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| Just kidding, it's not this bad. |
Alas, I must declare my former renters TURDS. Slackaholics, pantywaists, wee-wees, numbskulls. I now see their lameness as emblematic of their generation’s primary shortcoming, which I will now diagnose: insensate ignorance, the opposite of alertness. Also, a lack of resourcefulness. Lazy? Well, they both had jobs and paid all their rent. Are they stupid? Maybe a little, but not to the core. It’s just, this: wake the fuck up, schmucks!
Two 21/22-year-old girls, with boyfriends, one of whom probably lived there most of the time, could not avoid the following problems:
List of Lame
• Every time I went over there (about 5 times in the past year) there was a smoke alarm chirping. 9V batteries ain’t that expensive, kids.
• Sometime this spring, they stopped mowing the back yard. I left them my old mower, and I even replaced it when it broke down, but that still made mowing a whole yard too tough. At least they mowed the front yard, so anytime I drove by, I wrongly assumed they were on top of shit.
• Did not pull weeds or trim vinery anywhere. (Always expected I’d have to catch this up myself)
• Never trimmed the hedge. Well, maybe once, poorly? Not sure.
• Any time I was there, I would notice they had a TV to watch videos on, but no reception, cable or otherwise. I told them how I made an antenna for free TV, and even offered to make them one. They would just have to get a digital converter box. They just said they were trying to get internet/Netflix. But they seemed to have no sources for news/weather...
• Thank god I stopped over 2 days before we hit -8F last winter, to shut off the water to the outside spigots. Their dog bit me, and I had to avoid piles of dog shit in the basement to reach the shutoff, but at least I prevented a broken pipe.
• Porch door handle came loose. Rather than tighten it with a screwdriver, they put a lot of masking tape over the latch so it wouldn’t keep them out. (+1 point for being inventive, -2 points for overlooking the obvious problem)
• Tree fell over in the back yard. No one told me. I don’t think they realized it fell.
• On my second afternoon of reclaiming the back yard, I noticed the attic fan running while both air conditioners were on. This is a bit like opening, say, five windows while using air conditioning.
• Almost the entire year they lived there, one or both of them had a defunct little car blocking the garage. First a PT Cruiser, then an older Honda that wouldn’t have bugged me half as much, but it had a fucking BUSH/CHENEY bumper sticker.
• They had a garage sale, left sign on fence for 10 days after the sale was over, until I took it down. Also left several unsold items scattered around the yard, including glass tabletop that killed a big rectangle of grass.
• Dog pissed repeatedly in one room upstairs, one room downstairs, ruining carpet in upper room, section of hardwood floor in lower room. Curtains nearby also ruined, but different stench. My nose suggests to me that their cat was trying to get a urinary word in edgewise.
• Broke window out of back door. Supposedly it was the dog.
• I sent them both a text in April: “Once you are sure you won’t need heat, turn the pilot lights off in the floor furnaces. This will keep the house cooler in summer.” Reply from one girl, “OK, will do.” As I scraped a thick layer of dog hair off the furnaces in August, I find warmth, o joyous warmth! Pilot lights still piping hot. Wish I would have shown this to Miranda on her last day there, right after she complained how hot it was in the house.
• Smoking. At least they kept it on the porch. But, as my wife pointed out, smoking dulls your sense of smell. That explains their ability to live with the smell of dog and cat piss. It does nothing to explain their ability to live with...
• Fleas! Good grief, the fleas! Fleas will have their own rant, coming up.
