My Housing Nightmare Continues

flea spraying By Eddau CC-BY-SA-3.0  via Wikimedia Commons

Fifteen days in, I've already decided to move as soon as I can get the money together and find a decent place, which may be difficult since the students have them all now. I'll probably have to wait until at least January, but I don't want to be here a year. It is so noisy -- people and kids screaming all the time, loud rap music at all times of day and night, and dogs barking. I'm going to be working double hard to save money, and as soon as I have enough, I'll find something suitable and sublet this place out for the remainder of the lease.

I hate to move again, but I feel like this property was misrepresented to me. I thought I was moving into a nice, quiet neighborhood and my landlord assured me it was quiet at all times of the night and day when he was here working on the house, but that just isn't true.

Then there is the maintenance issues. Two faucets, one inside and one outside, are dripping gallons of water a week which I am having to pay for. When I run the bathtub faucet, water pours down the walls, and is probably running inside the walls too, causing mold. The hot water heater does not heat well, and the interior doors are not hung properly or not hung at all. The utility room floods every time it rains.

The worst thing, though, is that the yard is full of fleas. I can't possibly garden or I'll be bitten to death. I can't even walk around the yard without getting bitten. I don't want to put the money it would take into trying to control them, which would be impossible, since they are in everyone's yards, carried around by feral cats and wild animals. If my cat ever comes back, the first thing I'll have to do is bathe and de-flea her.

The yard is mostly sand, so it's a pain keeping the floors swept and clean. I'm having a load of free mulch brought in to try to alleviate some of that problem, and I'm going to buy one of those bootscraper doormats to try to keep the sand out.

I'm seriously thinking of giving up on having my own yard and just getting a plot at a community garden. I can't garden in the summer, anyway because of the heat. I may just give up food gardening and only raise indoor plants. Maybe it's time to retire from outdoor gardening completely.

So my dream is now officially a nightmare, and I know that giving it time will not fix the many problems here, the worst being the noise. It's just best not to bother unpacking any more boxes and get out as soon as I can. I'll take the next months to further minimize my possessions so I can move to a 1 BR next time.