This Old Tenement

Bob Vila would turn and run away screaming if he were to be given my apartment building as a remodeling project. Or "the water building" as I so lovingly call it. In all fairness, the building is old, but that's no excuse for the lack of upkeep by her past and present owners. I have wanted to live in a brownstone/tenement type building since I was a little girl. Blame it on Sesame Street. Unlike Sesame Street, I don't have a huge yellow bird living in my alley, I don't even have an alley. I do however have two sexually ambiguous men who are roommates living in my building, but their names aren't Bert and Ernie.

The water building produces tons of water throughout its infrastructure, hence the name I christened it. There always seems to be some leak somewhere, even in the weirdest places. Leaks abound here, and it's very annoying.

So, my turn came again. Being here nine years now, I've had plenty of turns to experience the Niagara Falls of my existence. The worst on record was a leak in my closet that got all over my stuff, rendering everything in there un-wearable. Other than that, it's been reduced to a few radiator leaks, which produced small floods. One of which surrounded a fully activate power strip. Thankfully, no one was hurt.

Today, I arrived home after a long day setting up our new office only to hear the familiar sounds of drip, drip, drip. Okay, I thought to myself, where is this baby coming from? There it was. Over the fridge and leaking like crazy. Dripping allover my fridge and the contents on top; soaking through a box of oatmeal and two boxes of pasta. Can ya tell I'm pressed for space?

The mark of doom-


The thing is, I have had so many problems with our new landlord that I will, somewhat out of spite, fully expect to be reimbursed for the oatmeal and two boxes of pasta. Call me cheap, but these people have screwed around with me for too long.

Someday, I'll tell the story of how I brought those mofos to housing court. But that's another day.