for me. I probably should have been independent enough in my activities of daily living to find my own place but………... Not having a car was a contributing factor so let’s go with that. I had been living back in Storrs for a year even though I had graduated and I hadn’t talked myself into enrolling in grad school so I worked in a sheltered workshop for the blind in the Elmwood section of West Hartford and drank heavily on weekends instead. Over 2 hour commute to work each and every day just so I could still go to Ted’s and Spring Weekend. Adulthood won the war, but I fought that battle with pretty dogged determination.   

 

But as my friend and I were set to have to give back the apartment we were subletting for the summer, homelessness was a semi-realistic possibility so my Dad went apartment hunting for me.

 

I was pretty scared moving there. I had to fight back tears saying goodbye to my friends when I moved out. I wanted it to be college forever and I had never lived by myself before and I was afriad I might slide down a downward spiral of loneliness and despair. But, like most everything else, it worked out and wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared.  

 

The place wasn’t bad. Bedroom in the front, living room in the back. A balcony! And a big sliding glass door! Unfortunately, I mostly used the balcony to smoke. But it was on that balcony one winter night when I decided to give up smoking for good. I thought, “I’m sitting out in the cold breathing in poison!”. I would put my ashes into a giant plastic cup because I never bought an ash tray—because an ash tray would symbolize a commitment to smoking. I tossed that cup which had become rather disgusting with ashes in the garbage.

 

Unfortunately, the walls in this place were PAPER THIN. I was the proud owner of a neighbor enraging giant Sony stereo which included a sub woofer. Because it’s all about dat bass. And I had my Fender Stratocaster with a Crate amplifier (good clean tone with built in chorus, distortion sounded like a hive of very angry bees). There was a gray haired gentleman living next door who was clearly not a big Rage Against The Machine or The Beastie Boys fan. At first, he played nice. I got a polite friendly reminder from the office staff. Then one night I slipped up again and heard pounding on my door. Of course I couldn’t hear everything he said what with the music and everything but after turning it down I caught, “………………………PAIN IN MY ASS!!!!!!!!”.

 

So I kept it pretty quiet after that.

 

But my neighbors downstairs weren’t quiet little mice either. They were a couple who fought frequently and I could hear every single argument. But their relationship appeared to be built on an endless cycle of fighting and making up. And I could always hear them making up too. Sunday mornings seemed to be a favourite time of the week for loud, passionate let’s-never-fight-again reconciliation.   

 

I watched the UConn men win their first national championship over Duke in this apartment (wishing I could be on campus getting obliterated in celebration and watching idiots burn mattresses because that’s what school spirit is all about). I watched Pedro Martinez strike out 17 Yankees while I drank a bottle of wine that had been given to me by my boss the previous Christmas. But I was so poor I didn’t have cable most of the time I was there. Once in a while I would splurge and rent a movie form the video store down the street and that was it. Fight Club, The Blair Witch Project…all the hot new releases. No computer either! No Internet, very little TV. It was glorious. I walked down to the Rockville library and checked out books and read a lot. I also (quietly) practiced my guitar a lot. The simple unplugged days.

 

I lived there for 2 years. I might have stayed longer but---story of my life---transportation issues surfaced. Another thing my Dad had done before I moved in was hook me up with a ride by posting an ad in the paper offering payment to someone to drive me to Hartford every weekday. (I did pay myself—for the record). I still had to take a bus from downtown to Elmhood, but this cut my commute time tremendously over taking a bus from Vernon—which took a long scenic route through beautiful Manchester. But my driver was a bit crazy. He drove people with disabilities for a living and I’m convinced people’s driving skills erode the more they drive. They lose ALL patience on the road. First incident was in a snowstorm where we hydroplaned and did a 360 spin on a Jersey barrier. By some miracle no car hit us--probably because they were actually driving slow in the snow! My man thought because he had an SUV he could drive like it was 75 and sunny. I decided to give him one more chance but promised myself I would fire him if anything else happened. The following summer he hit a girl in front of us who stopped at a red light. Just a fender bender but still. He blamed her for stopping too quickly but I think he was tailing her too close. Admittedly, I took the cowardly way out of firing him: I left him a voice mail. But this forced me to take 2 long buses. I probably plowed through One Hundered Years Of Solitude and Love In The Time Of Cholera and Catch 22 on the bus in three weeks flat. Plus I had gotten promoted and now had money to burn so might as well move to place with more entertainment options to walk to than Video Galaxy and Kahoots. A gentleman’s club. I might have gone there a couple times…..don’t judge. I didn’t have cable. So it was on to…………………..  

