My August from Hell...

I've had some bad years in my life. I've had some bad months too--quite a few, in fact. I've also had some days in my lifetime that have been, well...not so good. Yesterday was one of them. In fact I would go so far as to say that yesterday could have been one of the most stressful days in my entire life! I wouldn't say that it was a bad day, or a horrible day even...just stressful.

First, some background on my August...

As many of you know, I don't live in the best place in the world. My apartment complex is a warn down rat and roach infested hovel left over from the sixties, when people would come to this area for recreation and a place to spend the winter near the beach. I'm not sure that it was even intended to be used for permanent housing like it has been for at least the last twenty years. The places don't even have real foundations! They are just set up on blocks. Anyway, the repairs have been non-existent since that time, and my landlord has just now started getting into trouble with the tenants by them calling the city code enforcement. Of course, like a true slum lord, he's just ignoring them.

Two apartments in particular are in question. One is the one right next door to me. The woman called the city over a month ago and he was told to fix the place then, and that was followed two weeks later by another apartment just across the courtyard from me, just birds eye view away. That apartment is actually posted as uninhabitable now, a big orange tag placed next to the door stating that the landlord has 30 days to make repairs or the city will condemn the place. He's not allowed to make repairs on the place without calling the city and telling them what he is doing either (they are trying to force him to pull permits for the work), and he's not allowed to remove the sticker without paying a fine of 200 bucks. Big whoop, right?

My landlord has one single workman working on these places and he's done a bang up job at taking care of some very simple cosmetic things, but not at doing what the city has requested of the landlord to do. Since the landlord has made these cosmetic changes, he thinks that he can just go ahead and rent these apartments to anyone now, even though they haven't been inspected by the city and the tags haven't been removed. About a week ago, I was standing out on the lawn talking to one of my neighbors when a very drunk man stumbled into the complex talking on the phone intently showed up pacing up and down the sidewalk looking at the fronts of the apartments. He couldn't find apartment six, which was smack dab in the middle, right next to my apt. He kept walking past five and then on to eight, and then back to five again. It took the three of us to show him where apt six was! I later found out that my landlord, in his wisdom, decided to take the first idiot that picked up a phone and rent to him on the promise that he would pick up some money later on that day. What a fool!

The man didn't have the money. He'd told the landlord that he was working at a Walmart construction site just up the street. He wasn't. In fact, he was a homeless guy that had been living in his truck (How he got that I'll never know) under the bay bridge for the past week or two. Unfortunately for us, our landlord is a sucker for helping people in a bad spot. He let the guy stay as long as he would clean the apartment of the mess that the last tenants had left behind.

And this is where the crazy begins...

We noticed that the guy was just strange. He would sit with the door open to the apartment, butt planted on his makeshift bed in the center of the living room (there are two bedrooms!) in his apartment and just stare at the wall, or out into the courtyard. He didn't say squat to anyone, but rather would just sit there and look absolutely nuts.

After that first night, I had a visit from a friend from down the street that I give rides to the grocery store to. She walked up to see me specifically to tell me that I now have a serious crack addict living next door to me, and to watch out because he was very bad news. This guy was so bad in fact, that the local crack house would no longer allow him in because he kept screwing people over! Now we've hit spooky territory! This woman isn't a crack addict herself, but she lives across the street from the place, and the guy that really owns the house speaks to her from time to time, so I trust that she has at least a clue. I decided to call the landlord and tell him about this guy. He's creeping me out, and I need to be able to feel safe in my home, you know? Right now, I'm not feeling so safe!

I call him that night. He shows up the next day and I guess he talks to the guy and tells him to get out. The landlord leaves, and the guy doesn't get out. This goes on and on for a full week. Finally, the landlord realizes that the guy hasn't done anything he's said he would do. He's not cleaned the apartment, he's not given him any money to pay to move in, and so he insists the guy leave the apartment. I later find out that this is because he's found new renters for the apt next to me. The guy tells him fine...I'll go stay at the other place then and clean it up. Mind you...this is the place with the sticker that says it's uninhabitable. My landlord says okay...and tells me that the guy can stay for one night to clean up the place and then he's out of there! I realize that night that Dana has left something outside. I run out to get it and it's gone!! I KNOW where it is, but figure I'd wait until the next day when the guy is out and run over and get it.

The next day the guy leaves in the morning, so I go and get this item. It's in the middle of the living room, just as I expect. I take it home, thinking everything is fine. This guy shows up at about 5pm again, and that's when things start to get really weird. Dana sees him and asks him "Aren't you supposed to be out today?"

"No, I talked to the landlord and he said I can keep staying in that apt."

AND HE HAS THE KEYS! "Oh Darn!" I think to myself, "He's going to go in there and think that I've stolen that item that he stole from me."

This guy starts sitting at the doorway just staring out into the courtyard at my house for hours on end, and really freaking me out! He's made it so we are even afraid to both leave the apartment at once for fear he will break in and kill our dog and steal the rest of our stuff! We have some things worth a little bit in here too, so it's not like we don't have good reason to be freaking out!

