Saturday, March 12, 2011

No Place Like Home

WOW…. I’m living Bizarro-land or maybe it is just Murphyville, but everything that can go wrong has gone wrong for the past several weeks. Now the cord to my laptop has a short, I am kneeling over my coffee table trying to type this so I don’t lose my power LOL. Anyway as I mentioned in my brief blog of last week, I was requested to vacate my last apartment because of a conflict between my landlady and my room-mate. I confess that finding something affordable and immediately available is easier for me, then for most people. Not because I have connections… it is just my standards are very low.


The day before we had to vacate I saw an ad on Kijiji… I was prepared to take it sight unseen. But the girl at the management company insisted I view it first. I was so committed to the place (it just felt right) I took a money order for first month’s rent with me. When we came (my daughter and I) to view the place, the building super was slapping on a coat of paint. The place has character, wood doors and trim and French doors closing off the single bedroom (where the room-mate sleeps) from the rest of the living room (where I sleep). It is a basement unit in a century old building, with a great location. Dairy Queen across the parking lot, there’s a rockin’ church on the corner (been there a few times), a pizza shop next door, buses, 7-eleven, etc, etc.

By the time we moved our stuff in, the smell of paint had begun to dissipate and was replace by mildew… it has been 12 day and I barely notice it anymore. Although we have the occasional cockroach, it is nothing like in the movies… they are fairly small and easy to squish. My room-mate harbours a Buddhist nature and doesn’t want me to kill them. Thankfully I believe in the natural order and God created cockroaches to breed in the 10s of thousands because he knew every other living thing would be killing (or eating) them. Haven’t seen any mice yet but I cleaned up a lot of dropping from the cupboard in the kitchen. I have never seen my neighbours.. but it is like we all live together in one big house. Every noise, every conversation, every smell is shared among the adjacent apartments. This morning I woke up to the smell of someone’s burned coffee (hate that smell). In short I very much like our new place… if I were staying longer I might take the time and money to fix the place up. For now this is a place to sleep safe from the elements, keep my shit (stuff) dry and spend some quality time getting to know my room-mate and exploring the possibility of tomorrow.

Affordable housing is too rare… and everybody needs a place to call home… a place to live in safety and dignity… it is NOT an impossible dream… It should be a goal.

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