Moving of the Shoes

As anyone who ever reads my sad little blog knows - I have a small issue with shoes.

I have a lot of them and they are my most valuable possessions besides my kitties. They are my artwork on display.

So moving them to the new condo couldn't be left up to just anyone. I knew special care had to be taken, so my friend and I moved them over ourselves before the move. I didn't bring all of them at once (as I needed a few pairs for the week before the move), but most of them went over a week before.

There were so many they filled the entire back of a Pathfinder with the back seats down! There were 3-4 boxes of shoes per shopping bag and about 60 pairs or so.

We got such a good laugh we had to take a picture:

I'm slacking!

With the chaos of the move (I'm still organizing) I have blown off my blog almost the entire month of July! Oh My!

I will be back in full swing come when my house is organized!

What a Racket!

For the most part I love living in Somerville, but there are some things that just really piss me off.

For example the racket they have going on with the parking situation.

Every year I have to get a permit for $12 (resident and 2 guest)- I am ok with that, but the permit has to renew in March because 'that is the zone' WTF!? So when I first got the permit in November or whenever I first got it a few years ago - I paid $12 for 4 months, then had to pay another $12 in March again! It's not a lot of money, but still if I get a permit for a 'year' it should really be for a 'year' not 2 months, for 4 months - 12 months!!! Today I was in the parking clerks office and the woman next to me just moved here and was getting on and they told her the same bullshit - oh you can't get this July-July - this is only good till March - it's your 'zone'.

Then there are the parking tickets because of 'street cleaning'. If it rains they don't clean the streets, but still ticket!!!! So I can't go on vacation for a week without bringing my car, because I have to move my car at least 2 times a week because of street cleaning 12am-6am two nights a week. Which of course creates a parking nightmare when you can only park on one side of the street overnight. If you forget they of course are quick to ticket.

Then there is the wonderful $30 or maybe even now $50 ticket for 'parking too close to an intersection'. What I love about this one is that we park in the same spot almost every day. Occasionally we have gotten this ticket, most of the time we don't. So I don't understand how only sometimes it's too close, but the other 90% of the time it's totally fine. Must be around end of the month quota time - lets screw residents that park in this same spot every day. I suggested fighting the ticket, bf thinks that is just a bigger waste of time. OH and I should add by 'intersection' they mean a very small one way side street with no light. RIGHT - definitely screwing up traffic at an 'intersection'! OH and the you parked here longer than 2 hours ticket is great. I parked in the same spot every day for about a year. Then one day (around labor day/moving time for college students) - I got a ticket! For violating the 2 hour limit! I literally had parked there every single day for a year without one! And I have never gotten that ticket again either!

Snow emergencies are another joy - first a $100 ticket if you don't make it home in time from work [or wherever you were off to when they declared it] to move your car, then a tow ride on top of that. WOO HOO! Oh and then when you go to the other lots to park, once the ban has been lifted you have 2 hours to get your car out of the lot or MORE tickets/towing. Gotta love it.

Which all leads me to today. I went to go get the parking restriction signs I need to allow a truck next to my building to move out ($10). My guess is I need them for a maximum of 3 hours (maybe less). My new condo has a driveway so I will just have the moving truck pull into that. So all I need were 2 of those restriction signs to hang up on my street for the movers. I have a front lot in my building, but it's slanted so I figured it would just be easier to park on the street - which now that I'm thinking about it - is also slanted. Whatever.

When I moved in I got the 2 signs - hung them up and the movers moved everything in quickly. I fill out the form to get the restriction which BTW they ask for my SS number? UM no don't think so - there is no reason you need my SS number for a 3 hour parking restriction!! WTF!? Then the lady tells me there is a new policy that I have to pay $25 to get a temporary moving van permit for EACH street and then the parking restriction signs for each street. UM no I'm not paying an additional $60 so Somerville can make even more money off me. I said when I moved in I only needed the restrictions - and I already paid for visitor permits. She says yea - you can't use those anymore we changed the rule 2 weeks ago. I mean really. What a bunch of bullshit. For years and years - they made $10 for parking restriction signs, and people probably put their guest parking permit in the window of the moving van. Now suddenly they need to charge $25 per day per vehicle, per street (one moving from and then one moving to)?