Yesterday Dana is coming home and notices that the door to the apartment next door is open. It's right next to our front door, so he looks in as he stops to unlock our front door. The new tenants have been there to pick up the keys, and they aren't the ones in there! He's found another chair and set it in the middle of the doorway there and is just looking out the door...staring into space...saying nothing. Dana explains to him that the apartment has been rented to other people. His response is "I'm just sitting here. I'm not causing any trouble."

Well what do you say to that?

When we left four hours later to go to the store, we realized that he was still sitting in that room, so I decided to stay home while Dana went to the store. We will no longer leave the apt vacant until this guy is gone!

Later yesterday night, I have to leave to go to Mom and Dads. Usually, both Dana and I go over there on Saturdays. Dana does work in the yard to earn extra cash, and I sit and visit with Mom. I went alone last night because of this. As I'm leaving the parking lot, I see the lady I know down the street pacing in the street and waving her arms around talking on the phone. She's seems to be crying, so I drive up to her, slow down and ask what's wrong.

"My Baby has run away!" she shrieks. She tries to explain what happens through gasps of air, tears, and carrying on a conversation on the phone with the police, all at the same time. I gather from the conversation what has happened. She got into a fight with her 10-year-old daughter and her daughter stormed off. I offer to go and look...I still have about a half hour before I have to be at my Mom's. She lets me go.

I drive around the neighborhood, thinking that this little girl couldn't have gotten far in the ten minutes that this woman said since she left. I looked and looked, but didn't find her. Out of courtesy I drove back by her house to tell her that I'd had no luck and to tell her that I was moving on to my Moms house, but that I'd keep my eyes open on the way and on the way home.

Almost 3/4 of the way to Mom and Dads house I see this little girl trudging up the sidewalk. She's obviously a mess...dehydration wise. It's 107 degrees heat index outside and YES, this is the little girl I'm looking for. I pull the car off of the road and run over to her, stopping her.

"Do you know me?" I ask.

"Yes."

"You know I'm your neighbor, and I give rides to your Mom and Dad to the grocery store a couple times a week?"

"Yes"

"Will you trust me enough to get in my car? It's not safe for you out here."

She nods her head and we go to my car.

My first notion is to get this poor girl some kind of liquid and a cool atmosphere. I take her across the street to the Convenience store and buy her a large Slurpee type drink. I ask her where she thought she was going, and she told me that she was going up to her school to see her principal, and then she figured she would play on the swings and calm down before she headed back home. I told her I would take her there if she promised me that she would go directly home with me right after we stopped there, and she agreed. Of course I had already realized that it was a Saturday, and it was also 6:15pm. She wasn't going to find anyone at the school at all! I tell her that she needs to give me her Mom's phone number so I can call her and let her know that she's alright, and that she is with me. She reluctantly does so.

That was about the time I realized my position. Here I am, a 46 year old man, and I've picked up a little girl who had been reported missing to the police! If they caught me with her...OMG! I would not be passing go OR collecting $200!!

I called the number and got her Father. That wasn't good. Fathers tend to react more violently when their children are involved. I tell the man what I promised her I would do, and he says "NO--YOU BRING HER HOME NOW"

Ah crap.

I try to explain that I'm afraid that she'll bolt, but he's too busy hollering at me to bring her home. He's not listening. I have no choice but to agree. I go and get the girl, and get her into the car. I explain what her father has said. I show the girl the clock in the car and explain to her that her principal isn't going to be there. She relents, thank GOD, and lets me take her home.

I'll never do that again!!!

I'm free, finally to go to Mom and Dads! I'm only about forty minutes late for dinner, but I can go! I'm spending time with Mom when she decides that it's time for her to take the dog for his nightly walk. Now mind you, my Mom is in a Hoveround type chair, and she walks this white fluffy Spitz dog named Fritz while riding in her chair every night at 7. Tonight I decide not to go and stay with Dad for a while. After about 20 minutes of being gone, I decide to take a smoke break out in the front yard.

After a few minutes of smoking and relaxing, I look up to find TWO fairly good size pigs walking down the street. One is Black, one is brown. Wow! Wildlife in suburban Corpus! I need to go get Dad! And then it dawns on me...my Mom is roaming around in the neighborhood with this fluffy white dog that thinks he's Godzilla, and if he sees these pigs...Mom could be in trouble! Woot! Another adrenaline squirt heading Mykey's way!

Extremely long story short, because I'm tired of writing, Mom showed up fifteen minutes later. She had to ride across the street from the pigs, but she made it home fine, and the dog remained quiet until he got home. THEN he thought he had territory to protect from those vicious hogs. The police came and followed the pigs back to the wild area at the end of the block. It took them another half hour to walk down two driveways.

The whole thing could have been much worse. The pigs down here can become violent, and they are dangerous. Luckily these weren't.

PS...on the way home that night, my back brakes shattered and I now have metal to metal brake grinding going on. This just doesn't get old, does it?