So Yeah: You're not going to believe this.

Then again, you might.

You've heard the stories about my apartment building. It's mismanaged all to hell, the building is old enough that there is a fading Fallout Shelter placard on the exterior (as opposed to this positively pristine one mounted on the local Masonic Temple—and I do mean that in the original definition of the word: that thing looks like it came out of the original factory and somehow was protected from all the elemental nonsense that's been thrown at it since it went up). There is enough mold in the building that adding a HEPA system to the unit last year actually did increase my quality of life (I actually haven't had a sinus event since I got the thing). Pieces and bits of the bathroom wall regularly fall in and it takes weeks to get any attention to the problem. I've had to repair my own damn sink a few times because maintenance seems to not care about that issue, and the only reason a gas leak that I've been reporting since I moved in got fixed was because I was out for an extended period of time, there was a draft, and someone else just so happened to smell it.

I'm not saying that you have to have high expectations for a damn public housing complex but base livability would be nice, yannou?

This is the same place when, the BB infestation started a little over two years ago now, certain residents—yours truly included—were called unhygenic, had our morals called into question, told we had fleas and “why don't we try bathing a little more?”

What the miso-glazed fuck?

At the height of my own problem—thrifting was in, I'd had a rather gorgeous sofa sleeper thrifted in because I was getting rid of everything associated with a certain ex. Little did I know, this gorgeous sofa sleeper was going to soon be known as…

PESTILENCE COUCH

Yes, THAT Pestilence Couch. Turned out the store was POSITIVELY RIDDLED with the bastards. And reporting did nothing. So, took drastic measures. I captured one of the fuckers and brought it to the landlord.

“That's a flea.”

…y'all better get used to the phrase “What the miso-glazed fuck” because I actually asked her “What the miso-glazed fuck are you talkin' about? Does this look like a flea to you?”

“Look. I don't know what kind of life you live, what you have—”

“I know you didn't just call me flea-bitten.” A death stare. The landlord is oddly quiet.

“I've already confirmed outside what this is. I'd like a confirmation from the exterminators, and then an extermination.”

“If we don't find anything, though?”

“Then y'all are full of it and I'm getting rid of the furniture that brought them in if you're JUST THAT SURE.”

On my way back up, I found a neighbor who ALSO had them on hand to report. She lived four floors below me. On the one hand, it was good to see I hadn't tracked them in with that damned Pestilence Couch. On the other, it meant the building is completely fucking fucked.

Three weeks later, Orkin doesn't trip the tripline I set leading to the obvious signs and I have Pestilence Couch removed. You know what else gets removed? Orkin as the building extermination company.

But it ain't over

Fast forward, it's nigh a year of sleeping on the floor, and I replace the bed with something new. The building still has issues. My linens and bed are mostly clear. I'd like them completely clear. I report every one of the bitey bastards, since a winter with them has taught me that I am very allergic. A few times a month the place is sprayed. A few times a month the new exterminator tracks a new one or two in. A few times a month a few hitchhike from the bus and I have to take care of that. It's all very awkward and panic attack inducing. The bugs have invaded my C-PTSD. Apparently it's colloquially called 'bedbug psychosis.' I can kinda see it.

And now the Fuckery

The building manager and the exterminator are in disagreement about my bug status. You know why?

BECAUSE MY MATTRESS IS TOO CLEAN.

So, what am I supposed to do, let them bite me? Feed? Breed? Leave them be? Fucking fuck no bruh. I literally got orders to “capture one alive to prove it” from the manager

And this morning I got my chance. Yanked him right off the bed and an attempt to get at my ankle and slammed him into a glue trap. Then there was one on my back support pillows for gaming. ONTO THE GLUE TRAP WITH YOU TOO—YES, DEFINITELY SIR WITH THAT SHAPE.

And then I missed my bus for work.

…but, while I was trying to make the intercept walk to my bus, I got called off. Not a day of work this week so far.

I turn around, leave a giant fucking sign with an arrow on it reading BEDBUG by the glue trap, and make a grocery run—smoothie stuff because my stomach is back on the warpath.

By the time I get back (a prescription won't be ready until later, I have to make a second trip), the trap as been moved slightly and replaced with a fresh, empty one.

…got my point across this time.

I came home to this...MESS.  This, and the reek of natural gas.

What the miso-glazed fuck? I mutter as I see that a hole has been cracked in a bottle of cooking oil, a drawer that I was told was fixed in place has been removed, the food that was to be defrosted has been introduced to the floor, and the pantry is simply wrecked.

