SteveAndersen.com

So I have had several interesting interactions with the worlds worst landlord (TWWL) this week.

A little background:

Those of you who are regular readers, will recall that the temperature in my apartment is a constant source of aggravation, it is constantly either too cold, or too hot in my apartment, and I have NO control over the temperature; the thermostat is in my landlords apartment and it is under his exclusive control. Grrrrr… NEVER again will I rent a place under such circumstances – but you live and learn.

Those of you who are regular readers will remember my October comments where I stated that it was always cold in my apartment, and some might suggest that being hot some of the time is better than being cold all of the time. Indeed, being warm is better than being cold, thus, being warm some of the time is better than being cold all of the time, thus this IS an improvement. But lets not get carried away and call it “acceptable” or “good” or “OK.”

So on Sunday last, TWWL left a note on my door stating that there is steam on my windows, and that he needs to come in and fix it, “early in the week.” He also stated that we need to put plates under the herbs Sandy grows in the kitchen window (they are actually herbs – you know, dill, sage, rosemary… HERBS). Apparently he had been peeping in the window, and noticed that *gasp* the pots were sitting directly on the windowsill where they could… sit there and grow… without plates under them. I am much more disturbed by the peeping, than I am by the pots. This concludes the section of this post where I repeatedly refer to pots and herbs, and hope that echelon fails to refer my musings to the FBI.

For those of you who have never lived in a cold climate, AND who failed 10th grade physics, there is no “fix” for “steam” on windows. When warm moist air comes in contact with a cold surface, the water condenses out of the air and forms droplets of water on the surface. When this happens outside, we call it dew, when it happens to the mirror after a shower, we call it annoying, and when it happens to windows in a cold climate, we call it hard to see out of. This involves various laws of physics, and despite what the Kansas school board might decree, Mother Nature does not take too kindly to being mocked. The only way to stop this from happening is to keep the glass on a window warm (dual pane glass is a nice, if expensive, way to make this happen) or to keep the air encountering the window free of moisture. Try as he might, TWWL is not going to be able to do anything to change the laws of the universe, and he is not installing dual pain windows, (that would take both effort and money, neither of which is he keen to spend) and so he is not going to “fix” the “problem.”

So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I was home, all day, didn’t leave. Waiting for TWWL to arrive to “fix” the “steam” on the windows. Why didn’t I just leave and go about my life? Not very keen on having TWWL roaming freely in my apartment, (he has a BAD habit of looking around, seeing things he doesn’t like and decreeing that one shall not do / have / think that again – and while his tirades ARE amusing, it is easier if he doesn’t know about stuff and I don’t have to hear them in the first place) it is bad enough that he peeps in my windows. Why not call TWWL and ask him when he was coming over? Tried that. No answer or call back. So I sat at home. All day. For 3 days. He didn’t show. Displeased.

So on Thursday, we had this little celebration – some people over, some food, end of November – you know – Thanksgiving. It was BALLS COLD in the apartment. I’m not kidding, even with the oven on all day and as many as 8 people in the place, the temperature hovered around 65, or at least that is what my digital thermometer said, but it felt colder. My feet were cold all day. Displeased, and embarrassed.

So on Friday, it snowed, and TWWL is seen outside “shoveling off” the sidewalk (one narrow pass with the shovel, almost all the way to the pavement). We spoke. I mentioned how it had been quite cold inside the apartment for Thanksgiving, and how we had had people over and were quite displeased about it. His response was two fold: 1) “At least you are able to eat more when it is cold” and 2) “Yah, I was working on the radiators and must have left the system off.” Sorry, not acceptable. When I pointed out to him, very pastorally, that fleas are still coming from his side of the building and trying their best to take up residence on my cats, his response was “my cats aren’t scratching or anything,” implying that the fleas can’t possibly be his. Ahem – I over-heard the conversation he had with his girlfriend, more than a month ago now, where they were talking about how the vet had told them that their cats have fleas. Apparently they don’t know how to identify fleas on their own, as they had to have the vet do it last time. This riddle is not that complicated. “Where are the fleas coming from” does not rank up there with “What is my special purpose” or “Where’s Waldo?” I understand being embarrassed about having fleas – trust me, I understand – but this is the second time we have had this conversation – the solution is to get rid of the fleas.

