Narrative
introduction moving in kitchen laundry bathroom bedroom
Introduction
Sept 11, 2025
the place i moved into on may 10th, which has been a disaster, just provided me with a functional $4000-$4500 settlement, with a possibility for an extra $2000-2400 coming. i will need to sign a lease to get the extra $2400.
i have another $1200+ coming from the cdb. i'm asking for $10000+ on my hearing on nov 4th.
the price of small houses in windsor is viciously crashing to well under $200K, and they aren't selling. if i wait a few more months, property values could conceivably start collapsing to under $150K, as the canadian economy burns and disintegrates, as we rapidly devolve to a third world economy under mark carney's pro-market / market fundamentalist mismanagement. as chomsky said, free markets are great...for developing economies. it's a third world economic system that generates poverty and inequality, and we're embracing it head-on in canada, even as we escaped the carnage of it in the last decades, and even as the rest of the world is retreating from it. leave it to canada to evade the mistake the rest of the world made in the 80s and 90s, only to make that exact same mistake 30 years later, while everybody else is learning from it and trying to move on.
due to these settlements allowing me to generate some savings, and prices crashing, i'm seriously considering buying a small house in windsor.
15:19
@windsor, on
@windsor, on
for now, the 45% increase in my odsp income since 2022 combined with the 45% decrease in rent over that same period has actually opened up some startlingly appealing rental units at the top of my price range. i'm going to see an 800 square foot 2-bedroom condo tomorrow night that is actually bigger than the basement apartment i had when i first moved here, with the difference being that this place looks almost brand new and full of people that bought the condos and that other place was 100 years old and full of smokers on welfare.
on saturday morning, i'm going to see a basement that's almost as big, but doesn't have a stove and might not have a cable running into it for internet.
i'm also going to see dirty, rotting basements in the same price range as i was previously paying, which would allow me to put close to $800/month in a savings account on a monthly basis. the idea in signing that sort of lease would be to save up to buy as fast as i can, and the unintentional result would be that i might find myself accidentally getting close to the $40,000 odsp asset limit, at $10,000/yr in savings, plus what i'm able to win via tort law for negligence from recent landlords.
this is a reflection of the present absurdity of the housing market. you still couldn't afford the rotting basement on literal welfare or osap, but the convergence around odsp is working as intended, if you can get landlords to listen. it'd be nice to find a 600-700 square foot apartment in a normal apartment building for somewhere in between, but that doesn't exist.
if you can use the irrationality of capitalism to your benefit, you have to do it, and i set my life up so i could. on some level, i'm morally opposed to this, but i have to maximize my self-interest, regardless.
you can be exploited by the system, or you can exploit the system. there's no middle point. it's eat or be eaten, and you can get it or not get it; you can be enslaved by society via the market, or you can enslave the society in return. i'm not naive about this. i don't watch tv, so they can't brainwash me, nyah nyah.
i wouldn't imagine i'd want to move out of an 800 square foot two bedroom condo in a nice part of town any time soon, so i could realistically find myself with a substantive down payment in a few years that i could utilize for a functionally useful endpoint, after the court cases are done.
23:36
odsp is working the way it's supposed to; don't get angry with me about that.
however, the market is completely psychotic and what we're dealing with is a deep market failure in front of us at the most fundamental economic level possible. the fact that odsp is the one thing that is working in the face of a complete and total market failure is a reflection of it being shielded from the market, which has become completely irrational.
23:47
sept 13
i've been in and out of the apartment and have seen a number of places over the last couple of days. after getting some groceries on friday night, i came in at around 21:00 and noticed that there's a key to my apartment door in my mailbox, which worked. this is unsettling, to say the least. at 6:30 this morning, somebody started aggressively buzzing me to get in, which i strictly ignored.
i have filed some police reports and my landlords allowed me to change my locks, but that doesn't really resolve the issue.
i don't know how to process this. as far as i can tell, nothing has been removed from the apartment and there isn't anything missing from it. were they even trying to contact me to give me the key back? i don't know. i know that there's now exactly two keys to get in here, and i have both of them.
i have not had any symptoms of being drugged since august but i'm worried that might change soon.
