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Yesterday, we got one of the more terrifying answering machine messages I've heard in many a moon: "Hi, Adam, this is Cindy down in the office. Before you sign your lease renewal, we'd like to come up and give your apartment a walk-through inspection tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. Give us a call if you have any questions. Thanks! *beep!*" I immediately starting phoning around to butcher shops, in search of lambs' blood to paint on the door.
See, we had a few wee issues with the landlords coming in and nosing about the apartment that they technically own. These issues included, but were not limited to the following:
1) We are not tidy people. Anyone who has ever been in our apartment, especially if their arrival was unplanned and/or unannounced, are well aware of this fact. Our friends don't generally make a big issue of this fact. The folks who have to rent the place out to someone after we leave might not see it that way.
2) Upon further investigation, we discovered that this was to be the standard New York State-mandated annual inspection required by law. That is to say, the standard New York State-mandated annual inspection required by law that we haven't had in our entire four years in this place. (Repeat after me: Under New Management.) This means that any standard wear-and-tear that wouldn't be shocking after a one-year hiatus starts to accumulate after four—stuff like holes in the screen, stains on the carpet, forehead-shaped dents in the plaster ("I'm a Cubs fan. I'm used to it."), and so forth. Eep.
3) They wanted to see the bedroom. Nobody ever, ever, EVER sees our bedroom. This is for very good reasons, such as the Greater Sea of Discredited Laundry, better known as "the floor." Also in said bedroom, we have two collections of books: one next to the bed, mostly conisting of comics collections and light-reading paperbacks, and one on the shelf, entirely consisting of books that we would rather the greater public not be closely acquainted with. Just sayin'.
4) Two cats. 'Nuff said.
So this morning was a psychotic-break-style flurry of cleaning activity—scrubbing down the stove, hauling out garbage, running the vacuum until the poor thing coughed up a lung, and discovering many exciting things we'd forgotten we had, such as:
* a rotary cheese grater
* Immortality by Milan Kundera
* a few wayward T-shirts of note
* a bedroom floor
* various undiagnosed anxiety disorders
As it turned out, the inspection, which took place while I was at work, was quite painless, with notes taken on ceiling tiles that need replacement and discussion about fixing the expletive-deleted semi-functioning central air conditioning, after which they took their leave. Upshot: we can stay. Yay! Now all we need is an elevator....
See, we had a few wee issues with the landlords coming in and nosing about the apartment that they technically own. These issues included, but were not limited to the following:
1) We are not tidy people. Anyone who has ever been in our apartment, especially if their arrival was unplanned and/or unannounced, are well aware of this fact. Our friends don't generally make a big issue of this fact. The folks who have to rent the place out to someone after we leave might not see it that way.
2) Upon further investigation, we discovered that this was to be the standard New York State-mandated annual inspection required by law. That is to say, the standard New York State-mandated annual inspection required by law that we haven't had in our entire four years in this place. (Repeat after me: Under New Management.) This means that any standard wear-and-tear that wouldn't be shocking after a one-year hiatus starts to accumulate after four—stuff like holes in the screen, stains on the carpet, forehead-shaped dents in the plaster ("I'm a Cubs fan. I'm used to it."), and so forth. Eep.
3) They wanted to see the bedroom. Nobody ever, ever, EVER sees our bedroom. This is for very good reasons, such as the Greater Sea of Discredited Laundry, better known as "the floor." Also in said bedroom, we have two collections of books: one next to the bed, mostly conisting of comics collections and light-reading paperbacks, and one on the shelf, entirely consisting of books that we would rather the greater public not be closely acquainted with. Just sayin'.
4) Two cats. 'Nuff said.
So this morning was a psychotic-break-style flurry of cleaning activity—scrubbing down the stove, hauling out garbage, running the vacuum until the poor thing coughed up a lung, and discovering many exciting things we'd forgotten we had, such as:
* a rotary cheese grater
* Immortality by Milan Kundera
* a few wayward T-shirts of note
* a bedroom floor
* various undiagnosed anxiety disorders
As it turned out, the inspection, which took place while I was at work, was quite painless, with notes taken on ceiling tiles that need replacement and discussion about fixing the expletive-deleted semi-functioning central air conditioning, after which they took their leave. Upshot: we can stay. Yay! Now all we need is an elevator....
