Thursday, March 08, 2007
The Lost Apartment
(1)
Boy, that was weird. I remember thinking after the initial post last week that in my sleep-deprived state I could use a double shot of booze to get me rolling, and it worked for a while, but went rapidly downhill after another double, and another... I also drank all the beer. Saturday's hangover was worse than usual, as you might guess.
Loud banging from the downstairs area just now reminds me to address a very interesting development: the owner of the uninhabited apartment downstairs has suddenly discovered that he has a valuable asset down there which has been going to waste for years. Apparently he guessed somehow that Kootch might be the owner of the 204, and when he saw her on the sidewalk outside the building last monday, asked whether she lived there. Kootch replied in the affirmative. He then advised her that our bathtub was leaking into his apartment. Kootch told me.
I then went downstairs to talk to him. Sure enough! I offered to turn on the water upstairs so that I could confirm the leak. He was not interested. I asked him whether I could look around. He had no objection. I found that all of the lower (about waist-down) dry wall had been removed from the apartment. The ceiling had been removed from the bathroom (I already knew that because I could see into the bathroom from the plumbing access opening in our own bathroom). There were no appliances in the kitchen area. The entire apartment had been stripped. No cabinets, nothing. Even the floor tiles had been stripped down to the cement. The apartment was gutted except for the ceilings in the other rooms.
He explained that the most recent renter had neglected the place, allowing it to go downhill. The sewer eventually backed up flooding the place. The renter skipped town. That was his 'story.'
Boy, that was weird. I remember thinking after the initial post last week that in my sleep-deprived state I could use a double shot of booze to get me rolling, and it worked for a while, but went rapidly downhill after another double, and another... I also drank all the beer. Saturday's hangover was worse than usual, as you might guess.
Loud banging from the downstairs area just now reminds me to address a very interesting development: the owner of the uninhabited apartment downstairs has suddenly discovered that he has a valuable asset down there which has been going to waste for years. Apparently he guessed somehow that Kootch might be the owner of the 204, and when he saw her on the sidewalk outside the building last monday, asked whether she lived there. Kootch replied in the affirmative. He then advised her that our bathtub was leaking into his apartment. Kootch told me.
I then went downstairs to talk to him. Sure enough! I offered to turn on the water upstairs so that I could confirm the leak. He was not interested. I asked him whether I could look around. He had no objection. I found that all of the lower (about waist-down) dry wall had been removed from the apartment. The ceiling had been removed from the bathroom (I already knew that because I could see into the bathroom from the plumbing access opening in our own bathroom). There were no appliances in the kitchen area. The entire apartment had been stripped. No cabinets, nothing. Even the floor tiles had been stripped down to the cement. The apartment was gutted except for the ceilings in the other rooms.
He explained that the most recent renter had neglected the place, allowing it to go downhill. The sewer eventually backed up flooding the place. The renter skipped town. That was his 'story.'
