My first impressions of our new home were not awesome. I had
been gushing over how awesome the apartment was from the Google maps images and from the
pictures Hubby had taken when he made the trip out to sign the lease. But
seeing snapshots of things is not the same as seeing it in real life.
Some of the things were totally awesome, like the view from our
apartment, which I appreciate every single day, and how lovely the neighborhood
was. The things that I thought were not so awesome can be pretty much summed
up into two things: cat smell and tiny dark cave of a bathroom. Doesn't sound
like much, but was enough to have me in near tears. I should also mention
that I didn't sleep at all on the plane and was now on about 24 hours without
sleep, so that may have skewed my attitude just a tad.
So I walk in the door and the first thing
that hits me is this awful smell emanating from the "cat bathroom,"
the guest bathroom (the first thing you run into coming into the apartment)
that has been taken over by the two cats in an attempt to keep Molly Dog out of
the temporary litter box and cat food. We have a deluxe litter box coming
with our household goods that keeps Molly Dog out and the smell in, at least a
bit, but we had to buy a cheap one to get us by for the 6-8 weeks it takes our
things to get here by boat. So to keep Molly Dog from eating all the
kitty cookies, we have had to tie the door partially closed so cats can get in
but Molly Dog can't. This also makes it more inconvenient, although only
slightly, for us to get in there, which makes us even less likely to scoop the
box at regular intervals. Plus the litter here sucks and no central air
means no ventilation in the bathroom.
Anyways, so I make it past the cat box of
doom and Hubby starts me on a tour. First of all, the hallway is a bit
small and no windows in there, so a little darker than I am used to, and already not
making me feel welcome. He shows me the cat bathroom, which is
gross from the cats kicking litter about and getting hair everywhere. Then
he shows me the master bedroom. Again, I had seen pictures, but you don't
get a great feel from the pictures. It's okay, but it's a good thing we
didn't plan to bring our dressers, because I don't think we would even be able
to fully open the drawers before they would hit the bed. But its okay,
the floor to ceiling window lets in lots of light and makes it cheery (I'm big
on light). Then he shows me the dreaded bathroom.
Many times you
have to take multiple pictures of a room because you can't fit it all into one
shot. What I didn't understand was that this room was taken in two
pictures because half the room was hiding behind the door! I thought it was one
long room, but no. Think of an airplane lavatory and you have a better feel for
what I was experiencing. The room is basically only big enough to open
the door and provide a few extra inches between the door and the toilet.
Directly in front of you is the toilet, to the right is the tub/shower
(which is nice, actually), and to the left is the door that you just opened. You have to walk all the way in, shut the door
behind you, turn to your left, then you can see the pedestal sink and medicine
cabinet. Also very annoying is that you can't keep a rug on the floor
because the space between the door and floor is so small. So I was already
shocked by the size of the thing, but then I started freaking out about how
dark it was in there (tiny dark cave mentioned earlier). The room is only lit
by two small spotlight type overhead lights, and one small light over the
medicine cabinet, and 2 of the 3 were burned out. Hubby said there were
some extra lights in the storage closet (all the storage for the entire place,
the size of most American house's pantries), so I make him go get one and go to
work trying to fix it, but it isn't a screw in light like we are used to, so
about 15 minutes, a broken bulb, and lots of curse words later, we finally have
2 lights going, but it took me another week to find a replacement for the third
bulb. I started to feel better already, but then could clearly see what a
man living alone with no cleaning supplies for 2 weeks can do to a bathroom, and I started to feel sad all over again.
I know I sound like a big whiner, this is a lot more than a lot of
people have, and I've stayed in much worse, but only temporarily. This was to be my new home, and this was the third
move in a row where I had to get rid of at least half of my stuff and move into
a much smaller place, and it takes adjusting every time. I’m not trying to say I’m bad off by any
means, just adjusting.
It did get better from there, I swear, and spending some time cleaning
and putting things away (a little at least) made me feel a lot better. But really it just took some time settling
in. I am now 2.5 weeks in and feel much
better about everything, although I am worried about where all our stuff is going
to go when the boat finally arrives….
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