And I thought 715 Michigan was bad

You know when you have a bad day and it starts out with bonking your head on the bathroom cabinet, then dropping your comb in the toilet, then chasing the dog because she’s eating tampons she got out of your purse? We’ve all had those days and they always seem to escalate. It’s never one thing that goes wrong, it’s a hundred, and you want to just crawl back into bed for the entire day. That feeling sums up my entire week last week. Let’s start with Sunday.

Sunday
Alan and I were super excited to get out to California and make our dreams of finding an apartment a reality. I was especially excited. I wanted to be able to envision the actual living space we would have out there, and I also wanted to be able to stop obsessively checking craigslist every 10 minutes. We’re on the plane with the Colorado basketball team, recovering from their lost to K-State, and Alan jokes that if our plane goes down at least it’ll get made into a movie. So we’re speeding down the runway and right at the point when the plane should leave the ground, we instead slow down and come to a stop. Lovely. Cabin pressure light on, 10-minute delay, and we’re off again. Phew!

We land in Denver uneventfully and switch planes. All goes well until we’re about 30 minutes from San Jose. A man gets escorted to the empty emergency exit row. Several flight attendants attend to him, and then there is the call for any paramedics and doctors on board. Uh oh. So a nurse and another guy, probably a pharmaceutical salesman, go up to assist the man. Pain in his chest and down his arm, so we’re pretty sure this man is having a heart attack. We land, finally, and the paramedics meet us on the plane.

Grab our car and off we go, starving, to In-N-Out Burger. Yay! I was told by a discriminating food connoisseur that the Neapolitan shake was awesome, so I ordered one up. I promise that anyone who comes to visit us in Cali will get a Neapolitan shake on me! It was delish. We start driving around, scouting neighborhoods and writing down phone numbers we see on For Rent signs.

Monday
We’re up and at ’em bright and early, calling numbers and making appointments. Our first appointment is at noon, a few miles away in Redwood City. A bit far for Alan to ride a bike, but doable as a backup option. The place is nice, pet friendly, remodeled, and an affordable $1,400. We’re also pretty sure that the manager, with her long flowing hair and perfectly applied makeup, is really a man. But hey, we live in Lawrence, so we’ve seen stranger things.

Our next appointment is a $1,395 1BR. Its location is perfect with a capital P, the property management company is pet friendly, and the apartment is nice. Small, but liveable, especially for the price. We’re about to fill out the forms then and there, when my mouth opens and I say, “You accept pets, right?” Of course, this happens to be one of the two properties the company has that doesn’t accept dogs. Cats are fine, but dogs are out of the question. But, the man says, if I can convince Louise that I have a deaf and mute dog, it’s up to her. I try, but Louise refuses to budge. Alan and I walk away, me in tears. It was a crushing blow. We would have been done with the search had it not been for the anti-dog sentiment. It was a hard way to learn that the first question to ask is the pet question.

We had hit a low point, but if we thought things could only get better, we were wrong, with a capital WR. We had a 3 o’clock appointment to look at a 1BR “cottage” in a “garden setting” with a “pool.” I was told to go to the “main green door.” So I’m thinking, oh, cute! This will be a quaint little guest house and I’ll be able to swim laps on Saturday mornings and become great friends with the people at the “main house” and they’ll hire me to work on the successful magazine they probably own, or decide that they just can’t charge us the $1,600 rent because they like us so much. This naïve little Kansas girl apparently has a lot to learn.

We show up at the house, and it’s huge. How bad could this be, I wondered. We knock on the colorblind lady’s teal door, and we’re greeted by a Mexican fellow who sends us to wait in the living room. We hear a vicious growling and shrug it off. We’re greeted several minutes later by an older woman who looks as though she might be high. She introduces us to Julian, her huge, mangy standard poodle, who is staring at us through the window like he wants to attack. She tells us that Julian wouldn’t hurt a fly, but if he likes you he’ll gnaw on your hand. Oh, that sounds fun. Apparently, Julian also has to get along with potential doggie residents, and we assure her that our sweet little Martikins is as submissive as they come, meanwhile thinking that no way on earth would we let our little pug near evil Julian. But we carry on, as we have no other options and nothing better to do.

We go outside, into the backyard. It has rained a bit, so everything’s a little mushy, and there are leaves everywhere because “the gardener has gone back to Mexico for a few months.” She points out a small shack on this ½ acre (maybe) property, which is no bigger than a garden shed*. An engineer lives there apparently. Someone else lives in another building, some mad scientist who doesn’t care that he’s living in squalor probably. She takes us through a gate to the pool house. The “pool house” is slightly larger than the shed, maybe about 500 square feet. The front is all glass and the floor is dirty red tile. And I say “dirty” in the “unclean” sense. The occupant hasn’t moved out yet, so everything is just filthy. The kitchen to our left is open to the room and has about 2 square feet of counter space, and the appliance (stove) is gross. I say singular “appliance” because I’m not even sure there was a refrigerator. The living room/dining area is tiny, and we’re told that if we want to do anything illegal we should buy window coverings. The “bedroom” is off to the left, no hall, just directly off the “living area” and could maybe fit a twin bed. No closet, just a room. The bathroom has a stall shower, toilet and single sink, no storage except for a small closet. And, to add to the comfy, homey feel of the “house,” the light in the bathroom gives off a menacing red glow. We’re being polite, even if our jaws are hanging to the ground. We go outside, and Alan asks about laundry facilities, as if we’re genuinely considering this place as an option. She points to a “dome” next to the engineer’s shed. Outside, on the grass, under a small hood, are the washer and dryer. I turn to sprint to the car. Alan follows behind Crazy, while Julian barks and blocks the way for both of them. We get to the car without saying a word, and when the door shuts we both shudder. Even Alan was frightened. It felt like a creepy scene from a horror movie, just before something terrifying happens.

To be continued...

*Example of shed for size.