Move It or Lose It

It's November of last year and I'm at the laundromat for the first time in my life, folding laundry and my phone rings, it's my mom. "Your dog is missing?" Confused, I said "no... what are you talking about?" And she tells me that she got a phonecall from the GPS tracking company that chips dogs, and they got a report that Gracie was found up the street by a woman and here's her number.

I'm stunned. Five seconds ago my world consisted of neatly organized piles of socks, underwear, tshirts and pants, and now all of a sudden, my dog is gone and am I going to see her again? How the hell did this hap-? Oh right. My landlord. My live-in landlord, the one who insists she knows how to take better care of my dog than I do.

I rush home, stop in at the place who reportedly had her, and they told me the woman with the house had come by to pick up Gracie and told them she wasn't going to tell me. I thanked them for saving my sweetie and came home, frustrated.

I'd been living in this house for just over a month. From the time I shook her hand when she suggested "let's make a deal!" and I agreed to move in, my gut feeling had been begging me to listen to it. Listen to your gut folks, this only gets worse.

I have a black lab, who has a digestion issue that forces her to be hungry... a lot sadly. So her being a dog and all, she follows her nose and scavenges for food, as most dogs do. She was once found across the street from my old apartment, literally inside of a garbage can, dining. So this wasn't the first time she had escaped a human's supervision, and I was more than willing to be understanding and move on, but something felt different about this. Something about her not wanting to tell me really irked me. When we finally spoke about it, and I discovered she had let her out in the unfenced backyard without a leash, not once, but TWICE did she run off, I simply asked her if the first time wasn't enough of an indication that my dog's an asshole and she will do as she pleases, but she's also a dog, and I don't trust her to safely navigate the streets of Toronto.

It was decided, in an official kitchen meeting which took place soon after this argument, a meeting in which she thought I was recording our conversation, that not only am I possibly the meanest, most heartless person on the planet, because I questioned her IQ, but also that I was no longer welcome in this person's house and that I until December 15th, which was approximately 3 weeks away, to GTFO.

This was the second time that I was kicked out of a Toronto apartment since moving here two years ago.  My first room was in a house with an older couple, who came into an inheritance and for the first time in their lives, didn't need a roommate.  I was the last of about 50 roommates over the 30 years that they owned the house, so at least that's something to feel proud of...

After this kitchen meeting/argument, what ensued was a mix of harassment, in the form of emails through the original Craigslist system, also, text messages, screaming, yelling, and strangely enough, several peace offerings, including shortbread cookies from the Harbord Bakery that she picked up for me, those were quickly followed by several more instances of hate-filled attacks. I did my best to remain patient and understand that this woman is dealing with something that had nothing to do with me, but I genuinely feared for my safety and my own anxiety managed to think up horrifying scenarios of what she might do to my dog while I was at work.

So, time to find a new apartment. Basements. Soooo many basements. One basement I saw had only two windows, both the size of a loaf of bread.  Another place I saw right off of Bloor was really promising, but I had to have an honest conversation with myself about how I felt greeting rats every time I came and went.  Yet another distinctly smelled of mildew, and somehow I was like, yeah!  I can do mildew!  I'll take it!  I applied for all 3, and none of them wanted me and my pooch.

After seeing a dozen apartments and applying to a handful of those, I was beginning to lose hope. I would wind up homeless, I thought.

I was on my way to see a Craigslist basement when I spotted an "Apartment for Rent" sign as I locked up my bicycle.  So old fashioned!  Just above a cute little cafe on College and Dufferin, I knew it was fate. This was going to be the one. I called right away and set up an appointment. It was huge, 2 bedrooms, 3rd floor, just minutes from the Dufferin Mall. Every girls' dream!

The landlord, S-jerk, met me and while he seemed pleasant, again, that gut feeling struck me. Something was off. The visit was rushed, there were lightswitch plates missing, the kitchen was messy and definitely had mouse poop but he ignored my questions and rambled about nonsense instead, so I wrote the place off until a final blowout with my landlady and a follow-up call from S-jerk, so I took the damn thing... without seeing it a second time.

