No matter how diligently you plan or how prepared you think you are, things rarely go as smoothly as they should. Moving prep has been no exception. Last Friday a week ago (March 25th), I emailed my new apartment manager with questions about setting up the electricity in my name. I could not call her as the only phone number I had went directly to automatic voicemail. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday came and went with no response. I emailed again on Tuesday. With no response by Thursday (March 31st), I took it upon myself to call the power company to set up my account with the hope I was doing the right thing. It turned out this was an easy process. After a five-minute conversation, I had power set to turn on the morning of the next day, April 1st, the day my lease began.
That same morning, I finally received a reply from the apartment manager. She said she had seen my email from a week ago and had tried calling and texting but had not gotten a response from me. I emailed that I had not received any texts or phone calls and gave her my personal phone number just to clarify. It turned out she had been leaving messages and texts on my office phone while I had been on vacation! I also told her I had already taken care of the electricity, and it should have been turned on that morning.
She called a few minutes later. Apparently, things were not going as planned on her end. The previous tenant had not moved out on the date she’d given as her vacate notice. There was a problem with the apartment where the old tenant was moving, and she decided to stay a few extra weeks without telling anyone. When she finally did move out, she had left some furniture that needed to be removed. Also, it quickly became apparent that one or both of her cats had been urinating on the carpet in the second bedroom. The apartment company had shampooed the carpets and was shampooing them again that morning trying to get the smell out of the carpet.
As you know, I had planned to go by the apartment on Friday to move in a few things especially into the second bedroom. That was not possible now. The apartment manager asked me to come by on Sunday (I had to work Saturday) to verify whether I could smell urine in the second bedroom. If the smell was still there, they would remove the carpeting, reseal the floor underneath, and lay down new carpeting. She assured me that my planned move-in day of April 6th was still good, but the second bedroom might not be completely ready if the carpeting needed replacement. I did go to the apartment yesterday. There was a strong odor of cat urine in the second bedroom. I told the apartment manager the carpet would need to be replaced. They are ripping out the old carpet today. She is scheduling the carpet people to come as soon as they can to lay the new carpet.
The rest of the apartment is in pretty good shape. I measured everything so I could decide ahead of time where I want to place my furniture. I will have to buy new blinds for the windows. The ones that are there will not do. The apartment’s maintenance person will install all the blinds; I just need to buy them. I set up the wi-fi and cable box although the cable box installation won’t finish until I bring in my TV. Otherwise, the apartment is move-in ready for this Wednesday.
All that’s left now is finishing packing up my current apartment. To be continued…
Joe
The Closet Professor 