 

Downtown Hartford! Way easier commute. Walking distance to UConn games and concerts. The Brickyard was still open! Heaven had a name and it was Hartford. 

 

But like seemingly every move I’ve ever made, it was a tradeoff. Gone was my lovely balcony. My sole window offered a breathtaking view of a dumpster in the back parking lot. My reasonably spacious 1 bedroom Vernon apartment was replaced by a tiny studio. And, you know, Hartford ambiance. My Dad—former Hartford cop---read me the riot act about NOT letting panhandlers take advantage, about NOT walking up Garden Street….. All in all, this very non-street smart country boy managed fine in my seven years in Hartford. 

 

Well……there was one glaring exception. In 2003 I had been laid off and was out of work for 7 months. Being a bit depressed over this situation, I was smart enough to mostly avoid drinking—both alcohol and coffee. One Saturday I bought a six pack but decided to not even drink it! But by Sunday it was just screaming my name from my fridge so I drank a few and then ventured to the bars. Hartford bars on a Sunday night………..kind of scary territory here. No lightweights or college freshman with fake ID’s on this night. Hard core alcoholics, Suge Knight acolytes……that sort of clientele. I decided to have a nightcap in the heart of darkness itself: The Federal Café. Established 1934. HOW do they stay in business? I’ve probably just seen too many movies, but they’re a money laundering front for the mob I just know it.  

 

As I was walking out, a woman probably late 20’s/early 30’s approached me and asked if I lived nearby. Foolishly, I said I did. She said she had to go get her kids who were with their father but she had to call them but she didn’t have a phone (still semi-plausible in 2003) so could she just use my phone and she’d be right on her way? I wisely said no. Then I said no again. Then I said okay sure. Did I mention I had been drinking since mid-eafternoon?

 

So of course she makes herself at home. Asked if I had any I had anything to drink. I think I still had a beer or two but I can’t remember. She tells me she worked at The Meadows and has met all the stars. Dave Matthews? Moody. Of course starts to flirt. Asks why I don’t have a girlfriend “as cute as you are”.

 

Finally she left. I woke up the next day with a SCREAMING hangover. Maybe getting daydrinking till 1 AM after having not drank anything at all in a few months was a bad idea. But I heard a call coming in on my answering machine. “Hey Ryan, it’s Sheila! I was wondering when I can come over today?”. I didn’t recall inviting her over. Then another voice mail. Then another. Each one getting a little angrier about me not picking up the phone. Feeling slightly freaked out, I took the bus to Buckland Mall and bought my very first cell phone. Suddenly landlines with their scary answering machines seemed like the spawn of Satan. Shortly after I get home, I got a call from the building security guard saying there’s someone there to see me! I go downstairs and she gives me a big hug like she’s never been happier to see anyone in her entire life. She had a book in her hand about depression. Asks if she can use my bathroom. Again, I think I said no but she knew by now that no meant yes. I said okay but you have to leave RIGHT AFTER. She promises. She goes to the bathroom and then says “Do you mind if I close the shade? I want to show you the new underwear my mom bought for me”. Not really sure if I even answered. She pulls down her pants and shows me a pink pair of panties. Also noticed that she was really, really skinny. I’m probably lucky I was so hungover and just wanted all this to go away or I MIGHT have made a poor decision and succumbed to the charms of this likely junkie? Prostitute? STD sufferer? Home invader? Instead I said, “You have to leave right now!”. So she starts leaving and I said, “And don’t come here unannounced again!”. She said okay. I was a jerk but at that point I felt like I had no choice.

 

But it wasn’t quite over. About a week later I get a call on my landline. “Is Sheila there?”. A guy’s voice. I said no. “She told me she’s staying there”. I said, “No she’s not staying here!”. He said, “She fucked up?”. I said, “Yes”. He said, “She always fucks up”.

 

Next day I called and cancelled my landline phone account.

