2002-10-30

I live in a pretty old apartment building - at least fifty years, probably more. It's a brick walk-up, and I live on the third floor. There's a rickety fire escape on the back of the building, the door to which opens off my bedroom. When I moved into this building, I was pretty desperate to find a place to live, so I naturally neglected to mention to the landlord that I have a dog. Although it's against the Ontario Landlord-Tenant Act to refuse to allow pets in a building, I have a feeling that if I had mentioned the word 'dog', the landlord would have found someone else more 'suitable' to rent the place. So I somehow managed to sneak a 75-pound Rottweiler into the building. I'm like James Bond with the sneakiness.

Needless to say, this did not remain a secret for long (although my dog IS very quiet and well-behaved, I'll have you know). My landlord wasn't happy about the situation, but since I'd already signed the lease, there wasn't much she could do; which was pretty much in accordance with my Cunning Plan. She did request that I take my dog down the back stairs (the fire escape) when I take her for walks, so as not to disturb the other tenants or some such shit. I didn't see a problem with this.

Yesterday morning, as I was taking Kara out for her constitutional, I was interrupted by one of the bangers living on the second floor. Ordinarily, our resident bangers are quite personable (read: stoned), but today Mr. Scruffy Goatee looked Fucking Hostile. He demanded that I stop taking Kara down the fire escape in the mornings, since my footsteps on the metal staircase are apparently very loud (I guess some types of banging are OK, but others are not - kids these days, I swear), and I've been waking him up every single morning for the month I've been living there. No wonder he's so Paranoid.

I told him that Judy (landlord) had asked me to use the back stairs. He told me - get this! - that, in fact, NO-ONE is supposed to use those stairs unless it's an emergency, since they COLLAPSED forty years ago and have barely passed safety inspections by the Fire Marshall. Yeah! Fan-fucking-tastic! Assuming that this isn't a pot-induced delusion, or just an out-and-out lie to get me to stop using the stairs, it's fucking PANTS. Let's file this one under Things I Should Have Been Told BEFORE I FUCKING MOVED ALL MY FURNITURE UP THE BACK STAIRS.

That's right. Since the staircase IN the building is so narrow I had to lose five pounds before I could get my ASS up it, I moved all my crap up those freaky back stairs. I'm so glad to know I risked my life for the sake of my Ikea bookshelf.

So now, of course, I've been taking Kara down the inside stairs every morning at seven o'clock. Which is another fun challenge, since Judy apparently doesn't want to waste electricity on frivolities like, you know, LIGHT. The staircase is pitch dark all the damn time�at least, it was until yesterday, when I noticed that the light bulbs in the hall lights had finally been replaced. 'Yay!' thought I. 'No more counting the steps to keep from accidentally sticking my foot out into empty space and going ass-over-tits down two steep flight of stairs!' Ha. The lights, apparently, are only to be turned on DURING THE DAY. The second the sun goes down, off go the lights.

The moral of this story is that I live in a goddamn death trap. I hope they don't let my landlord play with scissors in her Special School.