Adventures in, "My Landlord is a Momotard.":

Once upon a time, I signed a lease for my apartment. I did this back at the beginning of July (I think, appropriately enough, it was July 4th). Shortly thereafter, I began calling utilities companies in order to set up either installation of said utilities or transferring of various accounts to my name.

Included in this fun adventure were: Internet/cable access (installed September 1st, the day after I moved in officially -- I know where my priorities lie); electricity (no problem, except that despite my spelling my last name for them, they still got it wrong); and then the water. Well, water can't be transferred into my name, so I have to work out some arrangement with my landlord. Okay, no problem.

Fast-forward to a month ago. The Hydro bill arrives, in a mangled version of my landlord's name. I call the city to check up on this, and they say that it is in fact his bill, they haven't sent me one yet, they just didn't have an address for him, so they sent it to the place of service. My apartment. Lovely. :P I call my landlord about other issues and mention his bill.

Now we're at this week. Monday I came home to a letter in my mailbox, advising all residents of my building that unless the water bill is paid in person by November 20th, the water will be shut off. I still have my landlord's hydro bill -- I have to stop for a minute to make sure it isn't this that needs paying. It isn't.

I call the city to yell at them, and although the answering machine states that they're open until 4:30, the answering machine is on at 4:00 p.m. I resolve to call them the next day, hoping that the offices will still be open on Remembrance Day (it being a regional thing and not a government office).

I wake up on Tuesday, call the city right away. I then spend forty-five minutes on hold, being informed of how important my call is... actually, I don't think they bothered with this lie. I did get to hear over and over again about how all the agents are busy. *sigh* I wish they'd just play the damn music. That's less annoying.

Anyhow, knock at my door, I hang up the phone and eventually answer the door, and it's my landlord. He's there to bring some workers over to complete work on my ceiling. Cool beans. I hand him his hydro bill and my rent check for November (which he hadn't been by to collect, I'd like to point out), and then hold up the water notice. He says he was aware of that (I guess someone else(s) had actually called him), and that he was going to pay it tomorrow... he didn't know he had to pay it.

...

...

He didn't know he had to pay it. Now, when I looked at the place, he told me that the previous tenant had lived there for 6 years; I took this to mean he'd owned the building that long. As well, based on the description I gave to a friend of mine (who knew some people who lived there), my landlord owned the building at least the year before I moved in. So... how could he not know he had to pay it?

Now, maybe he had a superintendant or something (just thought of that) before hand, but still... *sigh* Ah well. At least now my ceiling and door are fixed, so I needn't worry. Much. There's still the matter of the pans resting against the back of my fridge, causing great anger to the fridge gremlins who periodically express their discontent (but that's kinda my fault), and there's the crummy dryers, but I can deal with that. Actually, I'm thinking of washing my clothes on-site and then taking them to another laundromat down the street where they have big industrial dryers. I'm smrt. :)

So because my landlord had the construction guys coming in yesterday (oh, did I forget to mention them?), I was semi-imprisoned in my apartment for most of the afternoon, 'cause I hadn't yet showered when he showed up and told me they'd be there in about 20 minutes. *sigh* I could've gone to the gym and showered, but I just didn't care enough. I wound up watching a few more episodes of season 2 of Angel, then showering and going to the gym after they left (I know, kinda backwards).

In the evening, my mom had changed the plans around, so I wound up just cooking myself dinner and vegging out some more. I finished off season 2 and chatted with some people, then watched some t.v. and went to bed early-ish, 'cause of this morning's 5 o'clock wake-up. Yay. :P

But so far I seem awake. That's good.

I have also received about 6 emails from chapters.ca, informing me that they're shipping my books. Now, I ordered two books: the first email said they were sending both. Then the next email said they were shipping one. Then I got another email saying they were shipping both, and a final email saying they were sending one. Okay, four emails. Hyperbole, whatever. I checked the order history for my account, and sure enough, they're sending two of each. *sigh* I wasn't even sure there'd be room on my credit card for one, let alone both, but here goes... :P It's going to be fun when they arrive and I get to go downtown and sort out the stupid mess. It may also leave me with a credit note for almost $150, but I think they can refund my credit card directly. Can't recall. I avoided doing Internet returns as often as possible.

For tonight, not sure what's going on. Perhaps dinner with Ben, which would be cool. I want to swing by Chapters if I can, and I need to get some serious writing done. I might wind up dropping out of NaNoWriMo, but in the meantime, I want to try to write something. I actually don't mind what I have so far, and it might be something I could actually carry through for awhile. :P