Rent Free Forever

Do I miss things about New York? Yes. Do I not miss things about New York? Yes.

I definitely do not miss one thing, and that is renting.

Renting was expensive, yes. But, I expected to pay a lot to live next to four star restaurants and Central Park and opera houses and a river overlooking the New Jersey coastline. Rubbing shoulders with Tina Fey came at a price.

I just never expected the unorganized and sometimes unscrupulous way landlords handled renting. I realized that renters never had an upper or even hand in the deal.

Ben and I got our entire security deposits back from our first two apartments. And, we should have. We cared for those apartments as if we owned them. We added value to those apartments! I scrubbed decades of grime out of bathroom crevices and off of floors. I retightened loose screws on cabinets and bleached dirty mini blinds. I (almost) exterminated the places from roaches and silverfish. Ugh.

They should have paid me for living there!

It was the leasing company of our last apartment that really frustrated me. Our apartment had its issues. None of which we caused. They existed before we moved in the place.

But, as it sometimes goes, we must now pay for them.

The leasing company finally returned our security deposit after Ben repeatedly called them for six months. Six months! They returned our deposit, but not without taking a nice piece of it.

Of course, the problems they made us pay for are the same problems that were already there when we moved into the apartment! The same problems I complained about for almost three years. The last 20 tenants also probably paid for those problems.

On the bright side, we got back most of our deposit. Dad said to "let it go" and "be happy" because at least we got something. A life lesson learned.

Now, I can finally shout, "C-ya, landlords. Wouldn't want to be ya!