2017 is a year that will go down in Andyland history as the most severe with it's cosmic kicks in the ass. The culmination of which has been this June, my birthday month. It's hard to even wrap my head around all that has been happening. I usually hate talking about my personal everyday life on my blog, but it's too much for one head to contain. I had hoped this year would be filled with loads more writing in my blog, but right from the start it's been telling me to go fuck myself.
At the end of last year, I got news that my mother had stage 4 cancer. She'd have to undergo a lot of treatments, but they were hopeful. I took a trip to NY to visit my family back in February. It was one of those trips where everyone was spilling their guts more than usual because they didn't know if there would be a next time for anything to be said.
When I got back to California a few weeks pass before I get the news that my dad has cancer as well, but a much much more severe case. They do not expect him to make a recovery and put my family in contact with hospice care services to help ease his end of life care.
My ladyfriend and I also being forced to move from my apartment due to it being uninhabitable in it's current condition. Belmont Brokerage, the rental management company, informed my ladyfriend and I that they need to fumigate back in May due to the roach infestation that was brought in by the other tenants who leave their front doors open most of the day. However Belmont Brokerage failed to inform us (even after living there for 6 years) that they don't have a key to get into our apartment. At no point did they ever contact us to let us know this and I don't understand how we as the occupants were supposed to know they didn't have a key to access our apartment. So after preparing for fumigation and then slowly starting to put things back to a livable situation, we find out from the Holland's Red Alert Pest Control that Belmont Brokerage didn't give them a key to our unit so it hadn't been treated. They said they would need one of us to be there to let them in to do the treatment, wait around for them to do the treatment, then lock up and go away for 4-6 hours until the apartment was safe to enter again.
Naturally this would have been after we prepared for the fumigation again; which would mean removing everything from every closet, cabinet, and drawer, then covering it all so it won't get the chemicals all over it when they did the treatment. We decided right then that we needed to move out of the apartment. Belmont Brokerage made it abundantly clear that they do not value our tenancy. When we went to turn in our notice letting them know we would be gone on July 1st, they refused to accent our notice to vacate. They stated we would be responsible for the cost of rent 30 days from when they accepted the notice.
Fortunately in California Civil Code Section 1942 states that if we are month-to-month (which we are at this point) and there are conditions that make the apartment uninhabitable then we are allowed to break the 30-day notice requirement of the lease. The list of things that make a place uninhabitable include: Uninhabitable conditions, which only need to affect habitability, not necessarily unlivable, and which may include: a. Infestations of cockroaches, rats, or other vermin, as well as effective waterproofing and weather protection of roof and exterior walls, including unbroken windows and doors. These are both issues we have had to deal with.
My ladyfriend and I were so livid it took us a lot to not scream at the poor bastards they have running the front desk there, but it's EXTREMELY hard not to get upset. Especially given all the other shit that was going on in my life and it being Father's Day weekend to boot. It's more stress than I ever expected for a birthday month. I don't have any solution to all this crap, but I know I'll get through it.
No matter what happens with the shitty rental place, we will be moved into our new apartment on July 1st and not be looking back at all. Just need to survive the next few weeks for things to have a chance to mellow out again. Push myself through this and on the other side I'll be a world of worry lighter.
