Day One Again

It's been such a long time, the details are fading into each other and what seemed like catastrophes at the time have settled into minor disasters. The string of conincidences that we encountered when we first moved in to the apartment were painful and entertaining. Despite the expansive time gap, these incidents definitely belong in the blog, so I'm going to try to remember and record some of the early episodes.


When I went to look at the apartment, the building manager told me it was nearly ready for a new tenant; they just needed about eight days to finish up a few things, like cleaning, polishing the wood floors, and re-sealing the tub.

My keys were supposed to be coming in the mail (which sounds a little sketchy and probably should have been the first warning sign). Three days before we were supposed to move in I was still keyless, and I was getting nervous because the weekend was coming up. So I called the leasing office. They assured me that the keys had been overnighted, and when I expressed my doubts they said that if for some reason they didn't come I could have someone from the leasing office let me into the apartment when I moved in on Monday. I pointed out that this wouldn't work since we had agreed I would move in on Sunday (and the management office would be closed). This began a secondary back-and-forth in which they tried to tell me the move-in date was Monday, and I maintained that it had always been Sunday.

We finally decided that yes, move-in was, in fact, Sunday. With the key situation still somewhat up in the air, I went home praying that the keys would arrive in time. Thankfully, they did. (Though, it can be added, they were post-marked after the day the leasing agent claimed to have mailed them, but whatever, they made it.)

Feeling like things were finally on the right track, I packed and brought an SUV of stuff up to DC on a chilly day at the end of February. As we entered the apartment it was quickly apparent that very little "work" had been done on the place and of what they had started nothing had been finished. The apprehension I had pushed resolutely out of my head came trickling back in, grinning impishly and humming a taunting tune.

The layer of dust and dirt that had accumulated after the apartment sat unoccupied for a year was still spread across floorboards and window sills. The tub was full of plaster shaving from where someone had started chipping off the old finish, but hadn't gotten around to cleaning and applying the new coat. The signs that everything was still a work in progress were accentuated by the sandwich someone had left in the fridge and the empty soda cans on the kitchen counter. As calmly as possible, I took stock of everything, pulled out my tiny vaccuum cleaner, and started to clean.