 

But poor Sheila proved to only be the second most troublesome pest that entered my first Hartford apartment. One night I woke up itching. Soon after I noticed these creepy tiny black bugs on me. You could easily smoosh them and you would see this trace amount of red blood on your finger. Don’t even go there animal rights activists….come back and see after you’ve lived with, you guessed it, bedbugs. This. Was. Awful. Kind of hard to sleep. I would itch and scratch like a manic until I developed these big blotchy red marks all over my legs. I started thinking what if it’s not bedbugs like it seems and I have some awful medical condition?? I went to the ER and they gave me Prednisone. This did help reduce the itching tremendously. For a while. Because a new army of bedbug reinforcements was ready to do more damage. I went back to the ER and got prescribed a SECOND course of Prednisone. I think I reported the problem to management but my AC was broken that summer and they wouldn’t even fix that so an exterminator was out of the question. God was good, though. My lease was up at the end of August and after 7 years, I finally took everyone’s advice and moved to West Hartford Center. To free up quick cash for rent and security deposit, I even sold one my guitars—allowing Guitar Center to fleece me since I didn’t have time to do Ebay. So long Hartford, we’ll always have the Pig’s Eye Pub.

 

My first WeHa apt was pretty nice. It was very bright and sunny as it faced south with no trees blocking the light. And while relatively small, it was a 1 bedroom palace compared to my Hartford studio. Even the Peapod delivery girl was impressed. She said, “This apartment is much nicer than your old one”.

 

I moved two months before Blue Back Square opened. I was shocked to discover there were no bars! There were restaurants with bars in them but the days of McLadden’s and World Of Beer were still a couple years away. They were still pretending to be a quaint little village or something. But this was good. I had drank quite my share in my Hartford days—block parties, Great Band Slams, concerts, games, staying out till last call! I almost welcomed the quieter, more boring life of not drinking much and going to the newly opened movie theatre every Saturday night.

 

Oh…..but I took the bedbugs with me! I must have taken them along when I packed. They are truly evil. The outbreak wasn’t as severe but I actually had to hire an exterminator to come two different times the following summer before they were finally gone. (Why do I feel like getting rid of Trump will proceed in a very similar fashion?).  

 

Not really proud of this but one of my fondest memories of this apt was waking up one Sunday morning in my sunsplashed bed to a dream where I was at The White House during the Kennedy Administration and I was chatting up Jackie and she seemed to think I was one devilishly charming SOB so I found myself getting a bit handsy shall we say? Not quite in a Trumpian way….but…. never mind. Listen, Jack was a serial cheater so this was a victimless crime! But I started looking around hoping the Secret Service wasn’t looking and getting ready to gun me down for getting way, way too familiar with The First Lady. Then I woke up. I mentioned this was a cool dream, right?

 

But like every other apartment I’ve lived in, problems arose. Namely, an upstairs neighbour that moved in. He wasn’t a fan of my guitar playing. Or even of music I played out of my computer speakers. He pounded on the floor a few times. One night he called the cops! I had already turned off the music when the cop showed up so that was a non event. But---and isn’t this always how it is?---he was loud himself! He had the heaviest foot of anyone I’ve ever met. Yes, the walls were thin. But he would walk (stomp?) around his apartment literally all hours of the night. I swear he slept 2 hours a night. And thanks to him, so did I. I tried earplugs. I tried a fan. I tried leaving the TV on. I bought noise cancelling headphones. Nothing helped. Finally I moved to another unit in the complex just to prevent slipping off the precipice into total madness. They had no 1 bedrooms on the second floor (after this I would rather die than take another 1^st floor unit) so I took a much more expensive townhouse instead.

 

This place was BLISSFULLY silent. My first night going to bed and hearing not a sound coming through the ceiling might have been one of the happiest nights of my life. Another amazing benefit I later discovered: I could set up speakers strategically so that I could play music as loud as I wanted without anyone complaining!

 

But……………………………and why do all the apartments I’ve lived in have a but?.......this place was kind of lonely feeling. It was on top of a large upward slopping quadrangle removed from the street. And it was off on the far left of a back row of apartments. And it wasn’t nearly as bright. There were light blocking trees all around. Winters started to feel pretty depressing there. It was starting to feel time to get a change of scenery from West Hartford after almost ten years.

 

My new property manager Mike did me a favor by providing the push I needed to finally move on. Early in the winter, I noticed my heat was barely working. I made a service request. He said the maintenance guy showed up with a temp reader and said it was 68 so there was no problem whatsoever. I said maybe on a sunny day at 3PM it was 68 but by night time and early morning it’s cold. He had him go back….same response. So he was refusing to fix my heat?? I decided to go over his head and call corporate headquarters. They came back, did something to open the vents and it worked better the rest of the winter. Why did that have to be so hard? Apparently not willing to accept this emasculating defeat, he sent me a nasty, vaguely threatening letter saying my apartment wasn’t clean and he would be back to inspect it on December 20^th. I hired cleaners to make it super clean. He came back---with the maintenance guy. Was he planning to evict me and wanted a reinforcement if I went postal? Anyway, he agreed it was much better. But I knew it was time to GTFO when my lease ran out a couple months later.

