Welcome Back

Want to shoot myself. We finally found an apartment to move into. After squatting at my mom’s for seven weeks, she was plenty ready for us to find our own home. Real estate shopping sucks right now. Nothing available, unless you are able to buy, which we are not. Picky we are not. We looked at and applied to every two bedroom apt in Sausalito, my only requirements being that there are at least two bedrooms (even tho the kids have slept ON TOP OF ME to date, I had high hopes of sleeping in a room with only one other person. Though, frankly, right now, my fantasy night includes me alone, sleeping just about anywhere. Honestly, I am thinking of taking a backpacking trip alone). Every apartment we applied to fell through: one was so moldy Clay started wheezing after three minutes in the bedroom, another owned by a crazy guy who decided, after the agent accepted our application, that he didn’t want to meet us, the third we lost out because even though we were acceptable, the owner preferred to take a Silicon Valley 27 year old with a million dollars in the bank (is that legal?), the fourth, the owner told me he doesn’t want kids in the building (and stated that he cant legally not accept my application but since he doesnt want us, please don’t apply). Several more we put in an application for and the agent just never called us back. Finally, we were accepted to our current apartment after the initial applicatns decided not to take it (probably should have taken a cue from them). We had a feeling the apartment was quirky and a shoddy cosmetic job had been done so that it could be rented, but we needed somewhere to live and frankly, this was our only option. This weekend we discovered why this part of Sausalito is called Hurricane Gulch. We owned a house ten years ago on the adjacent hillside and sure it was windy but now I realize that house was protected because if was tucked into the hillside. The brick townhouse we rent is smack in the middle of the “valley” between two Sausalito hillsides, right in the path of the hurricane winds that blow down the hill towards the bay. Frinds Jessica and Jonathon came over for dinner Saturday night. I had told them the house gets cold, dress warm and they realized I wanst exaggerating when they kept their parkas on all evening. Meanwhile the windows are so old that gusts blow through the gaps between paine and sill. The girls’ room is so cold that I have our sleeping bags tucked into their beds. Down sleeping bags – the ones we used trekking to Everest Base Camp. That’s how cold it was this weekend. Because aside from the hurricane winds blowing inside due to the crappy windows, the fireplace has no damper. Just an open chimney to the sky. The realtor had told us we could use the fireplace. Now the management company tells us it is not usable. Not only was that appealing for its charm but it would be a way to keep warm! (Yes, this is August in Sausalito. Eveyrhwere else in the country people are dropping dead from heat exhaustion. Meanwhile we are wearing long underwear and fleece and wrapping ourselves in down sleeping bags). Now for the heating system. I never used heat gorwing up in San Francisco. Didn’t even realize we had central heating since my dad forbid anyone to use it. Turns out the heating system in this apartment is a metal grate in the middle of the floor – right at the intersection of the girls’ room, the entryway and the kitchen. Impossible to avoid stepping on or over it. The heat blows up from there. The system gets verhot, the grate becomes a burning piece of metal. It is clearly labled “Caution: Keep off. May cause burns. Keep children away”. Now HOW are we spuppoed to use this system without injuring either ourselves or the kids? We turned it on, just to check it out. The thermostat must be broken because it is blank – impossible to regulate temperature. We flipped the switch that says “heat”, a huge rumbling noise gurgled up from the floor, followed by a strong burning smell and then the piercing screech of the smoke alarm. We turned it off. We wrote to the property manager explaining that 1. The heater set the smoke alarm off 2. This doesn’t seem safe (and says “Caution, keep off, burns” etc). Their response was “Don’t scream at me Tamar! PGE checked it out and it is working fine” Excuse me? I called PGE. They do check heaters. They don’t check whether they are in a safe location or likely to burn someone (hmmmm???) I called the Sausalito building inspector. A very nice man called me back and said they don’t check heaters either. I called the Fire Department. A nice fireman drove twenty minutes to our house. (Im not sure why I couldn’t get through to the Sausalito Fire Department 3 minutes away?) . Guess it is a slow day, since I had explained this isn’t an emergency, I just have a question about possible fire hazard and to whom should I talk? He looked at the system questioningly and stated he had no idea whether it was hazardous but, it clearly doesn’t work. A local realtor came over just to check it out. She turned it on, practically burnt her hand in about 2 minutes. Just then our sofa was delivered. The guys, moaning and groaning about our low ceilings and steep staircase (all of ten stairs. Jeez guys, do you know how many times Ive schlepped furniture up and down 70 stairs of our old house???) and immediately piped up “what is burning in here?” I’ve been advised to go through our apartment with a fine tooth comb, document every single scratch, crack and dent. Not to mention the open wires poking through the wall, the dodgy extension chord into which the stove is plugged, the cracked glass window in the children’s room and the toilet that barely flushes. Seriously I’m just about the most low maintenance tenant you could get. Indoor plumbing and safe living conditions are my basic requirement. But for the rent they’re charging, I’d like to not have my kids either freezing their fingers off or making trips to the ER for feet burns on the heating system. Yes I have reported this to the property management company. Who replied “You don’t need to scream. It’s already been check out”. Excuse me? That doesn’t cut it.