I wait at the elevator door for a while until a neighbor from my floor comes by, asking if they remembered seeing the electric company come past.

“Yeah, to YOUR place.”

Well no shit. “Did you hear if they fixed—”

“I don't know anything about that,” and she moved on.

I went back to my unit to discover more wrecked food, and after some text based ranting with liberal Angry Smiling Faces I went to the store for bread—

The corner store has Bob Marley sodas again. YAY.

It was on the way back up that I ran into someone talking about the gas being out until just a while ago.

“That was my unit. I've been trying to get a leak fixed since I moved in.”

“And they JUST got to it?”

“Left the joint a wreck, too.”

“I know you're glad that finally got done, but you might have a suit at that rate.”

My, my, my.

I mean, I don't know if I'll be able to act on it, but if my health improves abruptly after this?

You bet.

“Urrrrgh!”

On knees like mine, dragging a bunch of solid wood furniture and steel-frame furniture is…probably not the best of ideas. However, that wasn’t going to stop me any time soon: I’d lost track of my Fitbit clip somewhere in the apartment and it was going to bug me until I found it.

Which is why I was dragging and pivoting the bed—I thought it might have fallen back there at some point, and even if it hadn’t, it’s been a while since I cleaned under the bed.

“MOVE, dammit!”

Lift. Shove. Pivot. Squeeeeeze.

Eventually I managed to get it perpendicular to the sofa, which meant I could get at the outlet… and a veritable CAIRN of receipts—I do mean a cairn, too—I got underneath those things and started finding things I thought I’d lost a while back. As I shove them into their proper locations I decide “Well as long as it’s easy to get to I can make the bed before I put it back.

AN HOUR LATER

“Urrrrgh! MOVE, dammit!”

The wheelchair is NOT moving in the way I would have liked it to be moving. It’s blocking a chest of drawers AND the bed somehow, and I have to get that thing out of its old location because I will PROBABLY need to access it sometime soon depending on the verdict about my knee. But the thing isn’t moving. So I pick it up.

Remember when I mentioned moving the steel stuff being a bad idea? Yep. The thing takes ten minutes to move,and then it doesn’t even fit where I was planning on putting it? Frak.

AN HOUR LATER

“Goes. Stays. Goes. Why do I still have this? Stays. Goes. Laundry. HEY, there’s the clip.”

I take a second to put my FitBit on properly and then RESUME dragging the bed. It is now a few inches to the right, and flush against the radiator. An outlet is no longer covered and creating a fire hazard. But now the COUCH is flush with my work chair and the table is…well. calling the space it’s left into ‘small’ would be an understatement. My knees are currently smushed into the tiniest of spaces as I type, actually. But there’s space now, right? Much better!

AN HOUR LATER

“Urrrrrgh!”

By this point, I’m more surprised that I’m not hungry again yet than at anything else. I’ve swept, picked up and discarded loads of stuff, swept again, picked up more stuff. MORE SWEEPING, and Oh look! Now I must move the giant tupperware bins of office supplies! FULL OF REAMS OF PAPER!

Drag. Drag. KICK. Drag—STOP

“Wait a minute.”

I open the second bin on a whim and find something I’d been looking for: my checks.

“Huzzah!”

No more spending five bucks on a money order when I need to send money.

Bed’s made, bins are put up, wires are—well, the wires still need a little bit of help…but it’s done now. Bit late for a winter wrap-up, but that’s what we’ll call it.

Now I’m going to SLEEP. I’m exhausted now.

You know how you have one of those days, you know the one, where you just don’t give so much as half a fuck about what’s gotta be done or needs to be done, or you’d like to do and junk?

I’ve had one of those weeks.

( And there’s only one thing to do when this happens… )

So you know the hole in my wall? The one that's been there several weeks now and still hasn't been repaired?

Well, I was brushing my teeth and A FUCKING MOUSE came up through it.

A FUCKING MOUSE.

I have a mouse in my apartment because Maintenance department won't do its fucking job and fix the hole it knocked in my wall.

…It's not even a healthy mouse. I outran it and managed to chase it back down THE OTHER HOLE IN MY APARTMENT (the gas line in the floor) and back out. (Seriously, it was a sickly little bastard.)

Tomorrow after work I'm moving furniture, bleaching the floor, putting down borax, and rearranging my shit. Then I'm putting down more glue traps.

So much for getting to sleep! I can't sleep after that! THERE'S A FUCKING MOUSE!

FUCK!