Recently I moved into a house. It’s not very nice. I’m living here roughly a year. I’m going to complain about it, and my housemates. Welcome!
There are four of us in the house including me. Of the other three, I only knew one of them before about a month ago. They are all black. I am not. Getting that tingly sitcom feeling yet? Last year my roommate in the dorm was also black, and whenever he’d do something “crazy” he’d always say, “I guess you’re gonna learn something about living with black folk, huh?” I liked this because folk implies more than one (which he wasn’t), and he’d say it after doing things I found perfectly normal, such as cutting his own hair.
Although it’s purely coincidence, I kind of feel odd now that I realize my last five roommates have been black. And I feel odd mostly because I’m terribly racist. Though it burns the nonsensical hatred swirling deep within my body, I’m trying to keep my racism to myself. Not because I want to get along with my housemates, but more because I like spy movies.
Anyway, the only reason I’m here is because they needed a fourth person and I had no other prospects. The whole thing came together very quickly. Basically my friend called me up and said, “We think we found a place that’s spacious and not too much money. Here’s the guy’s number. Call him, go look at it and let us know.” I did, I went and it was fine. I guess I don’t know what to look for in a house. It had some walls, a few doors and stuff like that. It was also filthy, but I attribute that to the people living there and assumed the house would be cleaned before we moved it.
It was, but either not very well or the previous occupants were pigs. It looks like they might have shit on the carpet regularly. The walls are disgusting, and there’s a good chance they performed human sacrifices in the basement. Quick sidenote- the basement does feature my favorite part of the house. It has a door leading from the underground basement outside, so we have a door leading to a few stairs and then those doors slanting downwards (or upwards depending on how you look at it) you have to swing open to get outside. And if that’s not enough, both of those doors lock by putting giant blocks of wood across the doors. It’s straight out of a zombie movie.
But that’s not the only part of the house that conjures up thoughts of horror movies. Someone might’ve killed a person outside the living room. There is a huge red stain on the outside of the window. And it looks like it was splattered on at an angle, like, say, if you hit someone with a shovel. The building manager’s guess was that it was bird shit. I agree… if the bird ate humans, was the size of Mothra and shits while flying by the window during a tornado with the wind strong enough to move feces but not break windows. Seriously, it’s like a Jackson Pollack painting (Zing! Art refence!)
Basically, we live in a shithole. A bunch of the windows have cracks in them, including both windows in my room, which also don’t have screens on them. My mother came to help me get some furniture and move in, and she was worried that since the windows are broken it might be easy for someone to break in. My theory is that the house is so crappy that a robber would think it’s abandoned or that there is nothing of worth inside. Or they might just think it’s too easy of a gig. Robbers are notorious for wanting a challenge. That’s the thrill. It’s not about money.
My mom also met the building manager to tell him what a shithole the house was, and the three of us walked through the place as she told him what needed to be fixed. She then told me and the two housemates I hadn’t met before this summer to make sure this guy follows through with his promises.
The house has three floors, but the third was clearly an attic at one time, and the owner decided to carpet it up and build two small bedrooms, including one with a bathroom inside of it. It’s really hot up there. I live on the third floor. The second floor has two decent-sized rooms and one stand-alone bathroom. I ended up on the third floor because I didn’t move in the first day the house was ours. Two guys did, and they took the second floor rooms. I ended up with the non-bathroom third floor room because it was a little bigger, and I felt I’d rather walk into someone else’s room to go to the bathroom than have someone walk into mine.
So I start moving some stuff into the house, and in the third floor bathroom I hang up a shower curtain. My friend lives on that floor, but hasn’t moved in yet. The next day he calls (at 9 am, which is the only time he ever calls) to ask why there is a shower curtain in his bathroom. I say because I was under the impression it was our bathroom. He thought it would be weird and inconvenient (to him) to have someone walking into his room to use the bathroom. I said it’s the bathroom on the third floor, which is where I live, therefore that’s the bathroom I should use. He said that of course I could use the bathroom, as long as he was gone. He also said his phone was dying and he’d call me back.
I was pissed at that point, thinking did this dude really think he was getting his own bathroom while three of us shared one, or that I was going to use the bathroom in the basement? He called back and sort of came around, saying we just need to work out times when we have to use the bathroom and such.
Another day or two pass, and my friend texts me: “There are a bunch of ants in the house. Do you think you can have your mom call [the building manager] to get an exterminator?” Now a few things piss me off here. 1) He never met my mom; 2) He has time to text, why can’t he make the call? 3) Are they in my room? If so, fine I’ll call. Also if so, why are you in my room?
So I text “One of us should make the call, what rooms are they in?” He says some of the bedrooms. I tell him I’m at work and don’t have the manager’s phone number, which I thought was a pretty nice way of saying, “Hey, maybe someone else should make the call.” Truthfully, I’m just lazy. He then texts me the guy’s phone number, which once again pissed me off.
I feel I should take time out real quick to make mention the two guys I didn’t know before living with them seem alright so far. One is from the south, speaks with a drawl and I think might be gay, but probably isn’t. He does have that stereotypical gay man’s ‘tude, though, which is awesome. He says things like “nuh uh,” “you best not…” and “my grandmamma.” He also walks around singing a lot.
The other guy seems like the one I’ll talk to most. We already have a whole scenario worked out about how the swinging open double doors are going to help us escape the impending zombie attack while we rest up to try and save the planet. On another note, I just learned from the other two roommates that he’s a sleep eater! He goes into the kitchen late at night and eats a bunch of food and has no idea he’s doing it. I thought they were joking, but they weren’t. It’s great. The sleep eater put padlocks on the fridge and freezer, and we’re going to lock them at night so he can’t get it. I mean, there’s a bunch of food in pantries, but it’s still hilarious and great. The padlocks on the fridge are my second favorite part of the house. As I joked in my head, “The fridge is now the safest part of the house. That’s where I’m going to put my valuables.”
Back to the story. I called the building manager and got him to get us an exterminator, but sounded like an idiot in doing so since I hadn’t seen of these ants and didn’t know what rooms they were in. I told him I think they’re in some of the bedrooms, but not my friend’s. I said his room is clean, I’m positive. I did this because I’m petty and I’m a dick.
So not only is the house in terrible condition, but it’s apparently overrun with ants. There is absolute no way a movie is not made about my time in this house. As of now I only see two different types of movies that can be made. One is a coming-on-age bullshit movie about four very different people coming together in their senior year of college under one roof.
The other is that we all get hacked up living in this place.
Stay tuned for more adventures of me complaining about things! I think in the coming weeks I’m going to try and snap some photos of the lovely place while nobody else is around and post those up. Until then, hope I’m in the first movie!
Barely.
