The Lease In The Time Of Covid

The Lease In The Time Of Covid

In March Covid broke out and it seemed like the opportunity for lawlessness burst wide open.  Food shortages, no diapers, people hoarding and landlords showing their teeth.  We had been living in a cute little house in a not so important suburb of Los Angeles for around six years and haggled every year over the legal raise of 75$ a year increase.  The landlord never repaired or made and upgrades then he has the “Hutzpah” to give us an 800 dollar increase or get out when and if Covid even ends.  

After enduring wildfires and living with power outages for weeks, we packed up and went to the desert, but the complex manager refused to show us the unit.  She felt that the pictures were enough and insisted that we apply and pay a deposit before we could see the unit.  She also said that it was the only vacancy, so we had better decide.  At 4:45 on Friday we gave into this evil realtor and waited in a hotel down the street for the weekend.  Then we checked out the town.  A backwards approach I know. I am a silly hapless romantic who sees everything with rose colored glasses.  It will all turn out ok, right? 

On the paperwork she mistakenly listed the unit number and after out hotel muffin and bitter dregs of 5-year-old tea bags, we drove to the complex.  Our unit was smack up against a fence with the major thru fare of the little town with 8 lanes of traffic heavy day and night.  We also saw the overflowing trash and heard the heavy security gate clacking open, squeaking and sweating and slam, with a thud to be heard from our recon position, across the street, in the car, windows up.  The sweet light-yellow bungalows with the bougainvillea and poppies had fooled us.  

When I confronted the realtor about the horrible state of affairs and requested a refund of our 500$. She said no!  Application fees and the hold were off the table because we waited longer that 24 hrs. to get the refund and in did not matter that it was closed for the weekend. We were robbed by a 1950s bun and wool suit in one-hundred-degree weather just sitting there with her grin showing the layers of caked and powdered concealer slightly melting down her neck.  I wanted to take her and chuck her and her crepe wool in the filthy koi pond, but I had another plan.

Our friends had just moved to the Seattle area and told us that the rents were still under control.  I found a place up North that showed a nice web page with the pictures of our apartment, and it looked dark and sleek, with new appliances and a pool.  There are about 10 days when you can really use a pool in Washington State, but we didn’t know that.  We were still in a Cali state of mind. The 1300-mile drive in the UHAUL was fun even if my legs kept going numb.  I love a road trip.  

Again, we pull in with breaks steaming about an hour before closing time for the weekend.  We were doing the paperwork because this was our last stop but before I was ready to sign, I asked to see the unit.  This was a problem again, but I insisted.  We were led to a basement unit with windows about your head. The place was dark and reeked of mold and sour.  As we walked thru, we were each giving it the stiff upper lip and encouragement on how we could cover the mess and live in the sunken pit of an apartment.  In the bathroom you could see that there had been a flood as the bottoms of the doors were swollen.  Back to the office we went.

We felt like the victims of bait and switch and even though we would have to live in a hotel for a bit, we could not live in the dank, flooded hovel being shoved down our throats.  Suddenly the apartment that was shown in the internet post was available!  Just like that, out of the blue there was a three-bed available across the street.  This is when I began to realize that I must have known this woman probably decades ago, but I could not remember how I knew her.  She was a non-distinct person that you would just walk by on the street and get nothing more than a high-pitched nasal sliding “hello” like a mockery of a valley girl. Mousey and constantly suffering from a feigned amnesia to anything she may have said in the past and look at you like you were crazy for reminding her of an unsavory subject like the costs hidden in the lease and the forced use of a trash valet system that no one uses, but they charge any way.  

Again, under a time constraint and the threat of the place being rented the next day if we didn’t just sign the 100-page lease generated by the mole woman. We signed and initialed for 20 minutes.  One last irritation is that she demanded a cashiers check.  We had no bank account in the new state, so we paid more fees at Walmart to provide the money as the mole desired.  Keys and we were off.  As we entered the unit there were 10 workers in the apartment which I found odd.  As our day workers arrived and started hauling out things as fast as they could before it was dark out, the tenants all came out to see us and pass judgement I suppose. I didn’t know what we were Yankees, reds, democrats, heliolites, I don’t know what we were, but we were from “the outside” and had to be watched.  

That night we made corned beef as if was St. Pats Day. We were unwinding and went on our little patio for fresh air. At that moment the man above unleashed a five-gallon tub of water down on my head, and we were off to the races. I began to feel spirits and my mind began to hear what people were saying, not kidding, I wondered if people had died in the apartment from covid or murder…and we had a year lease.  

I began to feel followed inside the apartment.  I could hear the women next door talking and laughing when I looked at myself in the mirror. I began to keep the lights off when I went to the bathroom otherwise someone from above would run to the upstairs toilet and urinate furiously on my head. It was driving me to the end of my wits.  Was I in some undercover guerilla film experiment that I just checked off on the 100-page lease?  Then for three weeks it rained solidly, and we both could understand the depression of the constant rain.  The benefit, beautiful forests and trails for hiking with your dog.  So, we hung in.  

My friend still smokes cigarettes and as the mole told us no smoking, my friend went to the smoking area in front of the trash can.  They ridiculed him.  Now about our relationship, we have been together for six years, me 55 and he 38.  Not Harold and Maud. These people couldn’t deal and laid into us eventually hacking into our internet, email, TVs… they can turn the channel or just shut something off somehow.  When I am ready to leave the house, they know and are waiting outside with some scenario involving huge dogs and unsupervised teens led by a creepy Fagin type veteran practicing ways to annoy us.  And a Witch

For some reason the woman directly across from us, began going on her patio and dancing to loud music.  She was joined by another woman and a tiny Hispanic man with a giant van.  The dancing went on and one day she brought a long firework of some sort, and it explodes sending balls of fire in the parking lot.  A few days later she screamed that I was a white bitch and I thought she wanted to beat me up. The police arrived and said the woman was an MP and could never be in a fight, really?  My friend tried to speak with them, but he was shocked at the look of the young woman.  He described her face as a skeletal bird in need of food.  Vegans need protein folks. Next step was following me in my car. The office mole suggested we move upstairs and laughed as if she was in on it.  

The Amityville vibe is popping so this had better be A. Guerilla film production or B. Purgatory. Now we bunker in and wait till the end of the lease.