Despite the fact that my rent has jumped more than 20% post-K it does remain below the inflated average for the area. My building is located in a tricky spot.. right between the famous Garden District and the infamous "Triangle of Death". Living here gives one the aesthetic benefits of some of the city's most historic neighborhoods and popular attractions. I can walk to the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, or Magazine Street, or (before the storm) the St. Charles Ave Streetcar line. The French Quarter and the Superdome are each about 10 minutes away via bicycle.
The location also allows one to experience some of the.. um.. local color associated with my side of St Charles Ave. Some frequent visitors to my front stoop over the years have included prostitutes and panhandlers in various states of intoxication, transient laborers who live approximately 12 to an apartment in the building across the street, and the guy who used to try and sell us stuff he dug out of the dumpster. About a year and a half ago there was an unusual standoff between a SWAT team and a knife-wielding naked man on the roof next door. Did I mention also that one of the houses across the street from me is currently on the market for half a million dollars? New Orleans is a funny place. I am never leaving.
Over the life of the yellow blog.. I have also mentioned some of the quirks of my building and its crack management team. (Interpret the "crack" any way you see fit.) See here and here.. and well, you get the point. Since Katrina, I've learned to exercise a great deal more patience with my Slumlord.
The flood deprived New Orleans of virtually all of its public housing and a great majority of its rental housing.. where dwelled a large percentage of the city's considerable population of working poor (myself included). The resulting shortage has led to a dystopian housing scenario where masses of poor and underemployed citizens are shut out of the rental market as rents have skyrocketed to two and three times their pre-storm levels. Instead of working on a solution to the housing problem, local political leaders have spent most of the past fourteen months capitalizing on the short-sighted animosity of the remaining haves toward the now largely abandoned and still exiled have-nots. Most notably, Mayor Ray Nagin recently executed a wonderfully Machiavellian reelection campaign where he cultivated the votes of the conservative establishment by purposefully not developing a plan for low income housing while simultaneously garnering the absentee votes of flooded out citizens by playing to their fear that there was indeed no such plan. Sound weird? New Orleans is a funny place. And still, there is no plan to restore the city's decimated rental housing stock.
Throughout all of this, Slumlord (unlike many New Orleans landlords) has been comparatively reasonable about the rent.. and has not as yet sold the building for conversion to condos. For this he has earned my gratitude. Unfortunately he's quickly using up this capital. I'll explain.
One of the weird things about this building is that everything seems to fall apart at once. Two days ago, I noticed a leak in the elbow joint below the kitchen sink. At the same time, in the bathroom, a completely different leak developed in the supply hose which delivers water from the tap to the toilet. I placed buckets in the appropriate places and, yesterday, left a message with Mrs. Slumlord.
Yesterday afternoon, I noticed the plumbing mobile parked outside along with the building Lackey discussing matters with the plumbers. Turns out they weren't there to deal with my problem at all. They were there to deal with a problem another tenant was having which involved actual sewerage backing up in her bathtub. Although, this made my problems seem trivial by comparison, I nonetheless took it upon myself to mention them to Lackey who distractedly agreed to "take a look" at his nearest convenience.
Such convenience did not happen upon us today. When I got home from work, I emptied my catch buckets, cleaned up the floor of the bathroom where things seem to be backing up there now, and called Slumlord just to see where the situation stood.
Me: Hey. I talked to Mrs. Slumlord and Lackey about this yesterday, but I just wanted to let you know that we're still having some plumbing issues over here today.
Slumlord: What? Is there a water problem? We need to know that! That's costing us all kinds of money! You need to tell us about that!
Me: Um... I did tell you.. yesterday.
Slumlord: You need to tell us when this happens! This is costing us money!
Me: I understand that. I talked to Lackey yesterday and he said....
Slumlord: Lackey doesn't work for me anymore.... He does but he's part time... You're supposed to tell Lackey 2.0 about this! We need to know this! It's a lot of money!
Me: Well.. I wasn't told that... but anyway I did call as soon as..
Slumlord: Look, Lackey 2.0 will be there tomorrow.
Me: Okay. Thanks for all your help.
And so go many conversations I've had with the man over the years. He's a charming fellow. I can only imagine the nature of the subsequent conversation between him and Lackey 2.0 because not half an hour later, Lackey 2.0 showed up to investigate my plumbing issues. He claims to have now scheduled an appearance tomorrow with plumbers in tow to affect repairs. As luck would have it, I'll be at work tomorrow so I'll be in suspense most of the day as to whether or not my apartment will eventually fall in the path of a catastrophic man-made flood much more localized than the one we saw last year. Update to follow.. if I survive.
Note: I'm just noticing that each of the above indicated prior misadventures of apartment living also contain the only two references this blog has ever made to "Shut Up, Little Man". It is certainly no coincidence that life in this building would tend to conjure such imagery.
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