Why can't they find better ways to generate revenue than by scamming their residents on parking???? WTF!! So now I'm just going to have the moving van park in my lot on the hill and deal with it. I refuse to waste money on bullshit like that - oh that wouldn't have cost me almost anything 2 weeks ago.

holy crap

I've been seriously ignoring my blog this week, but I promise I will be back in force once the move is over!

My friend - you know who you are! came over today and helped me pack! I feel like we got so much accomplished. Although I have not yet started my kitchen - which could be a disaster!

We loaded up the entire back of a Nissan Pathfinder (back seats down too) with my shoes to bring them over! I mean they are the most important part of the move (besides the me, my cats, and my clothes). I took pics I need to get them off my camera to post them.

Well no one reading this should be shocked with the excessive amounts of shoes I have. My collection is a serious commitment!

The other good thing my new condo is sparkling clean thanks to 3 very hard working cleaners that worked for 5.5 hours cleaning bf's condo (which I suspect he's NEVER actually cleaned even though he 'claims' he has - wiping down a counter doesn't actually clean the entire kitchen). Good thing I did that 2.5 hours of prep work to get the place organized and threw trash out before they got there!!!

Back to Reality

UGH it sucks...........

Got back from my vacation at the NJ Shore last night and back to work today. As if coming back to work after a week off isn't stressful enough as it is I had to:

• Cancel my cable tv and internet


• Cancel my electricity


• Set up forwarding addresses for my periodicals and such


• hire a carpet cleaner to clean my carpets after I move out (part of my lease agreement)


• go to the post office to mail amended tax returns


• attempt to do some cleaning @ BF's condo to prepare


• realized cleaning BF's condo is futile - research hiring a cleaning person


• narrow cleaning list down to 2 women - one recommended from friend, another from Yelp


• Stare into the abyss of shit in my apt overwhelmed at how I am going to manage to pack all this shit in time for the movers


• contemplate how totally overwhelmed I will be when all my shit is combined with bf's shit next week - I need a Valium ugh

Packing Sucks

I know I don't have to move until July 25th, but if I don't start now I will never be ready. After the excessive amounts of shoe photos you can imagine it would take days just to pack my shoes, never mind my clothes.

Last time I moved I was still packing when the movers showed up, and they ended up packing some boxes too. ooops. I was convinced I would be ready in time. I was wrong.

So this time I am trying to be more prepared. I already have some boxes at my apt and I went over to bf's condo to organize his basement today so it would be ready for some of the excess stuff we would have to figure out what to do with.

It's overwhelming. UGH. The good thing is I'm so annoyed to pack stuff I've been throwing a lot away or donating it. I really hope I have FAR LESS stuff this time - than I did my last move - which took 3 movers 6-8 hours to complete. yeeaaaah.... I have a lot of stuff.

Etiquette?

So what's the etiquette on showing or viewing and apartment and doing the following:

A: Opening up all the closets and leaving them open? Like so my cats could get in and potentially hurt themselves and/or break into the food (to breaking into the food has happened before).

B: Going the bathroom - the bathroom and leaving the seat up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? Really? Who does this? Who goes the bathroom in someone else's apt when they aren't home and you are viewing it? EWWW now I need to sanitize it - I don't know who was in here!

C: Knocking the key lock thingy off the door and leaving the key exposed so ANYONE could break into the apartment?

D: I forgot this one: knocking over the cat's water dish and leaving the water all over the floor.

I come home and all of the above has happened.

WHAT.THE.FUCK?

It's still my apartment right now - respect it!

Apartment Realtors

Ok so I get that I am moving out at the end of July and my management company wants to get this place rental ASAP. I suppose they hope the next tenants won't mind not seeing out their window, paint chipping off walls, or raw plywood covering the bottom of a rotting vanity (all things I didn't see because it was night when I viewed the apt-and they boarded up the vanity while I lived here). Classy.

Another thing I didn't pay much attention to in my lease was that fact that if the management company got a bigger than normal property tax bill for the year - the tenants were all responsible for paying it. Why I pay property tax on a property I don't own is beyond me. But I signed the stupid thing it's my fault. So I got stuck with a $90 tax bill or 2.78% of the entire bill. And apparently each unit has the same % - but I live in a 1 BR, why would I have the same percentage as the 2 or 3BR places? Plus with condos the fees go up the higher the unit - I'm on the 1st floor, I shouldn't pay the same as a 3BR on the top floor! Whatever. It's my mistake for not paying attention to that in the lease.