16:49
sept 14
if you really do the math around what it actually takes to buy a house and the amount of money people are making, even on minimum wage, it's worth asking if the real problem canadians are facing in relation to housing isn't their addictions to drugs, tobacco, marijuana, alcohol, debt, fast food and gasoline.
if i had $3000/month, and i were to rent a reasonably priced $1300-$1500 apartment here in windsor, i'd be able to put $1000/month into a savings account and have enough of a downpayment to buy a $250-$300K house in less than two years. that's barely minimum wage.
it's not clear to me why young people aren't able to do this, other than that they waste their money on poor lifestyle decisions, in part perhaps inherited from their parents, and then complain that they can't afford housing as a result of these poor lifestyle choices, that includes their addictions to debt and gas.
the canadian government may consequently want to research a cost-benefit analysis around the question of if it may be worth trying to get smoking rates, marijuana use, alcohol use, indebtedness, fast food consumption and gasoline use down as a part of it's housing strategy. people might find they can afford to buy a house after all, if they'd just make more intelligent choices with their money and, particularly, if they'd stop wasting so much of it on generating unnecessary carbon emissions.
0:46
sept 16
now, somebody has left a bagel in my box, which i'm interpreting as anti-semitic, and which is weird because i'm neither a genetic hebrew nor a practicing jew. i have less than 3% jewish dna, according to the ancestry.com report, and it's from way back in the 19th century.
the arabs that have been stalking me, and who appear to have initially thought i was an arab, have repeatedly called me a jew and repeatedly expressed frustration that i'm not reacting as expected because i'm a jew, rather than the arab they thought i was.
in fact, my ancestry is overwhelming viking in origin, both directly (swedish/finnish) and indirectly (scottish, irish, norman, russian, gothic). the 3% jewish dna was from philadelphia, which i have deduced is sephardic, and traveled from philly to n'awleans to frisco to vancouver, and then to ottawa, where i was born. my father's side had some north italian that was gothic/germanic in origin. the test did pick up 1% sicilian, which was probably mostly greek in deep origin. the 1% sicilian is the closest thing to any sort of arab ancestry, but it's probably not really there.
the semitic dna is unambiguously on my mom's side, and the ancestor was certainly jewish, as he got in trouble in jewish court for being mean to his wife. it's not up for interpretation or debate; it's jewish, not arab, and it's on my mom's side, not my dad's side. i don't know what the point of a court intervening in a domestic dispute is when your wife is jewish, but the documents exist, and it demonstrates the point pretty clearly, as do the noses on my mother and aunts, which are all quite substantive.
14:07
i don't have a wonky jew nose. it's a bumpy italian nose.
my dad's nose was a mess, but it's because he used to be a boxer in his youth, and it was broken something like ten times. you couldn't figure out anything about his nose by looking at it, other than that it was busted and smashed.
14:11
to the person that left the bagel in my box: come back and leave some humus.
it was very inconsiderate of you to leave the bagel without the humus.
15:42
what am i supposed to put on this bagel?
my electricity bill?
15:43
if i was managing a property and seeking to rent a place for $1300, and somebody filled out an application for it with an income of $3000, i would tell them their income is too high to rent the apartment and that i'm looking for somebody that makes under $2000/month for $1300/rent.
the reason is that the only conceivable reason that somebody with an income over $2000 would be looking for such a cheap apartment is if they spend $1000/month on drugs, and i don't want drug addicts on my property.
by screening in tenants that make more than they need for a low income apartment, which today is under $1500, landlords are just screening in drug addicts.
a good manager should realize that, and refuse to rent to somebody at less than 50% of their income. the way that landlords currently do this is backwards - instead of saying rent should be less than 50% of income, landlords should be screening out people that want to pay less than 50% and only renting to people that want to pay more than 50% of their income in rent, in order to ensure they aren't renting to drunks, potheads and addicts.
a sober, responsible person will want to spend at least 50% of their income on rent, because what else would they spend it on, besides drugs?
16:41
ideal tenants should seek to spend 50-80% of their income on rent.
anybody that would want to move in somewhere that is less than half of their income is a loser and should be avoided.
