Across the hall and one door down, there was a convicted arsonist but he was alright. The biggest problem I had was the bed bugs. Nobody seemed to care about that except me. I guess if you smoke ‘P’ every day, you’re scratching and itching all the time, and would probably think it was normal to have itchy skin. So the bed bugs were fully grown. Nobody asked to have their room sprayed, I had to complain constantly until the useless landlord finally got tired of hearing about bed bugs every day (landlord isn’t on site, and may have lived in another city). As I left, they were spraying some of the rooms to reduce the bed bug population.
I was bitten in the night by very small ones and it’s bloody concerning that they were in my bedding. Around the time I left, there were large bed bugs crawling across my floor, from the room above or below me. I’m lucky that they didn’t move on my belongings and contaminate my next rental! Once they make themselves at home it’s impossible to 100% remove them, unless you can heat an entire building complex to around 55 Celsius. Which means lost profit for the landlords of course, lol. They can get into any gap, so your PC, laptop and phone have to be thrown away if it’s contaminated with bed bug eggs.
Once I walked down the hallway and a guy came out of a door ahead of me, from the left side of the hall. He looked to his right and saw me, then he walked left, the same way I was going. This guy reeked like P.
Some of these tenants had been to prison before, because a couple of them were obsessed with rules. I went to the lounge one evening to see what channels they had. When I picked up the remote and changed the channel, some guys near the entrance way told me that I couldn’t do that. I didn’t realise they were watching because they were off to the side, not really in the room. They waited for me to touch the remote and then they spoke. Maybe they’re not allowed food in the lounge, except for on the table near the entry hall where they sat? Anyway, these guys seemed to take the rules rather seriously than what I’d normally expect. They must have learned this in prison with the lockup times etc.
One time I got a newsletter from the lodge in which they said that a tenant had died. I later found out he had hanged himself in the cupboard. Some tenants were so poor that they washed their clothes in the communal kitchen sinks.
This place is 15 Sioux Avenue, Wigram, Christchurch and it shouldn’t exist.
Very similar experience here, except it was a shitty old house in Welly with 6 tenants. After tolerating the bed bugs for a while, I somehow managed to convince the landlord to bug bomb the place - and it took three runs to completely get rid of em. I kinda had PTSD after that, I’d always imagine seeing some bugs or feel like they were on my bed, or even get phantom itching. Took a while to get over it.
Then this one time a massive and bloody fight took place (I presume they were from two rival gangs) and the cops had to be called, who arrested them and we never saw them again.
Also the addict in our place would steal random things - including eating ice cream from someone else’s tub, or drinking someone else’s millk. The oddest thing though (at the time for me) was when light bulbs went missing, and I had no idea what the connection was until one of my other flatmates enlightened me. After gathering some evidence, we complained to the landlord - who then mentioned the addict wasn’t even paying the rent, and he said that he couldn’t just kick him out for some legal reasons (he had to give him 30 days notice, IIRC).
Luckily by that time, my financial situation improved and I decided to pack my stuff and disappeared from the place overnight, whilst everyone was still asleep. Felt like I was breaking out of prison lol. But because I had to give a notice, I paid double rent for a while - but it was worth it. Moved to a flash apartment in town - a one bedroom flat all for myself - and had the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.
Nice to meet a fellow renter! xD
You don’t have to explain to us what the light bulbs were used for. It must have been for smoking drugs. They could use a spoon too, or melt some drugs in a pot and put it on their tongue. I don’t do drugs but I read The Heroin Diaries, White Line Fever, and Dave Mustaine: A Life In Metal.
Glad you’re doing okay now!