Says 73 – I found the cause of the pain in my neck.

2012 July 31 I had previously mentioned that I had a sore neck Says 67 – Pain in the neck and had put it down to my moving and helping my ex-wife move and arrange her furniture, but today I realized what was really going on. The irony is that the pain in my neck is directly connected to my landlord.

The landlord has been turning the A/C (Air Conditioning) off at around 8:00 pm and has been opening the doors and kitchen windows in an attempt to let cool air circulate during the night. Then anytime from 9:00 am – 11:00 am, he would turn on the A/C and close the doors and windows. Because he has been controlling the A/C, and opening and closing windows, I’ve been forced to follow his routine if I wanted any sort of comfort.

Today I realized why I have a sore neck. My window in this old Victorian house is huge, It’ measures 54 inches across and is 48 inches in height. I’ve been lifting it up about 18 inches, with my left hand while inserting a board to hold the window open. As I was opening the window today, I could feel the strain in my shoulder and neck and immediately realized that it was my opening and closing the window that had created my sore neck. Not only was this window the problem, but there is also a storm window that also needed to be opened and closed and the right hand lever was broken so it always jams in its tracks, and that also added more strain to my arms, shoulders and neck.

I’ve now decided to just leave the window partly open, day and night. If he wants to shut and open it when he shuts and opens the others, he is welcome to do it. My door is closed during the day, so any cool air that would be lost is only from my room, so it should be no skin off his nose that I leave it open.

PS: This is an actual picture of part of my room and the window in question.

Says 66 – Owners snooping in my room – Flip-flop trap.

July 16 I had my suspicions that the rental property owners were going into my room when I was gone. To prove my hunch, I placed a flip flop against the door so that I could open the door far enough to get out and back in, without flipping the flip flop. I laid the trap and sure enough when I came back and slowly opened the door only enough to get my head in to take a peer, I saw that the trap had been sprung. Even more incriminating was the fact that the flip flop had not just fallen, it had been neatly stacked up on the other one and not where it should be, had they ,or I opened the door too far.

I went downstairs and rang the doorbell. The male owner came to the door just as his wife was coming up the walkway.I asked them both, “Why were you in my room?” They answered simultaneously, one saying they weren’t in my room, and the other saying that they were just checking the A/C. Busted again. I told them they had no right to go into my room without my permission, or there being an emergency. The A/C is something that can be checked anytime, so why wait until I am out of my room to do your check and what is there to check except to see that my vent is open. More bullshit.
The woman asked me, “So when are you leaving?” I replied, “When I find a place, I’ll let you know.”

Later I looked on Kijiji and found three places that “looked” okay, so I emailed them.

Says 65 – Shower bars – Dent cheque – A/C bullshit issues

2012 July 09 – I did some more work for ex-wife’s apartment. I also took back two shower safety bars, as I didn’t want to install them in her tiled bathroom because if I cracked a tile, it would be an expensive fix up job. She approached the apartment superintendent and he said that his maintenance man wouldn’t do it either and suggested she find a professional bathroom installed to have it done. She doesn’t want to put out the money, so she is going to look around and see if she can find some with suction cups.

July 14, A week after I arrived in Woodstock, I had the dents and scratches fixed by a local dent repair shop and had sent the invoice to Superstore back in Regina Sask. to get reimbursed. Today I received a cheque in the mail, paid in full. Thank you!


4:30 pm I saw the home owner upstairs talking to one of the other tenants and I complained about the A/C and how it was off and on at different times and also how it fluctuated between operating at different temperatures from 24 – 26 degrees C to 27 to 29 degrees C where it was at the present moment

He gave me all kinds of excuses including blaming the humidity of affecting the newly installed electronic temperature sensor. I looked at him and called him on his BS and he made up another excuse. After he had finished talking to the other tenant, he came out to the deck where I was and said he was going to crank up the A/C as I was hot as a firecracker. About 15 minutes later, the temperature had dropped to 26 degrees C and was still falling.

I was speaking with another tenant and he told me the A/C has always been a problem as is the heat in the wintertime as he often needs to war layers and a sweater to keep warm. I said what about a little space heater, and he said that they don’t allow it. Then on another topic, he went on to say that several times he has heard a noise outside his door, and when he opened it, he has found the owner (woman) just standing there. He said that she would act surprised when he opened the door, but not as surprised as he was to see her standing there at 2:00 in the morning. He also said that it just didn’t happen once and that often, she would be upstairs cleaning and running the vacuum cleaner at 3:00 am in the morning. This place is just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Says 63 – Another new tenant moves in and out next door

2012 July 08 A man about my age moved in to the room across the hall five days ago and moved out today. He was also fed up with the BS he is getting from owners living below. Like the woman before him, he complained about the heat and that he wasn’t allowed to keep his door open. He was also chastised for drinking a beer outside on the balcony.

