$100 a day

Management is hammering and banging next door again. Looks like they are laying new carpeting for an anticipated new tenant. I can't complain about renovation, I guess, as it won't last forever.  It's ironic that they had no money to make my wet basement safe and habitable but they have money to renovate the empty apartment. Makes me feel that I'm a second-class tenant. Would that be sexism or age-ism?

But the smoke from management's employees is making me sick. It's making me so nauseous that I can't eat breakfast. It's wafting into my basement from large holes in my basement walls, circulating through my heating system and rising up the stairs to my kitchen through the louvred door. I complained yesterday, and either management did nothing to stop the smoke or they have no control over their employees.

Why must paying tenants be at the mercy of workers who receive their salary from tenants' rent?

So I emailed Landmark Square Apartments management and said that from yesterday on I would charge $100 a day for the aggravation from smoke. They think they are going to charge me for steam cleaning the carpets in my unit, but since it wasn't done before I moved in, I see no reason to pay for carpet cleaning.

We'll see what happens. I'm always prepared to go to court and will be able to show up with emails of correspondence and photos.

Dr. Kinsey

This made me feel ancient.

Dr. Kinsey was my pediatrician. Today his great granddaughter and her little girl were in my living room. She is buying my sofa, loveseat and coffee table.

I really think that if it weren't for Dr. Kinsey I might not have thrived as a baby and grown to be an adult. So it gives me pleasure to hand over my living room furniture to his descendants.

Childish Landlord

Today is the first of the month and the property manager probably read my notice of vacating in 30 days and my request to have my security deposit applied to my last month's rent. But there has been no response... of course.

So at 8 AM I hear shouting and pounding next door in the empty apartment (which has been vacant for 4 months). Then I smell cigarette smoke wafting into my apartment. Management's maintenance crew is smoking and it's coming through the large holes in the basement wall between the two apartments and into my first and second floors. I know who it is because they shout when they speak as if they are hearing impaired.

Smoke has been a primary issue for me. I said before I signed the lease that I needed a smoke-free environment because I have respiratory restriction when I am around the residue of cigarette smoke. I discovered after moving in that the previous tenant was an employee of the management company, had free rent plus a salary for several years, and "smoked like a chimney" according to the current maintenance workers. The Landlord simply spray-painted over years of accumulated tar and nicotine. Paint doesn't remove toxicity and carcinogens! In my bathroom you can see hundreds of yellow streaks of nicotine all over the walls and sink area. They are sticky to the touch.

I've asked management what they were prepared to do to keep me as a loyal tenant and there has been no response. However, they have erected huge banners at two street corners announcing, "Now Leasing" and "Free Rent."

Yes, that's right. They are offering free rent to attract new tenants, but they are doing nothing to keep good tenants they already have! And now they are deliberately making my last month here unpleasant. Now I have a kidney stone that isn't passing, a sore and bruised hip from the icy parking lot they won't salt or sand, a wrenched shoulder from that same fall, a cough and throat constriction from 11 months of living with toxins, and now nausea from the smoke. (You already know about the unsafe basement and the slippery porch floor because they refused to use no-slip paint on the warping floor boards that had no expansion gaps.)

I offered them a year of my public relations services to help them attract fabulous tenants for only a month's rent. Not only can Landmark Square not comprehend the gift I offered them and refused to acknowledge the gift, but now they are being childishly passive-aggressive during my last four weeks that I paid for.

And did I mention, they insisted I pay 4 months in advance before I moved in? Why do they want to lose a good tenant like me?

This is exactly what my book, The Generosity Experiment, is about: working against your own best interests when someone wants to help you achieve what you want. 

And yes, the property manager knew about the premise of my book from Day One. What can I tell you?

Grandmother's Limoges

Tomorrow I'm selling my grandmother's Theodore Haviland Limoges china to a friend I met on Freecycle. She lives close by and already invited me to park in her driveway and in front of her house so I knew she was good people.

The set is probably worth $1500 to $2500 and I'm selling it for $100. It's been in the Reynolds family since my grandparents were married in 1906. But I have no children, grandchildren, siblings, cousins, nieces, nephews, or distant relations to hand them to.

