Home: Our Old (yucky) Apartment

It was like a cave in there!  We only had two windows with dark gray curtains and blinds over them.  We did this because we had an apartment that was connected to my work.  We didn't want customers or co-workers to be able to look in and see me watching TV without pants on.  So we compromised by living in a cave and using the brightest light bulbs we could buy.  Joe called them the Hollywood Premiere Lights (aka flood lights lol).  None the less it was cheap cheap cheap and we saved a lot of money to have a nice down payment for a house.

We were told we could move into the apartment in September of 2007.  We gave ourselves a month to get it ready for us to move in.  The previous tenant who I knew from work had left the place a mess.  She left an old tv with cat pee on it, an old table with cat pee on it, a desk with cat pee on it, oh and she left a lot of cat pee soaking in the walls.  Joe couldn't believe what he had gotten himself into.  If the smell didn't make him run, then the duct taped windows should have!

The living room.  How creepy is that?

It was a one bedroom apartment and the previous person who lived there used the living room as her bedroom.  She had a young son who had the privacy of the bedroom.  Everything in the room was trashed.  There was no way any donation center would take any of it.  After making many trips to the dumpster, we noted how many flies had flocked to the new dumpster items.  No one should have to live in that.  So after we got rid of everything, we started cleaning.  Everyday after work I would walk over, light some incense, then mop and clean.  Our weekends were filled with cleaning this place.  Joe was sweeping out a little storage closet one of those days and yelled to me to look at this mold or dust he had found.  I saw it and told him, "no that's not dust or mold but a dead mouse."  The poor guys face fell, "It is??!"  I found a little bag and we buried him out in the yard.

The kitchen..oh my, why?

Do you want this yellow?  You know you do.

Oh, the bedroom.  This is a reasonably sized bedroom.  Large closet.  We tossed the closet doors.  If you look closely you can see the outline in the closet where the cat litter boxes were.  The urine ate through the boxes because they were so full.  Also in this blindingly blue room, on the closet rod there are car air fresheners.  They were not put there by us.  All I could think of was the scene in Se7en.  Sloth I think it was.  Creepy and I was going to be sleeping there.  

Maybe not as bad...but pretty smelly 

This was the dining room area (before) that we later changed to a computer room.

And...the Pink Bathroom!  Pink sink, pink shower and of course...a pink potty!

We started painting and were picking fun colors - dark green, gray and red.  We were not allowed to change the bathroom or paint any cabinets.  So we were stuck with them.  We did however put alot of money into this little apartment.  Since we had to live there, we wanted to love it and we did.  We loved it till we resented it, because living next to your work and hearing them through the wall, it gets to you.  Having four dachshund running around and barking every time you breath takes its toll too.  I can still hear it, ' bar bar..... bar bar.'  I still work at the same company and I love it more than ever!  I have worked there for 9 years this March and we lived there for just over 5 years.  

After we finished the cleaning we started to paint and paint...

...and paint...

...and packed!..

Until we moved in...and ate some much deserved Gadzooks Icecream!

Bathroom on the right and bedroom on the left

We use sticky tile to cover up the yellow awfulness.  Sorry about the washing machine set up!

We eventually put laminate flooring in the kitchen and down the hall.  We had the windows redone.  A few years later we had wall to wall carpeting put in.  We had left the carpeting and laminate for the next people moving in but my boss who lived above me ended up taking most of it.  We didn't mind though.  We were happy to be moving somewhere that we could really move around in!

Since we moved over a year ago the apartment has been empty.  My managers didn't want to rent the apartment to anyone, even me.   They let us move in because they trusted us to get the apartment back in shape.  I have gone over there just to look back a little.  It no longer smells like cat, but instead a nice a subtle incense smell.  It always makes me smile.