Salman’s landlady…updated

Last week I had the pleasure of interacting with Salman’s old landlady. She has a well documented past of being a crazy and angry person. When Salman gave notice that he would be leaving earlier than expected she spent a good deal of the conversation swearing  and telling him off. She could have taken his key in December and it would have given her an opportunity to rent the apartment a month earlier and collect double rent, but she though he was trying to scam her. Im not sure what happened to make her a bitter woman, maybe a boyfriend cheated on her, maybe kids teased her in school because she is built like a linebacker. I don’t know, im not a psychologist or not until my degree from the University of Phoenix comes in the mail. Anyways, we were supposed to meet last Tuesday but she wanted the electricity bill so she could deduct that from the deposit. She was planning on dropping by Wednesday afternoon but as I would be at work, I suggested we meet later on Wednesday or Thursday. When I got back from work on Wednesday, I called her but she didnt pickup so I settled down for a relaxing evening and a pre dinner bowl of cereal. At around 8, I heard pounding on my apartment door and as I suspected, it was her. Standing there, looking like she wanted to tackle me, she had been waiting outside for an hour and tried repeatedly to call me. Oh well. This obviously put her in a good mood and after yelling for her keys, I very calmly walked down the hall to the apartment and unlocked the door. As we walked in, she tried the lights but they didnt work. Since the electricity bill hadn’t been paid, it was cut off. She wasnt very happy, I mentioned we could use flashlights or candles to check the place out, but that suggestion wasnt well received. After storming around the apartment and cursing like a sailor she demanded to have her keys back, to which I responded (in my best adult voice) “You can have the keys when I get the deposit”. We argued about this for a couple minutes and decided to meet during the day on Thursday to finalize things. I went home,  listened to Eye of the Tiger a couple times, drank a warm glass of milk and fell asleep at the foot of my bed.

So Thursday, I left work early and waited for her outside the apartment at 2:30. At 3 when she still wasn’t there, I called her. After introducing myself, she hung up. I called back, and no answer. A couple minutes later a guy called my phone saying she was on her way. Upon arrival she asked me why I was calling her. I told her I wanted to know if she was on her way, to which she replied “You dont call me, you dont work for me”. Obviously sound logic, my mistake. After checking the apartment and making up a list of things that were missing (there were four plates and now there are only two, im taking that out of the deposit…) we went down to her car to settle up. When ran down the list of deductibles off the deposit she told me, “Im not doing this for the money, I put this kind of money in my wallet to spend. If I didnt have someone ready to rent this place, I would have made you keep the keys for another month. I talked to a lawyer” I decided to take the high road and not reply but when our delightful transaction ended I told her it was a pleasure doing business with her, to which she replied “Kiss my ass”….classy lady.

I learned a valuable lesson last week, I had just poured myself the aforementioned bowl of cereal, milk and all, when I noticed an ant in the bowl. I scooped it out (one ant isnt bad) and picked up the spoon to take a bite when I noticed another. At this point I decided to pick a number and if I saw this number or fewer ants in the bowl I would continue eating. I picked 5, safe to say it didnt take long to surpass that number. So the lesson is not to keep cereal in the cupboard, it goes in the fridge.  Same goes for crackers… also covered in ants. This is a new problem, ive always had ants, but they usually hang out by my sink, counter top or on the kettle.  Thankfully its just ants and not cockroaches.

UPDATED: Im pretty sure Salman’s landlady stole my mop last night. On Monday, she knocked on my door telling me I couldn’t keep my mop and garbage can outside. My landlady (who is very nice and normal) keeps her mop outside and I was simply drying out my garbage can after washing it out. I brought the garbage can in (I obviously needed it) but left the mop. When I got up this morning, the mop was gone. She really is crazy. On the bus to work this morning they were playing the theme song from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. That put me in a good mood and soothed the pain of a stolen mop.