16:44
if you're only paying 30% of your income on rent, why haven't you bought a house yet?
because you spend 50% of your income on drugs.
there's no other conceivable explanation. anybody with 70% leftover after rent should have enough to buy a house in six months, unless they waste it on drugs.
that's why the rentals are full of addicts, because the landlords screen them in by asking for people with disposable income. disposable income is just another term for "drug money".
16:54
landlords offering cheap rentals should tell the people making $3000-$4000/month to apply for something more expensive, and to follow the fucking rules in the more affluent buildings, when they move in there. they'll throw you out for doing drugs in the house; don't move into low income housing so you can smoke drugs inside.
that higher income isn't an asset, it's evidence that the applicant is a piece of shit.
17:01
it should be a red flag.
the guy that makes $4000/month and applies for a $1000/month apartment is a drug addict loser and they are looking for cheap housing so they can do drugs inside without getting evicted.
if this person wasn't a drug addict, they wouldn't be interested in $1000/month housing, they'd be looking for something in the $2000+/month range.
17:04
sept 17
i have the best apartment in my price range in town, but it's uninhabitable due to the drug users on the premises. our government's failure to enforce basic drug laws, and put addicts in jail where they belong, is making it virtually impossible for normal, healthy people to find acceptable, affordable housing. it's a complete failure of law enforcement, and a complete failure of canada, as a society.
if you want to move to canada, there's almost no escape from the now ubiquitous drug culture.
it's not the greatest country in the world. it's an uninhabitable hell hole.
19:22
canada needs to have a very serious discussion about recriminalizing marijuana, and about enforcing it.
legalization has failed.
19:26
i have never seen the legalization of drugs as some kind of justice issue, and the idea that it is is an insult to the concept of justice. it's not particularly hard; if you don't want to go to jail, don't do drugs. the best argument in favour of legalization is that it would reduce wasted police resources, and the idea is that it would cost less money on enforcement, but i doubt that's actually the case, and it's probably demonstrable with the right statistics.
i'm really not interested in helping drug addicts. society has no reason to give a fuck about addicts. what i'm concerned about is strengthening laws that ensure that normal people aren't subject to the habits of addicts, who have no right to enforce their poor decisions on the people around them.
what we need is better case law strengthening the rights of non-smokers. municipalities should be able to directly fine tenants for smoking anything inside, anywhere, and the fines should be substantive - $1000/occurrence. that would shut it down. there should be zero tolerance in case law for any sort of inside smoking for any reason, and complaints by tenants should overpower decisions by landlords. the right to fresh air should be enforced as fundamental law.
we have an ongoing public health emergency in our multi-residential housing complexes. there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco or marijuana. tenants should not be expected to tolerate even the slightest whiff of smoke from anywhere.
smokers should be expected to smoke in their cars with the windows closed.
19:50
sept 20
it's relatively clear that somebody was in here last week or the week before to drug some of my food, i think my soy milk. it wasn't enough to generate effects that would bother me when i'm sleeping or when i wake up - i am waking up limp or at worse not even 10% erect or 10 second erections but needing intensely to urinate - but it had some effect on my body, which has taken roughly two weeks to max out. i think it reached it's peak the last few days.
i had to cancel appointments last night and this morning because i have scabs all over my face and look utterly disgusting, but it is washing off, and i don't think it's getting worse.
it's just a process of actually cleaning it off. it's just dirt, it's just filth, and it washes off like any other filth and dirt. the problem is that that process is extremely time consuming and can require repeated applications of various types of soap over and over again.
i spent all night last night scraping, slept briefly, spent all day scraping, slept again, and started back on it tonight. i'm going to guess i might be presentable by tomorrow or monday.
i have changed my locks. only i have the keys. so i'm prioritizing cleaning myself up first, under the assumption that this won't happen again.
the most annoying thing is that the inside smoking has largely stopped, as soon as i signed the consent agreement. i need to leave by oct 31st. i think the worst smokers are leaving by sept 30th. there was a pothead smoking joints outside my window that has left.
i'm not sure i can get anybody to agree, but if i can chase the potheads out of here, could i resign here for nov 1st?
it's the biggest, cheapest place i'm going to find. it's just that i can't live in the filth of my neighbours' fucking smoke.
