What a weekend. I am currently quasi-homeless because I got punked by a stupid landlord — and when I say stupid, I mean a clueless new homeowner who has no sense of anything outside of her artsy little world.
So, a couple of weeks back, I secured a sublet in San Francisco, which seemed the wisest thing to do considering that looking for an apartment to rent with two cats and a dog is not the easiest thing to do from Colorado. Landlords wanted to see the dog; 3 animals are a lot for any landlord. My friend, Erik, looked at one place for us, but based on his report, it seemed better to get a sublet to land here and do the footwork for an acceptable place.
I found a sublet right away; the landlord was willing to take me and the pets sight unseen on a month-to-month basis. She’s ‘family’, and we had long conversations that set my ‘danger-alert’ sensor to off. The rental is in Bayview (yes, I know what Bayview is like), and she said they were renovating the entire building, but it still seemed easier to live in the ‘hood and to deal with construction in the building than to continue searching for a place from Colorado. She wanted a June 15 move-in, which I said was impossible, so we agreed that they could use an extra week to ready the place and furnish it and I could move-in on the 20th.
I thought by ‘ready the place’ she meant furnish it and do minor trim. That’s what it sounded like on the phone.
All systems go. I went without enjoying the hiking and goodbyes I would have liked to have had in CO so that I could get out to SF early and get going with the relocation. The moving company came and packed the house. I had the house cleaned. I said a few simple goodbyes, packed the van and the pets, and made the trip… taking 4 days to get here instead of 2. On my last day, the landlady called me. I was standing in the middle of the Nevada desert with cell phone service and no signs of life out to any point on the horizon.
..
“So, we aren’t done with the flat yet, can you come later on Saturday than earlier? Say, 5pm?”
I said, no, not really. I had booked one night in a hotel in SF that the company is paying for, but then I had to check-out at Noon and I cannot drive around SF for 5 hours with two cats and a dog in the car. She said that she’d hustle to get it done then.
I called Saturday morning, and she explained that they had fallen way behind schedule and that the place would not be ready for move-in that day. After a short panic, I extended the stay in the boutique hotel for a night (at my own cost) then left to go see what the place looked like.
Disaster. They were installing the shower and a toilet, and finishing up grouting and trimwork throughout the flat. There was no kitchen –the stove wasn’t coming until Tuesday, the sink and counters were outside in the pitiful backyard that was full of their construction mess, and a window that had yet to be installed was also coming Tuesday. There were no furnishings. This wasn’t a simple building renovation: The rest of the house was gutted down to the studs with two people living in make-shift rooms. No permits were pulled for any of the construction. My unit is below the garage — entirely illegal in SF (I used to be an electrician here; I know the building code).
After a long conversation about the unacceptable and fucked-up situation, she agreed to hustle to get things done and that I’d move-in on Sunday.
She called this morning to ask me to spend another night in the hotel – they decided to get a simpler kitchen sink and counter at IKEA, which doesn’t open until 10am today. I said, no, I could not stay another night in the hotel, that I would be there at Noon, that I would unload my van and animals into the bedroom, and that they are not to open the bedroom door under any circumstances. I’m looking at another apartment this afternoon with Erik.
I’m beyond stressed out. I keep trying to decide where I went wrong, since I had extensive phone conversations with her about the place two weeks ago. I should have insisted she send photos. My concern then was the ‘hood, but Erik went out there and walked it and gave me the thumb’s up. I should have insisted she let him see the place, because back then it must have been gutted to the studs like the rest of the building. My bad. But I went with trusting a woman who sounded trustworthy after spending an hour with her on the phone. I got sucked into her artsy personality (a real human landlord!) and didn’t think about asking just what ‘remodel’ meant to her. But she wasn’t straight with me in any way at all about this. I had to pry info out of her, and it wasn’t until I saw it with my own eyes that I realized that ‘remodel’ meant ‘total building renovation’. There was no unit there 2 weeks ago: there was only a dirt basement.
I could stay another night here in the hotel, but it’s at my cost and my money is dwindling fast. Also, I cannot go anywhere without Abby as long as I stay here, which means no ability to eat anywhere unless Erik orders take-out or I order (expensive) room service. So, despite the hell that this sublet has become, I’m stuck without much choice. It’s ‘livable’ in the sense that the pets will be safe and I’ll be able to sleep at night, but it’s a disaster: a total fail. And it so happens that two of my best friends who could help me out here just happen to be out of the state this week — one in Africa and the other in Oregon. I have other acquaintances scattered around, but none are the sort that can help in a pinch like this.
And this
all could have been avoided had we talked before the movers came and she had informed me that the unit would not be ready this weekend. She ‘had a fall’ last Friday that stopped work on the place…. but she didn’t realize it would put her a week behind until Friday. Having met her, I now see that she’s a total space-cadet that has no clue at all about how to do any of this ‘remodeling’ crap. They are screwed since they went over-budget and are out of money to continue working on the building. I am screwed for no good reason, since I could have stayed in CO until the end of the month.
I’ll update later, after I see what awaits me today in the sublet from hell and after we look at that apartment in the Mission. Welcome back to San Francisco. Not.