So apparently they [management company] call some real estate agents to show the apartment. They "claim" they only work with 3 agencies that have many agents, but that isn't true. OR else do you explain the 6 or more different real estate companies that agents have called me from. Granted I get 6-15 calls a day for various agents sometimes 3 from the same company, but there has to be at least 6 rental agencies calling me. Davis Sq something, Inman something , Porter something, Maven and the list goes on.....

But these people are out of control! They are calling me morning, noon and night. They want to show my apt morning, noon and night too! One guy tried to come at 8am 'is that convenient'? UM no it's not even close to convenient! That's when I'm getting ready in the morning! WTF time do they think I leave for work? No day is off limits as they apparently also work Sundays. Some are giving me 4 hours or so notice (which I appreciate), others 1 hour or less.

But now last night a new thing started happening. Agents showing up without calling at all! UM hello! what if I was in the shower or something and they just barge in. She knocks and I answer it and she's like hi I'm blah blah blah I called earlier. I said actually no one called me today, but you can still come in. I have a very reliable iphone with visual voicemail (one of the best inventions ever!) - so I would KNOW if I missed a call or had a voicemail. Nothing. There's no missed call. The only calls I got yesterday were from my brother and my mom.

It also appeared that someone had shown my apartment earlier in the day too (without calling me) because my pantry door was wide open. My cat's food is in there (plus all my dry food) and he could have (and often does if it's left open) ripped open the Indoor cat weight management food and go to town. It's pretty funny he's ripping it open like it's some kind of special treat, when in reality it's diet cat food for the fat thing. He's awesome and cute.... and 20lbs.... so he's on a diet. anyway I always make sure to close the door - because when I have forgotten I regretted it while I cleaned up ripped bag and food. Either that, or Cody got really hungry and figured out how to open the door all the way.

But back to the apartment. I called my management company to say hey can we time box these showings into one or two reasonable hours a day? And they said well the faster it rents the faster you can stop having people come see it. work with the real estate agents to figure out convenient times. Great thanks. This makes me REALLY happy I didn't tell them I wasn't coming back earlier. See in my lease it states I need to give them 60 days notice (which I did), but every year they want to know about 5 months ahead of time if I will renew. They send this letter and say I have 10 days to respond. Um WTF the lease says I need to give 60 days notice - not 5 fucking months!!!!!!!! It's been 3 weeks of daily showings since I told them. I can't even imagine 5 months of showings had I told them back in March when they wanted to know!! Someone rent it so I can have some peace and quiet!

Um yeaaaaah

So if you are going to threaten to tow people you should:

A: do it
OR
B: not put a date on the "final warning" note if you aren't going to do anything about it for a week after that notice.

YEAHHHHHHH..............

so my apt building put this final notice on a car last week - and it was still on the car last night when I got home from work.

Clearly a "final" notice 7 days later.



Also when kids deface the brick with chalk perhaps you want to wash it off. OR you can just let it sit there for 3 years like they have done. I think they are waiting till the rain washes it away... oh but it's a covered area..hmmmmmm we'll apparently be waiting a long time for that to go away. The kids that did it probably haven't lived here in years. In case you can't read the text in the image it says "hey fatty" with a bad drawing of a pig.

Apartment

So as I blogged about earlier I am moving out of my Apt. at the end of July into BF's condo. Calling movers has gotten me quotes that range by almost $1,000! Oy. I think I finally figured out what I am going to do - thanks to reviewers on Yelp (I will be one of them after my move).

I wanted to use Gentle Giant again - I've moved with them before. They were so efficient, friendly, professional etc. They did a great job and disassembled/reassembled furniture so quickly I was amazed. They made it all look so easy. I was really happy with the service I got from them. But I also moved in February 3 years ago, so the price was still a bit high, but since it was non-peak season very reasonable.

This time I'm moving in July - which I guess is peak season. Different days have different rates (which they all have), but theirs goes up A LOT week to week. So if I move the 3rd week in July it's cheaper, but still expensive @ $1200. If I move the 4th week - it gets significantly higher (~$1700), and if I move that 5th and last week - it's off the charts (like 2k+!) to move 1 mile down the road! Holy shit!