But lets be fair –and clear – I would be a LOT more tolerant of TWWL’s incompetence, stupidity, neurosis, and general bumbling if it did not directly impact my life, or if it were possible to have a productive adult conversation with this man. But that is a different post.

But with a pledge that the heat will remain on, and a pledge to inspect his cats for fleas, I retreated into my blazing hot apartment and prematurely celebrated my minor victory.

Saturday, the temperature dropped. Sandy put on wool socks and a pair of slippers, and was still cold. It was nippy. Of course, TWWL was nary to be seen. When TWWL returned home (as indicated by the furnace clicking on and the apartment heating up) I called his punk-ass up and pointed out that it was again cold, quite cold, wool socks, inside of slippers, and still cold, cold.

His response was to tell me that he would need to come over and look at my windows. I quite bluntly told him that what he needed to do was leave the furnace on when he left home. He was sure it was the windows and was quite insistent about it. I told him I was going to put up plastic shrink film on them (in truth I had already done it on several of them) which he told me I was not allowed to do, because “sometimes the tape pulls the paint off when you take them down.” Indeed it does. Unfortunately, TWWL was insistent that he needed to come over to glue my windows shut, and that would fix the problem – I am not kidding. “Hi, fire inspector…” except I don’t want to have to move.

So I told him that Sunday was not a good day for me, Sabbath and all, and I told him that Monday was not much better. I’m a pretty busy guy when I need to be. I was simply trying to stall him, because generally, when TWWL gets a bee in his bonnet about something like this, if he can be stalled he usually just forgets about it, or decides that the effort involved is not worth it, and leaves me alone. It really is the best possible outcome – trust me.

Unfortunately TWWL was insistent that he come over and violate the fire code, and soon. He said that if Monday wasn’t good for me, he would just come over anyway. Charming. I told him he could come over in the afternoon if he felt that he must. On the plus side he conceded that he would show me how to glue the windows closed on one or two of them and let me do the rest of them on my own.

I pulled the shrink film off the down stairs windows, so that he would not see the film there and get his tirade, and decree equipment going.

Monday morning, there is TWWL standing on my doorstep with literally BOXES of tools and junk, including a vacuum cleaner. Sandy was in the kitchen in her underwear. I had not yet had coffee. It got ugly. TWWL told me that I had to let him in, and that if I think this is bad, I should just get ready for when he has the electric baseboard heaters installed this winter (yah ‘cause THAT is going to happen) because there will be people in and out all the time, and he can’t schedule stuff with me every time he needs to come in. But I did get him to agree to come back in the afternoon, at 2:30.

I do hate that man.

So around about 2:30 he shows up, with still MORE stuff. I let him in and show him to the kitchen, thinking that these will be the easiest windows to have him “instruct” me on.

Now – you have to understand that TWWL has horrible BO, even in the winter. And he works very slowly, he likes to stop and talk AT a person, a LOT. He is convinced that just about everyone is out to get him, and has constructed elaborate schemes about how everyone is embezzling money from him. Seriously delusional, but I have covered that aspect of the guy before. Oh – and he apparently hasn’t paid the gas bill for a few months, as he apparently got a disconnect notice last week. In his mind threatening to disconnect people is a scam “they” are running on him, trying to squeeze those sweet sweet “disconnect fees” out of him. Is it a scheme designed to get him to pay his bill perhaps? Those bastards.

So anyway, it takes TWWL about 2 hours to glue the two kitchen windows shut. I wish I was making this up. At the end of the second window I point out, that I can handle doing the rest of the windows, if he wants to have a part of his day-off back, (and get the hell out of my apartment), or spend some time with his girlfriend, (and get the hell out of my apartment), or work on his car (and did I mention, get the hell out of my apartment), or whatever else he might want to do instead of glue my windows closed. TWWL says that would be great, and offers to give me 2 antique bibles for helping him out. I happen to have a collection of antique bibles, so this is cool with me – but honestly, his leaving was payment enough.

So finally after several hours – TWWL leaves and I am left to shove “rope caulk” into my windows on my own. This “gap filling” is supposed to be more effective than shrink film. It certainly is more work. I am happy to give the “rope caulk” a try, but I refuse to glue the windows closed. I am betting that the shrink film is back on my windows in a week. I am lazy, but cold is a great motivator. I am also stubborn.