I haven't held any dinner parties since 1985; and even if my life turned around and I was once again well-known, well-liked and had more than one friend to invite for dinner, I still have a complete set of Minton china that was my father's and step-mother's. They married in 1959. The pattern (Greenwich) was discontinued in 1979. Their marriage lasted until 1977 when my step-mother died of cancer.

It is worth it to me to sell my grandmother's Limoges china for a modest price to a young family that will be able to enjoy them for many more years. And selling the set now means two fewer boxes for me to move to storage for who-knows-how-many months or years. But I have photos of all the pieces to remember, and I think my grandmother would be happy.

Cheap Thrills (Romantic Dates)

I've published a mini-ebook: Cheap Thrills: 65 No Cost, Low Cost Romantic Activity Ideas in time to plan your St. Valentine's Day. I want to help you keep romance alive without going into debt. I'll send it to you myself when I get your order.


Contents
Love Notes
Declare Your Love
Talk to Each Other
Make a Promise
Show Thoughtfulness
Rekindle the Flame
Have a Picnic
Go Exploring
Be Kids Again
Plan a Surprise
If You're Single

$3.95 Yes, this is another way I am raising money to defray living expenses besides selling all my furniture and giving up my apartment. Thanks for supporting my efforts.

This arrived yesterday

Brand new. No cost to me. Haven't opened the box yet. To read the story behind this, click here. I'm going to be warm! Thank you, Holmes!

Ending my lease

Today is the last day I can legally give my 30 days notice to the Property Manager at Landmark Square Apartments. I've given them multiple opportunities and offers to do the right thing and they continue to let me down. Their slogan is "Expect to be impressed." I'm still waiting. My experience is that their behavior toward single women of a certain age is cold-hearted bordering on age discrimination.

#1 For 11 months I have had a wet basement and notified them of it 4 days after I moved in. I'm required to step into puddles in order to put clean wet clothes into my dryer. This is dangerous and they know it. I know someone whose wife and unborn child died by electrocution because of the same situation.

Are they hoping I will be electrocuted? Their lease says that the tenant must pay the rent every month to the end of the lease even if they are dead. Dead tenants can't complain, so perhaps I've discovered their agenda.

Management insists that the only acceptable solution (to them) is putting more toxic tar on the wall. That solution doesn't work, as anyone can see, and I don't want to have to live with any more toxicity in my environment. Because they refuse to address the cause of the leaks, not just the symptom, which is to repair the outside of the foundation, I suggested an economical false floor of wood or plastic pallets so that I could keep my feet dry while the water flows underneath to the drain. I found a source of plastic pallets that would cost them $162.50 (about 20% of one month's rent). They refused.

#2 About 10 days ago I called their office and asked if they could refer me to someone who could dig my van out of their parking lot. The snow was packed solid around all 4 tires, and I had no boots or snow tires to get out. They wouldn't even return my phone call.

I did dig myself out and the exertion triggered an awful kidney stone attack. My first, so I didn't know what it was. It felt like I had a poker thrust through my lower abdomen back to front. The pain was so bad I was trembling and sweating.


#3 Two days ago I slipped and fell in their icy parking lot, landing on my hip - where the kidney stone is still lodged - and wrenching my shoulder. Fortunately I have enough personal padding that I didn't break a hip, but I'm sore. But what if I had osteoporosis?  Many older women who break a hip don't live long and rarely leave the hospital except in a hearse. These three things - and there are so many more issues - give me cause to not only leave, but to tell others why they should not live here. 

The tenants in the adjoining townhouse moved out in September. They were my age. The unit has been vacant ever since. That's a loss of $3,140 income to management, so far. In 30 days my unit will be vacant too. That will double their loss. I guess they feel their need to be right justifies the cost to their bottom line.

I offered to turn their business around to become fully occupied and profitable - I did it with my bed and breakfast - for one month's rent and they rejected my offer. Actually they completely ignored it. How rude.  I tried to be part of the solution and was ignored, so I feel no guilt in letting the public know what I've experienced. Too bad the owners won't consider replacing me as their Property Manager, but they don't even want me as a tenant, so why would they want a profitable business?

What do you want to bet this post will turn up when prospective tenants do a Google or Bing search on Landmark Square Apartments in Erie Pennsylvania?