So I checked out Yelp and Precision Movers is getting a lot of great reviews lately. I called them up - they are quoting me $600 for the same move. Now THAT'S something I can live with. I'm a little sad not to give repeat business to GG since I had such great service from them the last time, but I just can't see spending $1700+ for a move I can get for $600. I want to take that money I save and decorate my new home! I will see how these other guys do - so far all 5 star reviews on Yelp - it's promising. I know you get what you pay for (as you can see I'm all about crazy expensive footwear), but I get the feeling this other moving company is new and trying to break onto the scene so they have more reasonable prices right now.

It's a gamble, hopefully I bet well.

been slacking

On my blog posts this week... I've been trying to organize and start throwing stuff away, donate stuff, and start to pack up my apartment.

What a nightmare. UGH I just have too much shit. And it seems no matter how much I donate (car fulls) and throw out- I still have a lot of stuff. Where did it all come from? When the hell did I get all this shit? The only things I really care about to move are: my furniture, my cd and dvd collection, my clothes and shoes, selected books, and my computer stuff. Oh and my kitchen stuff...

I had my Vogue magazine collection dating back to 2001. I decided it was finally time to part with it. It's too damn heavy, and how often do I really go back and comb throw my Vogue archives? Now I only have the last 3-6 months of magazines and that's it. Much more manageable.

Moving costs are astronomical too! $1000-$2500 depending on which day I move and how long it takes. WTF? I'm moving 1 mile! And my apt landlords are wasting no time showing people the apt. I have one of those stupid lock boxes on the door, which make it impossible to turn the knob to get in and out of my place. And these real estate agents are calling me up the wazzo to show my friggin apartment. No matter when they come it's never really convenient! Not to mention it's just unsettling having people walk through your house and look at all your stuff. Meanwhile my apt. people send a note 'lock up your valuables' yea I do. In my apt! Where else am I supposed to put things that are valuable to me? It's my stuff. It's all valuable in some way.

I wish the apt folks had been this timely in sending plows over in the winter -mostly they sent someone by the time hit 6-12 inches - by that time no one could get into the very steep driveway for hours and had to resort to on street parking. I mean sure it's awesome to have off street parking in Somerville. But it's only good in a snowstorm when they plow the lot in a timely manner so folks can actually GET INTO the lot! Otherwise it's just a mostly empty lot covered in a sheet of ice because they didn't really plow to the asphalt.

I had to wait 4 days to get someone to come out and fix my AC in the summer - all the guy they sent out said was the thermostat is broken, but since it's new we won't replace it - you just have to move to fan/low cool for 20 minutes to let the ice melt on the cooling thingy, then back to high cool again - every few hours. YA thanks a lot that is REALLY FUCKING CONVENIENT!!! Especially when I'm not home....

My bathroom vanity was rotting at the bottom. I called them to ask them to replace the vanity. They came over and ripped out the bottom and just nailed in raw plywood over the rotted section. Great work! Really a superb job. Clearly high class.





I have never been able to see out my windows. I didn't realize this when I looked at the place to move in because I looked at night and the shades were mostly down. Basically the seal or whatever broke on them so they are always filled with condensation in between the two panes of glass. I called and complained when I moved in. They told me the window wasn't broken, the seal broke, there was nothing they could do. Gee thanks. It's great to have windows I can't see anything out of.






Once the front door lock broke on a Friday (maybe Thursday) and they put electrical tape over the lock mechanism so that the front door couldn't lock at all until it was fixed. Then placed a big sign on the door 'please do not remove the tape. lock is broken. lock will be fixed on Monday.' oh that's wicked safe. No only is the door unlocked throughout the entire weekend, but there's a note alerting anyone walking by to this fact!!!!!

But when you move out- shit they can get to that mighty fast! AND they can even do that on the weekend!!!

Crap

I haven't posted much this week at all - and I still haven't uploaded my shoe of the day photos. I find it therapeutic after stressful work days to look at my shoes :) - lately they have been 16 hour work days.... UGH I need a vacation.

I am trying to start packing for my move and throw out what I don't need (and donate anything that's still in good shape that I don't want). It's just so overwhelming. I have too much crap. I some declutter your life consultants to come in and help me HA