Ok, this is a whole list of rants, all stemming from a single incident, so please bear with me. Thing is, I know we came out extremely lucky in the situation, and I have always kept that in mind. I am extremely grateful for the actions of the apartment security, police and property management. That being said, there are a few things I need to get off my chest. This is fairly lengthy, so I apologize in advance…
To the burglars who decided to break into my townhouse on a Friday afternoon:
Fuck off and die. Seriously. You threw a damn brick through my sliding glass door in the back patio and shattered any sense of security I had. While I can work from home most days, I decided on the day before, that I would drive out-of-state to surprise my mother for her birthday (and stay for Mother’s Day), and while I am at the liquor store at 3:30 on Friday afternoon, buying beer and wine for the parents, I get a call from my leasing office, letting me know of the news. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very glad that you were incompetent enough to only steal my digital camera, even though the police found a bag full of colognes, jewelry boxes, small electronics and the sort, right by the door. I guess my apartment complex’s security must have scared away your look-out driver because, hell, you had all the damn things bundled up and ready to go. Still, you’ve now left me in a horrible position. I don’t feel safe living here anymore, given how my home was broken into IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AFTERNOON! And now, I will always wonder if I had decided to stay in town for the weekend, if it would have been averted. (That being said, many friends have posed an alternate situation, where the burglar might’ve had a gun or some other weapon, making my choice to cross state lines a very fortunate one) I really hope my 5-year old digital camera was worth it. Enjoy the pictures of my father and me smoking cigars in Cancun, my grandfather’s 80th birthday party, and pictures of my boyfriend, our friends and me at a wine-tasting. I certainly enjoyed worrying all weekend long about what I should do - whether I should drive back home, or stay with my parents since I haven’t seen them in months. It was also a lot of fun going through the process of dealing with my bank, putting a hold on any account activity, with the exception of my debit card, and stressing about whether my extra car key, my passport and other things like that were stolen. Also, you really stole my class ring? REALLY? It has my name on it. I’m unfamiliar with pawn shops and things of the sort, but I can’t imagine that’s gonna bring you a lot of money.
**To the police who handled the incident: **
I appreciate it. I really do. From what I heard, you handled matters in an extremely satisfactory manner. That being said, may the person who invented fingerprint dust find himself burning in the pits of Hades, caked in the damn stuff, preferably having it seep out of every orifice possible. You can’t get rid of it. You can try to wipe it off, but all you do is redistribute it. A damp cloth does a decent job, but a) you’ve pretty much ruined the cloth from then on out, and b) you can’t use the same cloth too often, otherwise you aren’t really making a net-gain in terms of dust-removal, but instead engaging in some sort of fingerprint-dust exchange program. While I am not a huge fan of my couch (a hand-me-down that has been in my family for a while - I refuse to call it an antique), the bottom “flap” now has a distinct darkened tint to it, commemorating the day when some asshat thought it would be a good idea to shake my faith in my fellow man. Also, to the detective who is currently handling the matter, the gratitude I expressed earlier still applies, but I would love it if you would return a phone call. Hell, I would come down and give you the sloppiest blowjob you’ve ever received if you would just acknowledge my existence. When you arrived on the scene, my boyfriend gave a brief assessment of what may have been stolen, but let you know that I was out of town, and so we couldn’t give you a full inventory until my return. When I returned, I called your private line on multiple occasions, receiving your voicemail. I left messages, asking you to call me back, always remaining extremely polite because I know that you have things that are vastly more important than our situation, but I would like to think that when you tell someone to call you, you would get back to them within 4 days. I am torn because, while I do not want to harass you and inundate you with phone calls, I do want to acknowledge all of the goods stolen, because it could greatly affect the sentences these pieces of pug shit get, when they are caught. (And yes, I choose to use the term “when” because apparently, the license plate, make and model of car and physical description were all noted, as well as several viable fingerprints that were lifted from the scene.)
To my neighbors:
I get it. Classes are over, for the most part. You want to celebrate. I would, too. But, you know what? Let your friends know which apartment is yours when you invite them to celebrate passing English 101 or whatever damn class you attended throughout half of the semester, between hangovers and yelling and honking your horns in our parking lot at 3 am on Tuesday mornings. Because, if you don’t let them know, they are going to end up walking through the back patio gate of a stranger’s townhouse at 11:45 pm on a Wednesday night, knock on the same sliding glass door that was smashed by a brick less than a week before, and scare the shit out of the residents inside. Also, when one of the said residents open the blinds to the door, it would behoove you to say something within 5 seconds, and not just stare blankly. I’m just glad I was watching Lost, because if I had heard the knocks while I was upstairs in bed, I would’ve called out every authority up until the National Guard.