I met him at the Dufferin Mall Tim Hortons, handed over a $1200 registered check and signed a 12-month lease like an IDIOT. I hired movers, and the night before every single belonging known to me was moved in, I went over with Gracie to do a little cleaning, and that's when I discovered, to my horror, that the place was infested with COCKROACHES! And not just a few, cute little buddy buds, but cockroaches on the walls, on the floor, in the cupboards, in the bathroom, some living, some dead.  After a quick google search, I discovered those weren't coffee grinds I saw in the cupboards previously, they were cockroach droppings, that wasn't an innocent beetle shell I had seen on my rushed visit, and those lightwitch plates were missing because that's how often they came to spray in the walls. Yes, these were all signs of a horrible, overcrowded, nasty, reoccurring infestation.

As you can imagine, I felt desperate, angry! I took pictures and emailed Sonny right away, who denied it all, said they never existed before and said he would send someone to spray. 

The first night in this awful apartment, where I would lie awake with the lights on and a tuque covering my face, there was a murder about 4 houses up and the killer was on the loose. Not only that, but the access door to my building didn't lock. AN ACTUAL MURDER GUYS. COCKROACHES WEREN'T BAD ENOUGH, I NOW LEGITIMATELY FEARED FOR MY LIFE.

The next morning, I sat up on my couch, in the brightest room of the apartment, feeling like the biggest failure in the world, and decided I should torture myself for a moment and go on Craigslist to see what I missed. What gem did I miss. Surrounded by boxes, maybe there was still hope.

And there it was. The perfect apartment. Bright, open-concept, semi-basement near Brock and Dundas, my dream neighborhood. The one I literally prayed to stay in somehow. I sobbed on that couch, I sobbed and I emailed because I had to, even though I was already locked into a lease, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to at least see it. To see what the possibilities are. I booked an appointment to see the apartment, the same day that I had my last shift as a barista, and I headed to Montreal that night for Christmas.

Well I got the apartment, with an amazing landlord too, which was a total shock, because A. Dog, and B. my luck, and so C. how do I get out of the other lease. After some back and forth with S-Jerk, he agreed to meet me and sign the N-11 form upon my return which would release me from this temporary clusterfuck. Hurray! Finally my luck was changing and I'd literally found my dream home.

I returned to the roach-infested shithole, and believe me when I tell you I saw 16 cockroaches of all shapes and sizes disperse from under my dog's water dish and it was at that moment I decided S was a real son of a bitch for getting me into this mess.

I met him at the Tim Hortons in the G-D Dufferin Mall, and he refused to sign the N-11. He said his business partner would sue him and sue me if I was let out. I caused a bit of a scene like a good Dufferin Mall goer should, I called him a liar, and shamed him and I went home to my second leased apartment, aka Dreamtown and fumed the night away.

A few hours later, I got a call from Sonny, saying he'd just heard from someone who wanted to see the apartment. He had done me a favour you see, and put the FOR RENT sign back up. I thought he was setting me up for another scam but I walked the 10 minute walk over, and met a beautiful Angel from Brazil who was working up the street and going to school, and going through a break-up, and what a perfect place this was for her. 2017!  She kept saying, pumped.

I told her everything, every last detail. I told her about the initial visit, S's shadiness, the cockroaches, the cleaning, the promises, the poop, everything... and after she took the night to consider and make a second visit, she agreed to take the apartment. She said she'd lived with cockroaches before, and that one time she walked into her kitchen and found two roaches fucking on an onion she'd been slicing up for a sandwich, so this wasn't her first rodeo. 2017!! she proclaimed, on that January day.

We met with S, she signed a new lease, and he signed my N-11 and seven months later I still get to come home every night to my dog, who is happy and healthy and well-supervised, and my beautiful home, that I cherish like I've never cherished a thing before. My landlords, my awesome, helpful landlords, drop by every now and then to bring me homemade cinnamon buns and kale from their mother’s garden, and I am never moving again.

***

I'm not sure to be honest what has kept me going.  Moving to Toronto has been a real shit sandwich a lot of the times, but it was the best thing for me.  You don't know how much growing you have to do until you're faced with a series of challenges that are going to test your spirit and your sense of self like never before, and I'm glad I've stuck it out so far.  Here's to 2017, and to start applying this knowledge to the next chapter.

Link Wray,

Katie

***

PS-  By far, the best thing that came out of that roach-hole was this: My brother drove me back from Montreal and we had to spend a night at Cockroachtel and when we went out for food, Gracie destroyed a mousetrap and had a bright green turd.  Here's a picture to prove it. You're welcome.