Our First Home

Ah, young love. It torments the parents and drains them of every bit of energy they ever had. Sweet, ain't it?
After high school, Shawn and I decided to move in together. I'm not proud that we lived together before being married, but it's a fact.
He worked at the 7-11 down town. The apartment building behind the store was looking for a couple to manage it. It didn't pay anything except rent and utilities. One could be manager, while the other worked for a living for groceries and what not.
Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Shawn's mother was thrilled. She was finally getting rid of another child! (they have a big family) She did everything she could to help us. She gave us some of her old furniture and silverware. She took us shopping at the dollar store and bought us things like soap and toothpaste.

I was 17 at the time. I had no idea what I was doing. Nor did I know how to really talk back to people yet. I didn't know how to handle things, yet; I was a kid!

This place was awful. We lived there for 3 months and I cried about every week. The residents were out of their minds, literally. It was a small apartment building of about 30 units, I think. Many were occupied by mentally unstable people, deemed fit to live on their own. Most of these people, I think, really ought to have had someone living with them.

The residents didn't understand that we were on duty from 9am to 5pm. They banged on our door at midnight, complaining that so-and-so was making too noise. And that was the normal people. Everyone there thought we were there babysitters.

The children ran rampant. No one watched them, no one disciplined them. The ran around like a bunch of little hellians, screaming, crying, stealing, etc.

There were a few good people. There was the woman with Lupus. Her children were very considerate and well-behaved. There was the old woman in unit 23 that had lived there since the time of it being a good neighborhood. There was the guy that worked at the hospital and spent every spare dime on baseball cards.

Those people were few and far between. If I was ever in the tiny office in front of our apartment, people would come in screaming at top of their lungs at me about how they don't have a shower curtain rod.

After our first full week there, Shawn's mom had invited us to dinner. We came back to find that the apartment directly upstairs from ours had been broken into. You can imagine when we pulled up to find the police talking with the resident. She was a crazy lady who screamed at me daily. She had broken up with her boyfriend so he decided to kick in the window. There was glass and blood everywhere and we had to clean it up. We refused to clean up any blood.

Our bosses were just as crazy and just as bad as the residents but we couldn't really talk back to them as we might everyone else. They made you feel as though you were a 2 year old. They were filthy rich and had never worked a day in their lives. That's what we were for because we were poor and stupid and ignorant.

These guys skimped on everything, even when it came down to air conditioning for the poor pregnant woman in August. We offered her a window fan and apologized for our bosses. The Property Manager would swing by every so often to scream at me.

Besides other things, I kept up the grounds. Every morning I would lug a garden hose that weighed as much as I did all the way around the 2 building and spray the sidewalks. I picked up garbage (including poopie diapers just tossed into the parking lot) and raked the leaves.

One morning I was coming from the shed after putting away the 100 pound hose. The Property Manager just starts wailing on me! She is literally screaming about how I am supposed to be in the office. How can anyone rent an apartment if I am not there. She just goes on and on like a complete lunatic.

I just stood there and let her make a foll of herself. "Where WERE YOU? I looked EVERWHERE for you!"" she screamed. I calmly explained that I was keeping the grounds and that I had to put the hose in the shed; that was my job, after all.

Looking very stupid indeed, the woman went blank. "Oh. Well ok. But you need to put a note on the office or SOMETHING so people will know where you are!!"

Once again, I explained that I had written on the dry erase board that I would be back at such and such time. The woman was clearly out of her mind.

We were expected to perform general maintenance that we didn't know how to do. Wake up at midnight to break up a quarrel. Clean urine from a refrigerator crisper box that a disgruntled evicted resident had left behind.

We had a drive by and called the police twice. Apparently, the dispatcher didn't put it out the first time. The apartment 2 doors down was ransacked and ton to pieces on a search warrant. Residents belittled us. The owners treated us like trash.

We'd about had enough. Shawn's parents agreed to take us in until we could find something, just in case, and we made a call to the Property Manager.

WE QUIT!! And we're not moving! We'll pay our rent like everyone else but we ain't putting up with this BS ANYMORE!

On the dry erase board outside of the office, Shawn had wrote in bold letter, "We quit. Don't bring us your problems."

To explain a little, a lien is when you owe money in back rent or damages and the manager comes and takes something of value. It's done all the time and is quite legal. We never did it because we hated our bosses and didn't feel right taking someone's television.

Crazy Property Manager came pounding on our door that evening. She was hollering and carrying on that she was going to take our TV. Shawn stood on the inside of our apartment pushing with all his strength. Crazy Lady stood outside pushing on the door with all her strength. Finally, Shawn yelled, "You just try to come in here and this TV! TAKE IT!" And he slammed the door, quite literally, on Crazy Lady's nose.

A couple days later, we had an eviction notice on our front door. Out of fury, Shawn waded it up and threw it away. We moved in with his parents and went to see a judge. We told him our story. He said we shouldn't have moved out because it was an illegal eviction. And now we didn't proof of it since Shawn threw it away. There was nothing to do.

It didn't matter. We were out of there and we didn't have to deal with those bunch of crazies anymore. Though, even today I still think about the nice ones. I feel sorry for them that they still have to live there. The woman in 23 had once told me about how beautiful the place looked when she first moved in. It was quiet and there were flowers of all colors everywhere. The drug dealers had not yet closed in and there was not a single gun shot to be heard.

I always felt sorry for her, that she had to live there. She deserved better.