Have you ever seen your life (or safety, home, or earthly possessions) flash before your eyes? I did today - twice. This morning I poked my head into our laundry room, which connects with our upstairs' tenants area of the house, to see if I could figure out why I had to listen to our newest neighbor hammering something with the door open and music blaring at 11:30 pm last night, and I saw a horrific sight. Grouped within an inch of the water heater's pilot light and the furnace was a stack of a dozen cans of paint, paint thinner, plaster, and caulking, covered with a pile of wood and cardboard. I don't think our local fire marshall could have come up with a more convincing display of "Things That Are Going To Burn Down Your House And Kill You While You Sleep." I frantically dug out the cans nearest to the pilot light, but I had to leave right then for work, so I couldn't clean up the rest of the mess. I contacted our landlord as soon as I got to work and expressed my sincere concern about the safety of our house and possessions. Letting your landlord know that her house is in serious peril of being blown up or burnt down should evince some determined action to correct the problem, right?
Not so much. She forwarded me an e-mail she sent to the new roommate upstairs, which politely suggested that moving the cans into the garage would be "wonderful" as the laundry room is not a "storage area" and the Baldwins need to use it for their stuff. Um, what? How about, "Move those cans right now before you burn down the house!" Or "Storing flammable materials next to an open flame and a furnace is incredibly dangerous and could cause an explosion!" And sending an e-mail? How about just sending a letter asking the upstairs tenants, if they don't really mind, and if it isn't too much of an inconvenience, to please remove the paint thinner and wood and other articles of some concern from the general area? I rolled my eyes and complained about the utter insanity of my landlords, but I hoped that the e-mail she sent might make some difference and that I wouldn't come home to the makings of a charred wreck.
Once again, what a foolish hope! I got home to find even more garbage nestled up to the water heater and the furnace cover dangling rakishly to one side. In utter disgust, I rounded up the paint cans, paint thinner, paint rollers, plastic sheeting, cardboard, wood, caulking, and plaster and dumped them on the upstairs porch and by their mailbox. And now I wonder if I'll ever be able to sleep peacefully in this house again.
Wait, who am I kidding? We never sleep peacefully in this house! Thanks to our neighbors, who have never really grasped the concept that other people can hear them, especially late at night, we are sure to be wide awake and alert when our house inevitably burns to the ground.
3 comments:
The picture is a nice touch. Nothing like making your readers expect the caption to read, "This was our house around 2 am."
Btw this is Steve. I had no idea it would show my identity as what I use on my Arabic site. Oops.
Thanks, Steve! I thought it would finish off the story in a way words could not. : P
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