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I Should�ve Taken That Left Turn at Albuquerque |
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Hello and welcome. If you're new here, be a dear and Read my Disclaimer. My diary not good enough for you? Fine, be that way. Try these instead: plf
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2001-02-01 - 8:18 pm� The owners of my building are really a bunch of money grubbing assholes. They've been steadily raising the rent, and haven't made one improvement to this place in years. This is not a nice place to live. Most of the apartments have drafty windows, there are a whole bunch of problems with the hardwood floors, the garbage chute hasn't worked in the 6 years my mom has lived here, one of the dryers in the laundry room hasn't worked right in years, and the elevator is constantly breaking down. Yet through it all, the rent keeps going up and up. Why? Because they can. They know that they can charge what the want, and their tentants have very few choices but to suck it up and pay. There is a less than 1% rental vacancy rate in the city right now, and on top of that, there is insufficent student housing for the college. So that basically amounts to not enough (or barely enough) rental properties for those who need them. You take what you can get, and you should be grateful to have it. I am not grateful to be living here, especially considering the owner's newest trick. For the past few weeks it seems like we've had a real hot water shortage in the building. When I get in the shower in the morning I have to turn the hot water tap on as high as it can go (leaving the cold water tap completely turned off) and I'm still left shivering in lukewarm water. When we do the dishes, we have to first boil two or three kettles of water so that the water is hot enough to you know, actually clean anything. The superintendents (not to be confused with the owners) said that they did have someone in to work on the boilers. They said that the owner had someone looking at the boilers and said that they were fine. Well, guess what the superintendents found out a couple of days ago? The guy who the owners called to "fix" the hot water, was actually hired to drastically lower the water temperature! They said that because the gas prices have been going up so much, they were losing money with the hot water. Besides, they said, it's all legal. They can turn the water down if they want to. Um, hi. How in the hell can they be losing money when all they do is take money from us and don't put anything back into the building? Yes, I know that the gas prices are ridiculously high right now, but my rent is beyond ridiculously high! And um, no, I'm very sorry, but I do not feel that it is altogether legal to turn the hot water down so much that I shiver in the shower. Slum lords! That's what they are. So anyway, the supers have been spreading the word about why the water is so cold to anyone who complains about to them about it. When my mom found out yesterday she called the health unit, the rent review board, and the city. They all told her that no, it did not sound like the water temperature was within the legal limits. Then they told her that they couldn't really launch an investigation based on one complaint. But guess what? My mom was not the only one who called and complained. A good number of people did the same thing, so the city was forced to check things out. And guess what else? The water temperature was significantly below the legal limit. The slum lords have until tomorrow to turn the water back up several degrees or they will be charged. Yeah. Score one for the little guy. Let this be a lesson to you; speak up, make yourself heard, complain, yell, bitch, whatever. Sometimes it really can make a difference.
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The big 3 0 - 2006-06-03 Hello again - 2006-05-03 Random stuff in place of an actual update - 2006-03-15 Pictures. Just Because. - 2006-02-23 Christmas 05 - 2005-12-26 Currently listening to: |
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