The thing is – that after he left my apartment – he left the building. And he turned the furnace off before he left. While he was here I had pointed out – both pastorally and not – that the heat is great when he is home – but that when he leaves, and turns the furnace down, is when the temperature drops to unacceptable levels. I thought, incorrectly, that I had been clear and had spoken in a way that he could hear me, and that he had understood me and realized that he needs to leave the heat on, even when he is not home.

Now I understand that turning the heat down when no one is home. No one wants to pay to heat an empty house. But there are people other than him living in the house, namely, me, Sandy, … his own girlfriend. I don’t think he intends to make people uncomfortable. And while I do distinctly dislike him, and while I do think that he is TWWL, I also think that he is TRYING to be a good guy, that he wants to be friendly, that he wants to be liked. He simply was not well socialized, and has some serious mental health issues that desperately need to be attended to.

And this is the part I think is most interesting. I have constructed a theory, which is at least amusing if not accurate. In developmental psychology there is the concept of “Object Permanence;” which, essentially states that up until a certain developmental point, any object that is not within view, does not exist in the cognitive world of the person doing the viewing. To put that another way, without object permanence, if you do not see something, that thing, in your mind, does not exist. This is what makes the game of “peek-a-boo” so exciting for babies, in their understanding of the world, things are literally popping in and out of reality at the wave of a hand.

So my theory is that, TWWL is not so much a jerk, he is simply developmentally disabled. I can deal with that. I believe that he wants his tenants to be comfortable and satisfied, that he does not want people to be cold and upset with him, he simply does not realize that others exist unless he is confronted with us directly. So when he leaves, in his mind, the building is empty, and there is no reason to leave the heat on. In his mind, the building doesn’t even exist – so why heat it?

Or maybe he is just a jackass.

Or maybe he is having trouble paying the bill, and the heat is going to be turned off entirely in a few days. While that would explain his motivation for turning the heat down when he leaves, it would not explain his desire to crank it up when he comes home. This is also the singularly most disturbing possibility.

I am going with Object Permanence, it is the most grace filled way I can think of to deal with him, and it is the one that holds the most hope. I don’t want to move in December. Seriously.

And you thought putting up with drunk aunt Edna was the difficult part of this time of year.

The Fight Over Wireless By Adam L. Penenberg

Hopefully what I was surprised to see happen in Dubuque earlier this month will happen all over the country – but I still have my reservations.

So I am back from Cali’ and while my flights out there were nightmarish, overall the trip was a good one, and well worth the effort. I won’t say that my faith in the ELCA has been restored, as I think that having faith in a church is an extraordinarily bad idea and a basic misunderstanding of Christian theology – but I have seen the ELCA acting in a much more faithful way in region 2 than it did in Indiana-Kentucky.

While I have not yet heard anything official from any of the synods in the region I am confident that a call will develop for me in the south-west. I will keep you posted – but wait not upon baited breath.

So I am off to California tomorrow afternoon, Sunday, afternoon to meet with the region 2 bishops to see if they have a call for me. I assume that things will go well and a call will develop from this. But at the same time, this trip will determine my future in the ELCA, or even if there is a future for me in the ELCA. If nothing develops out of this interview process, I will cease to actively participate in the ELCA call process, and will instead actively pursue other options in a church body that will value, and allow me to put to use, my gifts. Most likely that would entail a year or so of “discernment” in another denomination – but at least it would be progress. But again, that is the worst case scenario – I am expecting that a call will develop for me somewhere in the west, in the next FEW months.

In the short run, my mother-in-law is staying with us. A charming, if anxious woman. She is here to see the recital Sandy gave this evening. It was amazing – even for her. Those of you who missed it – missed out.

I will be back Thursday morning – don’t expect an update until then.

Techdirt:Supporters Of Data Privacy Thrilled That The Feds Are Doing Nothing

See, this is one of the reasons I think democracy is a system we can live without. The folks trying to protect people, who are not the government – who’s job it IS to protect people – are hoping that the government will not get involved because they know that the government will muck it up and only make things WORSE.