23:35
my thermostat says 29. the outside temperature is 18 and seems extremely cold. i'm shivering inside, and have a chill.
it's a good sign. it suggests my testosterone is back where it should be, at trace levels, and i just need to wash off the remaining dirt.
these extremely sick people need to go to jail for the rest of their lives. they have to this point evaded charges, but i'm hoping my landlord can trace the origin of the key, and that it provides a suspect for police to follow up on.
23:41
sept 25
all of the old people are smoking drugs nowadays, which is going to lead to severely reduced life expectancy. they're all going to die of cancer.
this is only bad news if you're a banker. for the rest of the country, the fact that decreased population growth will open up job opportunities, reduce housing costs, ease up social services and potentially even result in deflation is the best thing we've heard since 2006.
12:59
this is anecdotal, but there's every reason to believe it's honest:
marijuana use amongst retired seniors has skyrocketed in canada over the last ten years. well, i mean, what else do you have to do? you'd might as well just get baked and watch cartoons.
- strokes
- heart attacks
- lung disease
- cancer
- reduced cognitive functions
that's real life, and it's going to be an epidemic here, which is fine if you want them to just fucking die and go away already.
13:10
i've been going around all over the place looking for housing in windsor, and the entire city is just saturated.
then you look over and realize it's an old granny smoking on her porch.
13:11
sept 26
i've noticed a new line show up on rental applications over the last few weeks.
VISA: student or temporary
i have to scratch it out and write in "born in canada".
14:50
sept 28
it's near the end of the month, and i'm rather annoyed. i've seen a handful of places i could have moved to by now, but nobody wants to sign.
i'm going to send out mass emails that are just blunt - you want a good tenant? want to stop looking? well, you have a few more days before oct 1st. i have the money. i can sign and move now. like, what's the problem?
i know that the problem in some cases is that the owner is muslim, and in other cases that my income source is odsp. it's widespread discrimination on one of two considerations - gender identity or source of income. but, launching hrto applications is going to take years, and i need to be able to prove the case. i might be able to make the case against one very big company, but it's not clear that it's worth my time.
further, regarding the issues of muslims not wanting to rent to me because i'm trans (and i have several examples of this), i'd actually rather we get the issues out before hand, so i don't get trapped in it. the last thing i want to do is move into a situation where i have to deal with conservative muslims, and then fight with them for months or years. i'm doing the opposite; i'm sussing this out and going beyond it, by actually actively asking them if women dressing immodestly, or eating pork or drinking alcohol is going to upset them, because i don't want to live there if it does.
i really should have moved by now. i've seen enough places. there have been more than enough places i would move to. but i have not yet succeeded in finding a landlord that would rent to me, and it's about 85% discrimination underlying it. i can really not see good reasons not to rent to me in any of these applications, but they want to tell me my income is too low (despite me doing the math for them, showing it isn't, once you take out debt and cars, mostly, which i'm not paying for) or they just don't respond further once they realize i'm trans.
the discrimination against trans and disabled people are both rampant, especially amongst muslim landlords, which represent a substantive number of the low income rentals in this region. they'd be wise to be careful about what they say to me, but i'd largely rather avoid them, anyways.
the thing is that i don't want to make assumptions about people. i'm trying to get a showing in a basement owned by an arab guy, and he even told me to reschedule because he was busy praying, but he doesn't want to enforce his views on me, and is even trying to help the current tenant out, who is apparently a destructive alcoholic. i know discrimination when i see it, but i can't reverse it by making assumptions; i need to ask. it's mostly been a waste of time, but i can't make that assumption ahead of time. nine out of ten arabs might be viciously transphobic, but that one that isn't, even if they're religious, might be the best landlord in the city.
