ADVENTURES IN HARLEM

Ring Ring Ring.... "Hi you've reached Sarah please leave a message..."
"Hi Sarah this is Bernice from Slumlordville Reatly. I was just calling to see if youd be interested in an apartment in a first world country that offers everything from a third world country. Please call me back at 425.765.... if you are interested. Thank you and hope you have a great evening!"

That would be the message I left for my cousin tonight...

This morning I was rudely awaken at 4am by my new roommates. It sounded like someone was breaking into my bedroom! I woke up not knowing what was going on and in a panic. I started searching for the noise when I realized the wall two feet from my bed was moving!!! All I could hear was this loud scratching and sawing sound. All of a sudden I see my wall start to collapse within itself. I froze in a stage of panic and surprise. I then saw the wall that was once flesh with itself was sticking out into my room. I watched what I can only compare to a child grabbing both sides of a bottle pulling it towards itself for a drink happen to my wall. Two boney creepy hand things wrapped themselves around this section of wall and yanked it hard towards itself. POOF!!! My wall was gone, lost in and amongst itself. I LITERALLY watched a rat manhandle the only protection barrier I had between myself and the rodents that cohabit my apartment. The RATS made it in with a vengeance. I screamed some profanities, grabbed a rat trap, placed it outside the hole then grabbed raid and started spraying the inside of the hole. Obviously, I know raid won't kill these miscreants, however, I can only assume being shot with poison liquid has to be a deterrent.

So later today, I am up cleaning my room because of course the rats have taken over. Before I could have a complete breakdown my friend came and picked me up and took me to lunch. The nice thing, he is a broker here in NYC, so we discussed my options. Lawsuits, renters rights etc.

Unfortunately, when I got home, an hour and a half later, I quickly discovered that the rats decided to take revenge on me for ruining their plans to take over my room in the middle of the night. I stood in horror over my bed as there was now pee and shit everywhere. As if that wasn't enough they had a scratching party on the bottom of my sheets tearing them to shredded pills. My roommate and I started pulling everything out of my room. One thing after another, ruined. They ate my mattress. They ruined four pairs of boots. My hanging clothes had bite marks in them. They even felt it was necessary to eat through the plastic and paper that was still neatly covering my freshly picked up dry cleaning. They destroyed bras, panties, socks and my laptop case. They ate Pepto-Bismol, a bobby pin, matches, a lighter, some pennies, my unopened contacts, vitamins, bandaids and receipts. Apparently, these varmints have particular taste as they left the brand new box of kettle corn on my shelf alone, my trash can and what it contained unharmed.

My room was hauled down to the trash along with my mattress, pillows, handbags, shoes, clothes, hangers, brand new bedding and many many more possessions. What was once an inconvenience last week of being out $1000 dollars was now quickly adding up to $5000.... Closer to $10,000 dollars worth of damaged goods that are now being entered into an inventory list. If only our house would have flooded or the leak would have destroyed it then at least renters insurance would cover it. Now the only things I have left that aren't destroyed live in a medium sized suitcase that my homeless nomad ass will wheel around NYC while I couch surf until I figure something out.

On the bright side, the rash all over my legs and arms, that now my roommate suffers from after helping clean my room, from all the toxins from feces, will probably dissipate and we won't have to fight over the bathroom from puking all night from inhaling it.