To karma:
What. The. Fuck? I don’t care if you aren’t real, I am still pissed and want to hunt you down to give you a well-placed kick in the nuts. It’d be one thing if I tended to just stand by as shit hit the fan for other people. Seriously. Then, I’d get it. It’d be comeuppance and whatnot. But I don’t do that, and I never have. When a co-worker’s purse was stolen (complete with a digital camera having pictures taken that day of the secretary’s child’s first day of school), I chased the thief down 5 flights of stairs, past security, out the building, through an alley and to the front of a popular restaurant, eventually getting him in a bear hug until the police arrived. Also, it is worth mentioning that this was during the lunch rush, and many people were sitting on the patio, less than 20 yards away, watching this transpire as they enjoyed their cedar-plank salmon or whatever the fuck they were eating. Not one person bothered to come assist the guy in a suit restraining the guy in the stained hoodie who had just thrown a purse down in front of them. And even if that one incident doesn’t give me some sort of free pass, how about a few months ago, when I woke up at 3 am from my bed, only to hear smashing glass. Looking out of my window, I saw someone break and enter into a nearby “car lube and service” shop, and I dialed 9-1-1. As I was on the phone with the police, I saw the burglar hot-wire a car in the “garage” section of the shop and smash the car through the sliding garage door. While I was a distance away, I was able to give a decent description of the guy and car, and ended up having to stay up the rest of the night, talking with various authorities about what I witnessed. Ok, karma, you could say that I got off lucky with what little was stolen, but that’s what Renters’ Insurance is for. There’s no such insurance to compensate for the loss of piece of mind. Since you don’t seem to have any real power, I may go kick an orphan, just because I can.
To the apartment complex:
You’ve been great. Honestly and truly. You’ve been sympathetic and understanding of what we’ve been going through, and I really do appreciate it. You offered a reasonable alternative within the sub-complex, and while that wasn’t anything we were interested in, you met your legal obligation and surpassed it. We let you know that we might want to look at other properties within the community - a property company owns a huge complex with 8 or 9 subdivisions, and they are all under a single banner - and you really pushed us to look at the newest one. We did, as well as some other properties not owned by the company, and unfortunately, we’ve pretty much fallen in love with one of the “others.” The property manager has been incredible with her empathy and has mentioned things such as, if we want to break our lease, we might be able to minimize the penalties due to the circumstances. Now, I’m a lawyer, and I totally get the whole “contractual obligation” thing. I’m not faulting you for that. In no way do I feel like we’ve been cheated, conned or strong-armed into any decision against our will. However, it does suck that we might not be able to move because of a potential $2,300 penalty. (Past concessions paid back, the penalty for breaking the lease, and then the 30 days notice’s rent) She’s tossed out a lot of options, suggesting that June’s rent will be free, we could potentially halve the penalty, etc., but of course, everything requires the approval of someone higher than her. I understand the chain of command, but the place that we like has one unit that overlooks one of the complex’s pool, has an amazing floor plan, and will probably be snatched up before we know whether we will be able to break the lease without taking such a huge hit, since the property manager won’t be back in the office until Monday. Like I said, I’m not pitting her or the complex, per se, but instead just that we don’t all live in a world of my choosing, where all my whims and desires are catered to and satisfied. Between the two of us, we’ve lived in the property complex for 10 years, never had any complaints against us, and always paid rent in a timely manner. However, I also understand that it doesn’t make much business sense to make it more desirable for tenants to leave. “Sure, you want out of your lease after a break-in. Fuck the penalty fees. Hell, we’ll pay you! Would you like some ice cream as well?” I’d never do it, and I can’t imagine any business that would. They’ve done exactly what they should - try to keep us within the “family” of complexes. Our lease expires in October, which puts us right in the middle of the term - a horrible place to be, because we are too far in it to simply cut our losses, but not close enough to feel like we can just ride it out.
To the boyfriend:
You are stressed. I am too. I’m still not sure if this was one of those “critical moments” where, although you told me to enjoy my mom’s birthday and Mother’s Day, I should’ve come back. You haven’t seemed resentful, but you have seem distant. We’re not talking “sitting in a corner, drinking scotch in the dark” distant, but just not necessarily yourself. I know I haven’t either. But, I’m trying to plod through this just like you are. The difference is, I want to settle all of these things as quickly as possible. Continually wanting to wait to schedule meetings with the property manager, delay visits to other complexes, etc… It doesn’t do anything to solve the problem. Yeah, it fucking sucks that this happened, but there isn’t anything we can do about it now. Luckily, some of our friends let you crash at their places over the weekend, so you didn’t have to be alone. It sounds like you had a great Saturday night while I was gone, and I’m thankful for it. I did too, and we both needed it. But, when I got back on Monday, we needed to start to get into action regarding how we were going to handle things. I did not want to put it off until tomorrow, because I know that Tuesday nights are busy for us, and we’d probably delay it to Wednesday, which would then put us on a slippery slope. So, yeah, if I seemed a little gung-ho, that’s why. I know us, and if we don’t act fast, we may not act for a long time. Also, I know we don’t know our timeline yet, but I do know that we don’t have as much time as we’d like, if we want to move. This is not a card we can choose to sit on at any time. I don’t think we can come up to the leasing office in August and tell them that we want to move, due to something that happened 90 days ago. As such, the places we look at need to be viable. This means, please look at the information on the websites before you send me the links. Don’t e-mail me something that is only 800 square feet because you only noticed that the rent was $850, and you didn’t see the square footage. Similarly, don’t send me a link to a place that is way outside of our price range because you like the exterior. When you do these things, it only makes me disregard subsequent suggestions, because I don’t know if you’ve looked into the basics. I know you think I am simply falling in love with the first place we looked at, but you also admitted that it has been the most impressive, and it seemed to meet all your desires as well. Neither of us were impressed with any of the 6 properties we looked at today, minus the one that had insanely low rent, but the price was understandable considering the location and the layout. I’m sorry, but a cheap piece of shit is still a piece of shit. I fear that the rent is going to win you over, despite that neither of us really like it.