Comrades, you must have been smoking a lot

[sovay]

So this is what we discovered about our apartment on Friday. (derspatchel pointed out it was the Ides of March. Did I look like Caesar? I don't think so.) We had had some problems with the landlord and the condition of the apartment even when we were moving in, but nothing of this magnitude. It is awful. We are waiting on the city inspector next week and then we will make decisions, but does anyone have relevant suggestions in the meantime? I want to fight for this home if it is worth fighting for, but I am not prepared to owe my soul to National Grid in order to make up for our landlord being either a chiseler, a cheapskate, or a fool. (And if he is none of these things, then I don't know why we don't have a single window in a newly renovated apartment that latches securely and also keeps out the cold. The temperature is dropping to 21°F tonight.)

In the meantime, because I will not consider this apartment a transitory thing—because as long as I am here, whether that's six weeks or six months, it is home—I picked up my futon mattress from Dream On this afternoon with the aid of audioboy's van and then lugged it up the stairs and into my room with the aid of Rob's lower back. Wrestling the mattress cover onto it cost me the skin of three knuckles and a lot of splinters from the plywood I am using as part of my bedframe (never again), but it is now a real bed, not an air mattress, and I will sleep on it and under five blankets tonight. I had lunch with Rob at SoundBites in Ball Square before we walked our separate ways home, which is a thing I like very much about living on this street; we rejoined in the evening for Ninotchka at the Brattle Theatre. I'd last seen the movie in high school: it was even better this time. Garbo is not just beautiful, she's a beautiful comedienne, voice, timing, deadpan, eyebrows. This time, I could notice that while the romance requires her to warm from her humorless Soviet functionality, it does not require her to wilt into Melvyn Douglas' arms like a fainting flower of Western womanhood—the second-act blackmail, in fact, depends on just that strength of commitment to her work rather than her romantic vulnerability. The script's politics also interest me: Wilder and Lubitsch evidently view the Soviet way of life as both alien and faintly ridiculous, but their sympathies are equally clearly not with the émigré Grand Duchess Swana, whose bright-smiling elegance never turns a hair as she tells the peasant-born Ninotchka, "You're quite right about the Cossacks. We made a great mistake when we let them use their whips. They had such reliable guns." (I like, though, that this is not the sort of movie in which women are never friends; Ninotchka's interactions with her cellist roommate back in the Soviet Union tell the viewer that. Most of their conversation even passes the Bechdel test, being concerned, before it turns to Anna's fiancé, with rehearsals, weird housemates, and underwear.) I love Felix Bressart; I love Sig Ruman. I don't know Alexander Granach so well, but HOLY CRAP HE WAS KNOCK IN NOSFERATU THE MAN IS A CHAMELEON I AM KEEPING AN EYE OUT FOR HIM. But most of all I love Greta Garbo, laughing in the café, letting go forlornly of a censored letter, taking Douglas' face between her hands to kiss him. "Chemically, we're already quite sympathetic."

This is where my brain runs out for the night. Doppel-Abbie is resting on my pillows. I am going to take a shower. We'll figure more things out tomorrow.

Comments

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I haven't been following this. These are new windows that were replacements? Newly installed?

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how sorry I am that your new home has gone Bulgakov on you. At least there's a cat, of sorts. I hope you can work something out; emerge unscathed, triumphant even.

Keep your spirits up, if you can.

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I want to re-see Ninotchka--the exchange about the cossacks is the whole of what i remember about it!

That's terrible about the apartment. My impression is that most landlords are pretty terrible (not all, but most). When we first moved to B-town, the house we lived in was a rental, with an absentee landlord. That guy turned out to be quite a villain; I shudder to remember it. But he did at least have an agent who saw to it that repairs got done in a timely way. Fingers crossed that you can bring pressure to bear to get the windows fixed *soon*.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

There are things you can do yourself, starting with heavy plastic and duct tape -- I've done that in rental houses in Britain where we regularly got frost on the inside of the panes. But I think protesting to the landlord comes first, because having windows that seal just isn't optional.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

While it is unfortunately not a long-term solution, have some sloths reenacting the Ides of March: http://www.buzzfeed.com/chelseamarshall/the-story-of-the-ides-of-marchas-told-by-sloths-9e8l

[gaudior.livejournal.com]

I say again, feh and sympathy and feh.

And also, I think these will be more effective than duct tape, and you can get them at any hardware store:

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/WindowInsulatorKits/Products/

As long as DoppelAbby doesn't go after them, which seems unlikely. :)

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about the windows, and I'm also angry on your behalf. I hope he fixes things properly and quickly.

[rivertumbled.livejournal.com]

my apologies if you've already tried this...

i live with old, terrible windows. if you close them at the bottom they open at the top...like yours.

if i push up on the top window while pulling down on the bottom window i am able to latch them, and then the latch holds them mostly in place. at first it was awkward and a two person job, but then i got used to it.

it doesn't change the fact that our windows are still old and somewhat drafty, but at least they CLOSE all the way. & lock.

& drafty isn't as big a deal here...i live in the south.

i hope you get things resolved, and soon!

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Mass 940 CMR 3.17
(1) Conditions and Maintenance of a Dwelling Unit. It shall be an unfair or deceptive act or practice for an owner to:
(a) Rent a dwelling unit which, at the inception of the tenancy
1. contains a condition which amounts to a violation of law which may endanger or materially impair the health, safety, or well-being of the occupant; or
2. is unfit for human habitation

...which you'd probably already figured out. And it *isn't* clear to non-lawyerly me what legal recourse that entitles you to, but I figure it's nice to know the chapter and verse on the code.

[humglum.livejournal.com]

Would locks on the windows solve the problem? We have locks on all of ours, though we're on the second floor, and in the colder months if I don't make sure that all of the windows are shut properly and locked, the tops will slip down because of the natural contraction of the wood that happens in cold, dryish weather.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

That's pretty awful on the landlord's part.

I have nothing to offer but sympathy, but I offer that freely.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear about the mess with the windows. I wish I had anything more useful to say than that you've my sympathy and I wish ye great good luck, mojo, and suchlike power in getting it all sorted with great speed.

I'm glad that Ninotchka pleased you.

[gwynnega]

I hope the window situation gets resolved immediately!

[ashlyme.livejournal.com]

Damn it. I hope things have improved for you since then.

Doppel-Abbie is adorable.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

This sounds awful.

I wish you a huge amount of good coincidence, reputable contracting, cheerful and competent inspectors, and repentant landlordship, but most of all I wish you a speedy renovation and warm extremities.

In the short term, I have two rather good space heaters in storage. Do you want to see if they can be sent your way? They are small, wheeled and not dangerous.