22:38
moving in
sept 30
i'm officially moving again over the next few days.
it's not very far. i feel like my fucking parents, who used to move across the street every six months.
the place is smaller, but it's laid out better. i haven't had the opportunity to maximize the space here, but it has two 150 square foot rooms (bedroom, living room), two 50 square foot hallways, an awkwardly 100 square foot kitchen with lots of counter space and fridge & stove on the side walls, and a bathroom. this place is around 600 square feet, but i'm wasting a lot of it, and i can't find a way to save it. the living room is 50 square feet too small and the bedroom is 50 square feet too big, and the 100-150 square feet of hall space isn't helpful. i needed to move. if i had more time to look, i would have skipped this space; it's 600 square feet, but i'm only using 350-400 of it.
the place i'm moving to is around 450-500 square feet, but it's laid out in a way that's more useful to me. the hallway is at the bottom of the stairs, so i have a natural place for my bicycles, away from the main living area. the bedroom is smaller, so i'm not wasting the space in it. there's a separate laundry room, where i can put the sewing table. the kitchen is smaller but more usable. there's a second entrance that i can use for studio space, which opens up a large living room. it's just a way better layout, for me. most people would find it awkward, but it's going to be arranged to look like it's twice as big, whereas this place feels half as big.
it's a little rough. that's fine. i don't care. i'll fix it.
so, i will be moving the rest of the week and hope to be done with this by monday.
1:28
the new place is about $200 cheaper, and i'll soon be about $200 better off, per month. i've also gained a few thousand dollars in my account. i don't foresee any fights with the landlord, and the space should be a lot less smoky.
i think that i should be stable there for a while, enough to let me get back to work very quickly, as soon as i'm able to set the space back up.
9:25
what's next after this?
i have a hearing with my previous landlords on nov 4th, about me suing them. i need to update the new evidence, serve it and file it. i'm asking for upwards of $20,000 in damages for smoking and illegal entry. the new evidence includes drug tests and also the key i found in my mailbox, here. i don't know if they'll let me file it or not, but it demonstrates the point - somebody has been getting in my apartment, and somebody has been drugging me.
my appeals of their eviction order are now scheduled to go forward in the spring. i'm asking for a reversal of the costs orders and damages relating to the wrongful eviction, including the costs of staying in a hotel. that's going to be another $5,000-$10,000.
they got their house. fine. but the court should order them to pay me for it.
what am i going to do with all of this money? i have an asset limit of $40,000 on odsp, and need to be careful i'm not shooting myself in the foot, but a $20,000 downpayment would be enough to buy a $150,000-200,000 house, which exist in windsor, and which will reduce my rent/mortgage payments to well under $1000, which is the cost of the new lease. these are small bungalows or two story houses, mostly downtown. i don't need a big fancy house; i'm concerned about minimizing labour, not about maximizing wealth. this is a minimization problem for me, not a maximization problem. i have to live in capitalism, but i don't want to participate in it. further, i'll get that back when i turn 65, and no longer have an asset limit.
the reality is that nobody wants these houses, at this point. they're too expensive to rent. the bourgeois don't want them, and the students and poor can't afford them. that's the underside of capitalism i moved here to take advantage of, and which trudeau's immigration policies had taken away from me, by opening up a market for things nobody else wants.
that could work itself out by the summer, if all goes according to plan.
if this works out for me and i move in the summer, it will be my last move. i'm not interested in climbing ladders. i don't care about the neighbours. this will ensure that nobody can take the house away from me again, and ensure nobody can move disgusting losers that do drugs into it. it's the end of this process.
i'll have to determine in the end if it is more logical to stay there or to sell the house and move into a seniors apartment, which have reduced rents.
11:02
i am again moving into a basement. this will be my third basement in windsor. my basement stays have been lengthy - 08-2013-12-2017, 10-2018-04-2025 - while my two apartment stays have both been less than a year.
this basement is about $200 more than the previous basement (when i left). it's smaller than the first one, but bigger than the second one.
however, i didn't have my rent increased for five+ years in the previous space. how much would i be paying if i paid the rent increases?
750*1.025^7 = ~$900. it would be a little less than that, probably around $850.
however, i'm getting an extra $200/month from the cdb, which balances that out.
in the previous basement, i had around $400-600 left for groceries and disposable income together, after paying bills. it fluctuated, but generally went up. now, i'm going to have $700/month to start, and that's going to go up.
so, this has taken a while to sort itself out, but in comparison to the previous basement i was in from 2018-2025, i'm going to end up with a bigger space and with more money in my pocket per month, and also with more in the bank to start with. my material conditions have consequently evened out.
this is due to the reality that i'm even steven. things always work out for me
now, i just need compensation for the wrongful eviction, and i'm working on it.
i don't want to mislead you or mischaracterize this. this has sucked. i've had years of my life stolen. however, i ended up better off, in the end.
