Suburban Squatters
Apartment living. I mutter how much I hate it at least once a week. Yes yes, I'm thankful that we're not like the majority of people out there today who can't even afford a place to live and are in their cars. Trust me, for that I am thankful. Can you imagine living in my car with Finley? Ha! But apartments are just so, I don't know, confining in every possible way. No yard, no painting, no remodeling. Well, you could probably remodel but I'm sure you could kiss your deposit goodbye if that were the case.
A little over a week ago, a massive RV coach arrived and was parked on the curb right outside our building. Picture one of these in an apartment parking lot and you'll realize that the two do not mix well. This thing was huge and was taking up several precious paved spots. Not drilling into this thing while backing out proved to be a challenge but I tried to let it go, thinking that this motor coach maven was visiting someone in our building. Several days and life rolled on and the thing was still there. I'll admit I was worried some geriatric had passed on inside and not a soul would know but I was definitely leaning more toward the irritated, "get your stupid behemoth out of my complex" side of things.
Monday rolled around and I inevitably had a mildly annoying day at work. Meaning: I was in a foul mood and I was on the war path. So help me if the RV was still there when I got home. He was. But not only was it parked in its usual spot along the curb, RV Ronald had cranked open the awning, put his grill out on the grass and had rolled some serious extension cords across the lot, grass and into my building. The guy was skimming my electricity! While I did not go postal, I was beyond annoyed at this point. It was totally obvious what was going on: the guy was living in our parking lot for free and using my highly coveted electricity. I was extremely tempted to "trip" over the cord and yank it out of the outlet but was worried the guy would see it was me and slash the tires on my Jeep. Yes, I have visions of grandeur. So instead of taking matters into my own hands (literally), I did the next best thing: I called the cops to complain. Needless to say, I was apparently not the first in my building to complain about this squatter.
I kept peeping out the window, stealthily, to see if the cops had shown up. By stealthily, I mean casually bringing recyclables out to the deck...20 times. When the cops did show up, it seems our new neighbor had some totally transparent story about how he was renting from a friend there. Um, if you're renting an apartment, why are you living in the parking lot? Sorry pal, not buying it. The cop gave me the option of telling this guy to heave ho pronto or letting me call the office in the morning and letting them deal with it. I decided to ignore my inner cries of "hit the road Bozo" and said I'd wait until the morning. However, it seems some of my legitimate neighbors had other ideas: a rather heated discussion was held out by the RV and not long after, the extension cords were rolled up and RV Ronald cruised outta Dodge.
Now I can back out of my spot with as much space as I want...not that I really needed it in the first place.
0 comments:
Post a Comment