Holy smokes

So, we had a few tenants move out of the house that we rent, over the years.  We've owned the house since 2004, we lived there until 2010, and only rented the basement apartment.

Let me tell you, living in a basement apartment is one thing.  It's unpleasant.  Yes, it's a sometimes damp, sometimes cold, sometimes dark basement where you get very little daylight and nothing grows except mildew in the tub because of poor ventilation. Yes, you have to put up with the landlord being there, stomping around upstairs, acting like they own the place.  No, the place is not your own, and you have to treat it that way.  Yes, the landlords 9 year old daughter may knock on your door at 12 am, when you may or may not be sleeping, and in a very horror-movie creepy kind of way, offer you a large jug of strawberry milk that she had made for you after her mom went to sleep.  You may or may not have to pour strawberry milk down your drain at 12:02am, just as a precaution.

Seriously, you can't make this shit up.

But living in your own house, above a rented basement apartment is quite another thing.

You will have to put up with hard-of-hearing old men who rant on the phone in their kitchen, at 7am, which of course is below your master bedroom, and is not at all soundproofed, because the house is 35 years old.

You will have hoarders that move out and leave you with a living room of neatly folded stacks of newspapers, four cupboards of empty Cheerio boxes, a leaning pile of empty, washed, chip bags on the counter, and two drawers of empty prescription pill containers.

You will have tenants calling and asking you to come down and put eyedrops in their eyes because they just keep missing their eye.

And that was just the first tenant.

You will have people who swear they are not smoking in the basement, even though you can smell something somewhat questionable through the vents, and all of a sudden you are craving Zesty Doritos and Pineapple Crush.  (sidenote: if you are not from Newfoundland, Canada, yes, we have Pineapple Crush here.  It's like Orange Crush, or Grape Crush.  That's right.)

You'll have the yellers.  You'll have the barking dogs.  You'll have Frank, the guy that breaks his brothers nose across his kitchen table while you are upstairs on the phone with 911, and the 911 operator says "Is that Frank Donn and his brother fighting?"

Wait.  What?

You'll have the serial-movers who move every 6 months because their funds run out, and in order to keep themselves in ciggarettes, and a step ahead of welfare, they will continue to move out every 6 months and stiff you with a month's rent.

Or even worse than that, you'll have the serial movers who wait two years, until the place is just so damn dirty that they can't stand it any longer, and they will move out in the middle of the night, leaving you with a $500 damage deposit to cover 18 hours of manual cleaning labour, the cost of replacing all the carpets in the bedrooms, a fridge that is so clogged it won't cool, 27 bags of garbage, and a toilet seat that is so much easier to just rip off and replace.

We have had two groups that go down in my books of the dirtiest, smelliest, downright Dis.Gust.Ing.  More on that later, perhaps, because I can't get into that today.

Because this blog post is actually about something much sadder than a little boy living in a house with floors you have to wash three times to remove the layer of grime, more disturbing that finding a black banana on the floor in the laundry room, and harder to deal with for me than cat-piss stained walls where we actually have to change the gyproc.

This shit is about to get real.  Because this blog post is about the fighters.  The punchers.  The abusers.

Today we went into the apartment in my basement that is recently vacant.  Coming off of cleaning an apartment that was so dirty I didn't want to even hang my coat in the hallway, it was a relief to walk into the apartment, and see that the place wasn't in too bad of shape.  There was no smell.  The tub needed to be re-caulked, which always makes for lots of good jokes, funny and sometimes awkward remarks throughout the process.  The oven needed to be sprayed, and the baseboards touched up with some white paint.  But none of that is anything beyond the normal process when a tenant moves out of an apartment.

What was beyond the norm, and beyond anything I can understand, were the holes in the walls.  Upon entering the apartment, we could immediately see 3 holes in the walls around the entryway.  Fist sized holes. Further down the hall was another, next to one of the bedroom walls.  When you turn the corner into the bedroom, you realize that the hallway hole was met with yet another hole in the bedroom wall, so that you can see straight though.  Then there were two others nearby.  The spare bedroom greeted us with 3 more, one of which was in the ceiling.

And the bathroom door has a small indentation in it.  The apartment has been painted multiple times, so it's really no surprise to see imperfections and dents, but this particular dent in the door, was at the level of a persons head.  It was also cracked, as if it was a force that hit it.  And there were a couple of strands of head hair in it.

So the guy that was living there was a big, tattooed (not that that means anything, because I love a guy with tattoos normally), mean looking brute of a guy with a temper to match.  He had been seen at various times, by neighbors, screaming at his male roommate and at his girlfriend.

And she is the sweetest, most level headed, kind person to speak to.  She even moved across the country to be with this winner.

I don't know much about this couple. And I sure don't know much about abusive relationships. I know that is can be very easy to stand back and judge someone else when you are not in a particular situation, whether it be an abusive relationship with a partner, an addiction, a weight problem (be it large or small), or whatever the case may be.  It is easy enough to stand back and make decisions about what someone else should be doing with their life.  When you are not in that type of a situation, it can be so plainly obvious what the outcome should be.  Unfortunately, sometimes it seems obvious what the outcome will be as well.

This girl is a smart girl.  She seems like she has her shit together.  But in her words, her boyfriend is a 'hot head' and has a 'quick temper'.  In my words, her boyfriend is an asshole.

But you never really know.  They have now moved back to his hometown.  And while I am left, patching up the walls of the apartment, I wonder how much time in her life she will spend covering black eyes with concealer, and patching up the holes in her life.  And I feel bad for her, although I know she would probably not want pity.  And I feel like if I ever saw that son-of-a-bitch, why I'd....

And I wonder if it were my little girl, what would I do?  And if it were me in that situation?  I say now that if my husband punched a hole in the wall, even one damn time, I'd take my kids and I would be out of there so fucking fast that he couldn't even mutter the first apology.  I'd like to think that if any man ever tried to hurt me, I would be able to defend myself.  I would even trade a few punches with him, if that's what it took.  But that is just what I think I would do.  No one ever says to themselves when they are growing up, "I think I'll fall in love with a womanizer and marry a man that'll ring my bell now and then to keep me in line."  I'd like to think that if it ever came down to it, that I would have the strength to stand up for myself, and to walk away.

But when it comes right down to it, I don't judge her.  But I hope that son-of-a-bitch wakes up some day, when she is long gone, and realizes that she was better than he could have ever hoped for, and he blew it.  And I hope he can find some help.