11:48
so, don't waste your time fucking with me. it all evens out for me.
i don't actually believe in karma, but i believe in paul mccartney.
and, in the end [bloop. bada bloop.]
the love you take
is equal to the love
you make
11:59
somebody's going to tell me that was carol kaye.
they won't tell us until mccartney is dead, and they shouldn't.
12:00
for the young and the profoundly ignorant.
12:01
well, ok.
12:02
oct 4
i signed my lease on tuesday, got my new keys on wednesday, moved the furniture in on thursday and moved a lot of the smaller items in last night. i seek to be out by monday morning, and i'm going to do it the slow and safe way, which is by bicycle. i could cart stuff over, and i will need to cart some things, but i want to cart as little as possible. i want to get through the distance from a to b as quickly as possible, and allowing observers the least amount of detail in observing what i'm doing. this is the 5th location i've lived in since i moved to windsor in 2013, and 4 of the 5 have been downtown, but this is the first time i have to move through the creepy part of the city.
i'm actually going to be further from the creepy area than i am now. it's not a or b that i'm worried about, it's the transit in between. i can go in the back way, but it doesn't really help.
i also learned when i got the keys that the space includes a 150 square foot private storage and work space, which makes it bigger than the first basement in total square footage and the biggest place of the 5. it's very rough, though, so i don't want to think of it like that. however, it's going to let me not just store my bicycles there but also split the work bench out of my studio, which has become a large part of it. this work space will be where i fix bicycles, work on guitars, solder and do other types of physical work. it has a two level storage space built in for shelving, as well. it's really quite a large area.
if i buy a house in the next year or two, i'll move this into the basement.
so, that opens up space in the unit, as well. i can take my work bench right out of the studio and i can put shelves instead of bicycles in the hall.
i was a little queasy when i started moving things in, and was having second thoughts, but i'm feeling better about it now. the place needs some work, but it'll get done.
6:59
oct 6
it is utterly fucking beautiful out.
i had a shitty summer; stuck living with disgusting male pothead losers (again) and fighting off some religious idiot's decision to put drugs in my food, while needing to save money to move again. i'm moving, which sucks, but at least it was a nice weekend.
i've been walking around outside and, in every direction, the vegetation has taken advantage of it. it's october 6th, and there's not a bit of red or yellow or orange anywhere, in any direction. every tree everywhere is as full as possible and deep, luscious green. it's starting to look and feel more like a rainforest here in that respect, although we've had very little rain since june.
the new house doesn't seem to have potheads. there are what appears to be some heroin addicts upstairs, but they don't seem to smoke it. fine. whatever. i'd rather live with heroin addicts that don't smoke anything than with potheads that are constantly emitting dangerous air pollution. the heroin addicts aren't bothering anybody; the potheads are bothering people around them that don't want to get lung cancer.
if you live in windsor, plant some trees or plants around. it'll help to clean the air of some of this horrible marijuana pollution.
18:48
oct 11
i made a food bank run on wednesday and friday which might be the last run, finished moving on friday, gave back my keys, got my check, and then did some grocery shopping for the next week or two. i will need to eat through specific food bank items first before i get back into my food schedule, which should be in a few more weeks. i will have a lot of fruit and salad to eat through first.
i am utterly exhausted and need to catch up on sleep. i bought a chicken for thanksgiving, which i think is a stupid holiday, because i did this the last time i moved into a new basement, in 2018.
the drug dealer upstairs gets a lot of business. he's constantly leaving the door open to let his clients in. my observation is that his business model is that he has scouts working to bring in new clients. it's a sick business in a sick world. they are apparently getting evicted. i guess i'll need to wait it out.
for now, my focus is on eating, sleeping and cleaning both in here and myself. my hair is a mess.
