The new bachelorette pad

I have resisted writing about my new place because I'm sick of hearing my own whining. Maybe if I tell you here, though, I won't have to write you letters separately, and thus I can conserve my whine rations for other catastrophes.

This is the situation:

I was shown a room that would fit my queen-sized bed when I looked at the place. When I accepted the place I made sure to assert that I wanted that room. Weeks later I was told I had never seen it and it wasn't available but I was still wanted. The compromise? I moved into a tiny guest room with a shattered window, a spider problem, and three moldy mops in the closet until roomie R moves out in September and I can take the other room on this floor. The reason for crisis? Roomie B wanted the room after she showed it to me and decided she would just move herself on in. That woulda been fine, if she'd TOLD ME. She didn't. She withheld the information until 4 days before my move, and then lied about showing the room.

Also, I met two roommates of the 4 bedroom place, B and R. I met B first, found conversation easy, but her sense of humor seemed a bit... off? She's a bit on the literal side. For example, when our Guy Roommate moved in and called to say he was bringing up all his "furniture and luuve" she got worried that he has a crush on her. So yes, she is also a bit of an egoist. (You can maybe tell that Guy Roomie and I get along jus' fine so far.) Okay, back to the story... I met roomie R a week later and we REALLY hit it off. She's intelligent, well-spoken, funny, and she's good pals with Marika! I mean, how can she NOT be cool? I was excited to live with her, and this is perhaps why I took the place.

If you've been paying attention, you'll already have the sinking feeling in your stomach. She's the one moving out on September 1st.

Now this isn't so bad, right? Guy Roomie seems cool so far, and perhaps roomie B won't be too bothersome. We'll find our fourth and be happy in our spacious Brookline apartment.

Spacious, yes. Clean? In good repair? No. And it looks like roomie B has cultivated a particularly hostile relationship with the landlord, evidenced by a 2000 word email (CC'd to me) letting him know that Guy Roomie and I need to sign the lease, and also that she heard that he hates her and she is TOTALLY not a bad person (she used CAPS FOR EMPHASIS in the same rather immature way I use it here) and it's COMPLETELY HIS FAULT that she has a problem with him, etc. etc.

(Yesterday)
JoBiv: So I got that email.
Roomie B: Yeah? How did it come across? I had a lot of good arguments.
JoBiv: Well, it did sound argumentative.
Roomie B: Yeah?

So I called up our landlord, Stan, and introduced myself. We had a very pleasant conversation, between my tolerance of his long-winded mumbly-ness and his tolerance of my interruptions, and I mananged to get him started on the shattered window, the bathroom sink (which is a solid block of porcelain with only one leg supporting it) and the front garden. I saved the following issues for another time, perhaps AFTER I sign a lease:

-Moldy/rotted wooden bathroom window frame
-Mold on every painted surface in the bathroom
-Peeling, water-stained ceilings
-Big chunks of plaster falling off the walls
-The screen porch with the floor rotting away on the south side
-Punctured screens in every room
-Warped windows/doors in every room (the heating bills must be incredible!)
-The naaaasty carpet on the entrance stairs with various stains and smells

Roomie B warned me that he may ask, "Well, if it's in such bad shape, why'd you move in?" I withheld my vitriolic commentary.

But yes, I feel a little duped. More than that, I feel like an idiot for not cataloguing these issues before, for not going back to see the place before I accepted, etc. As I looked at places I put them into two categories: Enh, and No Way In Hell. The one place I actually wanted was a "garden level" apartment with a kind of eccentric girl in it whom I might have gotten along with swimmingly. Garden level... do you hear me? JoBiv, who said she would never fall for living in a basement again? And that was my best option? (At $725/mo, I might add.) So now I'm living in one of the Enh apartments, and I HAVE TO QUIT WHINING ABOUT IT. It was my decision. If it's intolerable, I can always move, right? And it won't be hard to get out of my lease (if I ever sign one) because the place is a travesty.

My dad is coming into town tonight. He's working again - a very good thing - and starting out in Milton MA or something. It will be good to see him and hug him and have proof that he's alive and well, but I can tell you... I'm not looking forward to justifying my decisions to him. Nannying, moving, loan problems... It all makes me feel like a terrible coward.