 

But…..Brooksyde Apartment still had a parting gift in store for me. One early spring day I came back from running and a neighbor’s loud yapping dog was out unsupervised on a leash in the ground. I came too close and he bit me on the left butt cheek! I politely noted this to the owners a few days later and they were incredulous. Not their adorable little pooch! One day soon after I was again coming back from jogging (this time sticking to the other side of the quad) but the dog was on a leash in a different spot and he got to me again and bit me on the leg! I complained to my frienemy property manager but God knows if he did anything. It was time to move on to………………..

 

Glastonbury. This was a really nice apartment. 2 bedroom again—they didn’t have 2^nd floor 1 BR’s at the time so I said screw it. Beautiful hardwood floors instead of the horrible beige carpeting I had been living with for nearly 20 years. A pool! A gym! Two wall AC’s! All amenities my WeHa apartment lacked but they still charged slightly more in rent. The property manager Kristen was actually nice and responded to maintenance calls!

 

I even kind of befriended a couple neighbors—a rarity in apartment land in my experience. Then again I’m not a social butterfly with strangers. But an Indian family lived below and they had two grammar school aged boys. One liked to play 20 Questions with me. “Is your bathroom the same as ours?”. “Are you single?”. Many other rather random questions I’m forgetting. But it always seemed like he was breaking the rules by talking to me since he would run if he saw his mom—who I’m guessing was stranger danger wary.

 

But by between West Harford and Glastonbury I had been taking two buses to get to work for 11 years. Occasionally getting rides but mostly busing it. I was feeling burnt out on that and yearned for the blissful one bus commute only possible if I moved back to Hartford. My last night there was Halloween two years ago. My downstairs neighbors and their friends knocked on my door Trick Or Treating. I was so sad because A) I hadn’t prepared with candy and B) I was moving to an apartment building in Hartford the following day where I knew there was no chance I’d ever see a Trick Or Treater. The cold and scary city awaited me!

 

My first place back in New England’s Rising Star was pretty nice—a corner unit, reasonably big for a one bedroom, hardwood floors, laundry and dryer in the unit. But darkness was an issue again. Not trees, but the monstrosity of the XL Center across the street. I might have just lived with it for more than a year but by this time I had a cat. I felt so guilty moving her there. She loves to sit in the sun and there was very little sun. In GBury she loved to sit at the windowsill and stalk birds but nothing but concrete out the window now.

 

So I moved to my current abode: south facing, much more sun, facing Bushnell Park with trees out the window. And $200 cheaper. I thought I had hit the jackpot. This place sucks. The carpet has stains that were there the day I moved in and my attempt to get them cleaned fell on deaf ears. There’s a water fountain in the hallway but there was something someone threw in there the day I moved in that no one had bothered removing. The washers and dryers don’t work half the time. It took 3 maintenance calls to get my toilet fixed and 4 to get a broken blind fixed. And it’s just a bit too small. Has the layout of a glorified studio. I’m too old for this shit. And recently a neighbor moved in one side who complains about the slightest noise and another neighbor moved in with an obnoxiously loud German Shepherd and they play obnoxiously loud music. Knock on wood, they’ve been quiet the last couple weeks after I made multiple complaints to management. I can’t win! Every apartment I move to has pros and cons but is never any sort of dream home. Have I become too picky? I don’t know.

 

But my lease is almost up and Covid complicates my choices. I have an option to go to a place on Arch Street on just a six month lease. This would let me continue going into my office—almost everyone is working from home but I realized I hated my apartment so much I would go insane spending all my time there. The other option……………..move back to my old apartment complex in Glastonbury. Who moves back to the same complex they already lived in? Maybe this guy. It’s familiar, now’s not the time for apartment hunting, it would also only be a six month lease, it might make a great Covid winter quarantine shelter from the storm….. So I might do that. Only problem…..after not having switched to teleworking from the beginning I’m afraid I will hate it even in a much bigger, nicer apartment. But I might find I actually love it and when will this chance come again………………? It occurs to me I’ve come full circle and my work from home fear mirrors my fear of living alone in my first apartment.

 

When this is all over I need to find a condo or small house! All this wandering is making me tired.