22:12
oct 13
i'm sorting through what kind of furniture i need to make sense of this new space, which is relatively large but also extremely rough and therefore very cheap, and i'm realizing i can do some unusual things with it, for it's price range.
this is a $1000/month basement in the bottom of a house with a busy drug dealer living on the top floor. i have no reason to call him in at this point, and won't so long as i'm not smelling weed, but he couldn't be more fucking obvious. he's got somebody banging on his door every 20 minutes.
for reference, the apartment i just abandoned was $1200/month, on the third floor and somewhat smaller in total footage, but also more finished and came with three other apartments in the building full of potheads that were polluting my air space. the basement i got evicted from in the spring was less than $800/month and discernibly smaller than either. the basement i got evicted from in 2018 was less than $700 when i left (i signed at $650) and about the same size as this one, overall, but far more finished.
i've thought through how i want to do this and have decided that the new space is going to consist of the following rooms or areas:
1) a small but usable bedroom, partly because much of the storage that you expect in a bedroom exists elsewhere in the apartment, but big enough for a stereo system, a study/writing desk and a bedside computer pc typing system
2) a large enough bathroom for substantive shelving, full wall mirrors and a makeup table
3) a walk-in closet off of the bathroom (not the bedroom) with built-in laundry and a dedicated sewing area
4) an eat-in kitchen with expanded counter and shelving space
5) a side entrance with a space for coat and shoe storage
6) a voip phone and zoom (via voip videophone) area off of the kitchen
7) about 150 square feet of studio space
8) a small couch area with a stereo for listening
9) space for an exercise bike off the front entrance
10) a device charging area behind the front door
11) a 150 square foot work and storage area as a functional in-unit garage or actual basement in parallel to the apartment, with functional 2-level storage built in.
12) sufficient wall space for cd and book storage
it's cheap because of the drug dealer and the various problems a drug dealer creates to property values, but i've been told they're getting evicted. the front door, for example, is pretty brutal. i haven't seen the effects of the drugs yet, but i'm sure i will. i have recently seen somebody passed out beside their shopping cart around the corner, because they couldn't make it over the bridge, and i jumped to probably correct conclusions. he just fell over; he might have been technically dead.
it's going to take a few weeks, maybe a few months, to set the apartment up. right now, i'm not sure the furnace works, and i'm waiting for the owner to do some minimal but necessary cosmetic work.
i hope i don't get evicted to raise the rent, again; i'm unfortunately realizing the necessity of planning around it, and want to focus on buying if i have to move again. some small houses in windsor are starting to list under $180K.
0:42
let me warn everybody: if you buy this house to evict me, i will take everything with me when i go. you will be deeply disappointed with what you end up with, which won't be what you thought you were getting.
it's a huge space for a low-income rental, which is what i wanted and got (~600 square feet in the apartment, up to 700 including the laundry and closer to 900 including the in-unit garage. the upstairs units don't manage space well because they've been converted into apartments, but this is the entire basement of what used to be a moderately sized house). it's been partially recently redone; the hot water and furnace are fairly recent. there's new inside doors, new flooring in the bedroom. somebody tried to give a fuck and gave up, which left me with a lot to work with, and i'm going to finish the job.
0:54
oct 14
how am i feeling?
a lot better, but it's fairly dry down here, and that's had some effect on me. i need a long shower. i don't think they've drugged me in a while and i'm not sure yet if they've followed me.
i bought a few things yesterday to start the process of redesigning this basement off - a plastic drawer system to fit into a hole under the counter, a shoe rack, a fan, a mercury thermometer to replace the one i broke and a digital "weather station" with alarm clock and calendar that i actually suspect i'll find extremely helpful. i still have my radio/alarm clock from about 1991. i remember listening to smells like teen spirit on it when it came out. i haven't used it in 20 years, and it's well in need of an upgrade. i just don't use alarm clocks. i'm very good at waking myself up on time, without one.
i'm looking at putting a mini fridge and a long table in to extend the counter, with a smaller table underneath it to put a stereo system on.
there's somebody coming tomorrow to look at whether he can install a fan in the bathroom or not and that's going to help dramatically, but i need to do the kitchen first, the walk-in closet second and the bathroom third. i don't know if i need a plumber or not yet. the kitchen plumbing appears to be fine.
21:04