Well, that was stupid…
I had found a place yesterday. Had is the key word. It was part of small duplex. It had one bedroom, living room, kitchen place with central heating, washer & dryer, fridge, and stove for $425 a month. It wasn’t too far from my work. I have been looking at houses in that price range, but all the ones for rent less than $500 a month, well, let’s just say there were not in a safe area or the place itself was pretty shitty. So, anyway, this duplex I found, well, I went and meet the landlord at his office. He was a nice old man, but I was concerned that he had several pictures of George Bush hanging up… I didn’t really give it too much thought though, but it did remind me of another old man I had met. Anyway, I paid a $200 deposit plus money to cover up to the first due date, so in total I gave him $426. I was pretty happy. Then shortly after, I don’t know, but I felt like I made a mistake. To make myself feel better, I called another place I had saw, but was kind of iffy on, during my place hunting trip that day. It was a 2-bed house, pretty big too and it was also $425 a month. I called and it had already been rented out, so I felt better about my choice. I meet up with my family at my Dad’s work, at which time I helped out at the store for awhile. I then showed my parents, my sister, and my sister’s boyfriend the place and they liked it. After awhile though, I still felt like I made a mistake. I figured I would feel better in the morning.
This morning I first got a call from my landlord saying that he miscalculated the first payment that I still owe him a $100, but he said he was in no rush to have it. I was a bit worried because I knew I had less than $200 in my bank account at the time. I then took a hard look at my bank account. I realized that there was just no way I could safely afford the monthly rent once I started to figure the cost of everything; car insurance (which would go up since I wouldn’t be part of a family plan – I totally forgot about that), cellphone, car payment, Internet, gas (both for the house and car), electricity (which I’ve been told to expect that to be $100 right there), and food. I knew if I stayed, I wouldn’t be able to buy food unless I happened to get more hours at work. Lately, I can only safely count on $500 a paycheck, and there’s been a few times when it’s been a little less than $500. If I could always have at least $600, I would be fine. I had to look somewhere else to free up some money. I checked into my car loan. I thought if I might be able to pull out all of my savings and pay off the loan, but I had another $4,000 left on it and I only have less than half of that in savings. Fuck. Now, keep in mind that my mind was racing, really figuring things out. So, yeah, I took a shower first to calm myself, then I called my landlord and told him that I had to pull out at which point he had me come to his office to make a settlement. Thankfully, I didn’t call to get gas or power turned on the place yet.
When I got to the landlord’s office, I first I offered him $50 for his troubles to pay for a newspaper ad, but he said that cost him $64, so I offered him that. Did he go for that? No. He decided to take advantage, even though he said he didn’t want to, but he did anyway, saying this is a business and he really wouldn’t be able to find someone to rent it until Monday, so he made it $100. (So, I got $326 back of the $426 I had paid him for having the place for less than 24 hours.) I was like fine and agreed to it. I really did act the better person, shaking his hand afterwards and apologizing yet again after he gave me a check. I wanted to argue with him some more to get him to lower it some, but I held my tongue. I still want to argue. I felt like I should’ve said, “well, sometimes when doing business you lose money to make someone else happy.” I hate old white people, especially if they have money. I feel really stupid and pissed off at the same time. I should’ve known $425 a month was going to be too much, but I felt so pressured to find some place quickly.
Well, you know what, I promise that if I ever open some sort of apartment complex that I would give people a 30 day happiness guarantee where they can get all of their money back. Though, I would do so much more if I ever did open some sort of living complex. I would do awesome stuff, like I build it underground to protect people from tornados, have an large evaluator to help move their stuff in, make each unit soundproof so you won’t hear your neighbors, have a river flowing through the hallways, make all the doors double the size that people are used too so people can actually fit a couch through them easily, and I would have like a shopping and eating district for people. To top it off, I would make it affordable for single people too. You have to admit that would be so fucking awesome.
Good news is that I don’t have to worry about getting a place so soon. It looks like my parents can get some temporary insurance so they can have time and money to fix up the place and sell it for a profit. My parents are also worried about my sister living with her boyfriend and if things go wrong between them, that she wouldn’t have a place to stay. As for what I’m going to do in the mean time — I’m going to make some great things.
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