Actually I had bought a 6-pack of Corona the day before as it was hot and humid and it reminded me of Mexico and I remembered how good a corona tasted . When he came home from work, I asked him if he would like a cool one. He said he’d love one and invited me to join him on his balcony for some “fresh” air. We were sitting on the small deck off his room, quietly chatting and sipping our beer, when both owners came up and knocked on his door. He closed the balcony door and went to see them. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t really make out what was being said.

Later, he came back out and told me that they didn’t want any drinking from bottles on the deck, and that if he had a beer, he was to have it in a glass. They never said anything to me cause if they had, I would have asked them if drinking pop from a bottle was ok, and if they said yes, I would have pulled out my Dad’s root beer that looks like a dark beer bottle…

He emailed me later saying that when he went downstairs to get some of his money back, as he had paid for a month, they refused. He said that when he promised to take them to small claims court and to also see various government agencies as to the conditions, they quickly reversed themselves and gave him back 3 weeks rent, saying that they were glad to get rid of a trouble maker and a whiner.

Says 59 – Helping ex-wife move and looking for another place

My ex-wife moved to her new apartment on the end of June and I helped her move some stuff and then set up the apartment, like move furniture, hang window blinds and coverings, ceiling fan, bed frame and headboard, put together new dining room table and chairs, organize closets, hang pictures, etc.

After several discussions, the property owner finally put a temperature sensor upstairs that is linked to the main control downstairs. While that is fine and dandy, they also can’t keep their hands off it. The A/C kicks in at various times and temperatures. Sometimes it operates between 24 – 26 degrees, and then other times it’s working from between 27 – 29 degrees C. Then on top of that, they turn it on at different times and it’s always turned off by 8:00 pm leaving the upper level to sweat through the night as the sun is still out and the building is hot and the temperature rises to over 32C. Other days when they think it’s going to be cooler, (27 degrees C) they open the door and windows to let the breeze though but it’s now and humid. Other times, the A/C is on and the windows and doors are open. Their A/C unit is on and the downstairs is cool, but the upstairs is like an oven.

I put an ad on Kijiji, stating that I looking for a furnished, all-inclusive one bedroom or bachelor apartment as I could not see myself staying where I am. I’m also looking for another room, but there isn’t anything new, or if there is, they specifically want a working person, student or a female. What is new is also not acceptable to me, as it’s either smoking, in a basement, or in a rundown dirty house.

Says 58 – Things crawling out of the woodwork

2012 June 21 Well things are interesting. The weather has been hot (high 20’s and low 30’s C) and the rooms are supposed to be air conditioned, but whenever the landlords (that are living downstairs) are asked why it’s not working, they come up with different excuses, and that they are having it checked out. They had put a sign on the outside door to keep the door closed because the A/C was on. After talking with them and knowing they were blowing smoke, I wrote on the bottom of the sign. “What air conditioning” and signed it.

The woman that moved in across the hallway from me on June 16, moved out today. She was totally pissed off with the runaround she was getting in that she had flown in from Vancouver and had been told that she would have a large room, (my room) and that the room was fully furnished with bedding and that the kitchen was also fully functional and that there was only one other woman living there. Well her room is small and sparely furnished. It also has two large windows facing South and West, and with the A/C not working, needless to say, her room was like an oven. Besides that, there are three men living on the same floor and sharing the kitchen and bathroom. She was also getting shit for leaving her window open when she left for work as she didn’t want to come home to a sauna, and didn’t know that the A/C would be turned on later that day.

A couple of days after she left, the property owner came upstairs and asked me where the “Princess” went? I asked what princess, and he motioned with his head to the woman that was in the room across the hall from mine. I told him I didn’t know and asked why he called her a Princess. He said that she was a real whiner and he thought that because I was single and she was married and not bad looking, that I would have had made a move on her and would know where she went. I looked at him in disgust and shaking my head, said, “Well with that same redneck chauvinist mentality, then you have to also think that I may be putting the move on your wife if all I wanted was a fuck. He looked puzzled and as he scratched his baldhead and mumbled, “I never thought of that. I’ll have to think about that,” With that he turned and left.