Lawyering Through Life

Dilemma

So, I have a dilemma. As you know, I live with a Roommate. Who has a Boyfriend. Roommate and Roommate Boyfriend’s have an up and down type relationship. Right now, it appears they are very up. Which means they spend a lot of time together at our apartment.

And about this apartment. I love my apartment. It is in the absolute perfect location – just a few blocks to the Metro, just a few blocks to the grocery store, around the corner for multiple bars….really, the location is absolutely perfect. And while I would love a bigger closet (and the corresponding freedom to purchase more shoes), I am willing to keep my suits in the dining room closet in order to keep the awesome location.

Now, a little about our landlord. She is…well, she is a little nutty. When we first moved in, she lived right around the corner and was extremely accessible. In the intervening years, she has moved to Georgia and we have had some difficulty getting issues addressed. For example, we had no heat. Right before Christmas. It was freezing in our apartment and we were both about to leave town. She was of little to no help and Roommate wound up breaking into the basement apartment to inspect the unknown type of heating device that we have and diagnosis the problem. And when Roommate insisted that Landlord Nutcase foot the bill of putting us in a hotel with heat, Landlord Nutcase yelled at her and told her this was our problem. Huh? So, there has been strife between Roommate and Landlord Nutcase for some time now.

This past February, we woke up on a Monday morning to discover that while the living room and dining room had heat, the bedrooms were without heat. We were both off to celebrate President’s Day, and by celebrate I mean spend my Presidents on shoes at the outlet mall. I placed a phone call to LN in Georgia and she responded that she would get someone to come over and drain our heating units. Roommate and I were both perplexed by this diagnosis of the problem because for almost three years, there has never been a mention of “draining the heating units.” A plumber shows up, (to fix the heat, obviously) and tells us that the draining does not seem to be working. Another phone call to LN and she promises to contact Slade, her all around repairman. Now, Slade is quite the character. He is much more interested in chatting with us about our weekend plans than actually repairing anything in our apartment. LN says Slade is far away and will be there in a few hours so is it okay if we just give up our entire day off and sit around and wait for him? I realize if we were homeowners, this would be our responsibility. But we rent and we shouldn’t have to sit around our freezing cold apartment waiting for someone who most likely won’t be able to remedy the problem anyways.

Roommate decided that there was no sense in both of us sticking around in the cold and set me free to the outlet mall. When I arrive at said outlet mall, I receive a phone call from Roommate who was told by LN that Slade would be later than expected. Thereby dashing Roommate’s hopes of accomplishing anything productive on her day off. Roommate made LN aware of her frustration, which was only made worse by LN saying, “Well is Jersey available? I would rather talk to Jersey about this.” Jersey was not available, Roommate responded, Jersey is out living her life and not wasting her day waiting on a repairman.

So, there is tension between Roommate and LN. That is putting it mildly. Shortly after the heat disaster, LN emailed Roommate to notify her that she not received her rent as of the due date. To make a long story short, Roommate no longer had the money in her account, LN tried to blame Roommate’s bank, a representative of Roommate’s bank called LN out on her nuttiness, LN told said representative that Roommate was “bitter” and refused to include her on the call, LN then emailed both of us, called Roommate “mentally unstable” to which I responded, “that is entirely inappropriate” and we were then informed that we could leave our lease whenever we wanted and would be best suited somewhere else.

But I love my apartment, I whine. And I don’t want to move. And I had a whole plan worked out whereby I would continue to live with Roommate in this apartment for another year and thereby bank my Big Firm salary. Said plan did not anticipate moving with Roommate two weeks after starting my job and then most likely moving again in a year or so if/when Roommate gets engaged. So, I am torn. Do I move again with Roommate, whose boyfriend is over often in order to save money on rent and avoid having to purchase an entire apartment of furniture? Or do I move out on my own now (or within the next five months), eat Ramen noodles for a few months until I change jobs and am actually able to afford this living on my own?

I just don’t know. I so love my apartment. Oh, and staying in the apartment and having someone else move in with me is not really a viable option. As I am too old to live with someone that I meet through a Craig’s List ad and I think staying in the apartment with someone new would mean the end of my friendship with Roommate. Who is great and lovely and ending our friendship is not an option.

posted by jersey @ 12:10 PM