Moving out... and moving in... and moving away.

Sweet Jeebus I'm finally moved out!

Hallelujah!

Okay, I'll level, I've been officially moved out for about a week now, but between not having internet, the proverbial shit-storms coming out of the blue, cleaning, working, getting stuff lined up, and general bull that has been going on, I've been running my butt off.

And I cannot say that I was all too thrilled with my landlord either. Somehow I think all landlords are off just to make a quick buck. I had been living under a landlord whose husband was appointed d-bag in general and was in charge of doing "announced" inspections that violated my lease contract on multiple levels, never did any maintenance other than to keep the place from falling apart at the foundation, and whenever I called him on it, he said that "...it doesn't matter."

Want the keys boy? Beg for 'em.

Of course it matters! If it didn't, why are there mentioned provisions in the contract? But where is my levelheadedness and reservations?

Maybe I should overlook the fact that my landlord violated the 24-hour inspection notice at least seven times that I have seen through casual backtracking, three of which he confirmed in follow-up e-mails? Maybe I should overlook the fact that he gave me less than three hours on an inspection in which he traveled at least 700 miles to perform? Maybe I should overlook the fact that he was threatening to boot me out of my apartment due to there being a day's worth of dishes in the sink and my dirty underwear being on the floor right after quickly dressing from just about to hop in the shower? Maybe I shouldn't call them on the fact that a new fridge was supposed to be delivered when I moved in, and the stairwell didn't have a rail? Maybe I should ignore the fact that I told him to call, rather than e-mail me from the address I check sporadically, so that I might have time to do some errands both inside and outside the apartment before he shows up on my stoop, shit-bearing scowl and all due to my apartment not being white-glove inspection 24-7?

All common sense points to a resounding "**** no!"

This is what I think about your open-door policy...

I signed a lease agreement stating that I should have 24 hours notice minimum before you come barging into my apartment, sometimes unannounced, and have my whole life tossed up in the air due to the sight of your butt-hole puckering at a stray piece of lint that fell out of my pocket.

That being said, I am still waiting on my security deposit. While I know that I didn't have a chance to clean everything in the apartment, I feel I left the place in better condition than when I first moved in, making many repairs that could have been avoided by preventative maintenance on my landlords' part had he not been driven by his ego. In fact, save a small bleach stain that I tried and to an extent succeeded to fix, any damage assessed in the apartment was from prior tenants, and the stain is fine as the carpet needed to be replaced anyways.

As such, as I had said I wasn't able to grab every chance to clean all of my apartment due to familial issues complaints bitch-fests concerns about me getting out of my apartment on a timely basis and over the pass while still cognizant of my surroundings.

So at 11pm on July 31st, I locked up for the last time after taking a thorough walk-through recording of the place just to make sure my land-lord's accomplice doesn't get any smart ideas (trust is a two-way street).

But this leads me to an ever-further desire to get away from renting. I do not care for the politics and policies of a land-lords' "If it ain't broke, don't fix it, even if it is broke" attitude and being evicted for their own personal benefit (evicted twice to prior apartments due to a garage conversion and tear-down).

It has come to my attention that renting has become a colossal money-pit with very little payoff. It's sort of like those stories you hear about a guy paying a hooker up-front and she steals your wallet while he's using a bathroom, and heaven forbid if he wasn't using protection lest he get a case of herpes (or worse).

And then you factor in that actually buying a house requires a king's ransom anymore.

Well, maybe not a king's ransom, but definitely more than the average person. There used to be a time where a nice house with a picket fence for your middle-class 2.5 kid family was actually attainable.

And what is middle-class anymore? It you look at the history of the US inflation rate versus the middle-class income, since 1951 (60 years ago) inflation has risen over 750%, whereas the "average" income has barely kept pace at around a sputtering 145% raise. By these figures, the American middle-class is earning over five times less now than what the were earning two generations ago. Taking into account that the tax rate was double what it is now for average income earners, we were still better off back then than what we are now, especially with the US budget ceiling bull that happened recently.

Roomy... considering it's less than 100 sq. feet.

But I divert from my main point: housing is expensive, but no more so than renting. If given the choice, I'd rather own than rent, even if the housing market has gone bust... Though I do not wish to be a homeowner in the traditional sense.

I have been putting a lot of thought in the Tiny Home Movement. Some of the houses, such as the Tumbleweed house pictured, seem ideal to what I am trying to accomplish in my life.

That is another thing that tended to piss me off about my apartment: it was too big. I had about 500 square feet when I was only using a quarter of that effectively. Perhaps it is my lethargic sense of sloth of walking 30 feet away to my kitchen, another 40 feet to my bed, another 40 feet round-trip to use the bathroom, and only confining myself to those three spots using three heavily-tread paths made me realize how little I used my apartment, and how inefficient it was... That, and my preponderance for packing stuff to defy some laws of physics.

That being stated, I have come to the realization that a home is nothing more than a place to rest your head at night and have a mediocre amount of privacy when you want to get away from the world.

Additionally, I have found that my need of possessions is starting to fall in line with my Buddhist thought. I have a while yet to get to the degree I wish to be in terms of owned items, but I am slowly whiling away the time by sorting through such details.

Still, towards the end of my lease, I found all I was doing was going to and from my bed, kitchen and bathroom: My common areas such as my living room/den space was going mostly unused. Again, I blame this mostly on the fact that my landlord never really allowed me to "live" in my apartment.

That being said, I really believe that I would like to explore this venue of living once I have the resources amassed to do so. I want to paint the walls something other than some shade of off-white (I'm thinking a contrasting selection of possibly lime-green and burnt-orange contrasting walls), if I want a nail somewhere, I can insert one without having to look for a pre-existing hole from previous lessees; I want to customize the interior to my heart's content, I want working plumbing and electricity, and I want it to be portable. I am grabbing my inspiration from some of the examples below:

As it stands, this a far ways away for me. Every time I mention it to family though, they find it laughable that I am thinking of doing such a thing, and they feel as though I would not have the desire to see this out. They said the same thing about my declaration of becoming a vegetarian, thinking that I would not last more than a year. It has now been almost nine (ten?) years, and I am still going strong in my convictions, and my desire to see my own tiny house come into fruition is as strong, if not stronger than my dietary conversion, and stronger still than my desire to move to Seattle.

Though I am more adapted to this situation than my peers: I lived on a ranch most of my early life, and there was no such thing as working plumbing— we had to cart in water and use a pitcher and bucket for showers. If given the choice, I would want actual plumbing, but I could make due for temporary purposes.

Electricity is another must, though this is something I cannot compromise on due to the unique situation of my career choice. Again, my experience with living off the grid has benefited me in this field due to my experience with direct to alternate current conversions, figuring out watt-hours, voltage-to-amperage-to-wattage conversions, and the other intricacies of such. The wiring diagram and estimate is for a minimum 1,600 Wh, which should be more than enough to get me through a few days of no power production without any problems, especially if lighting is powered by LEDs. The main drain to such power restrictions would be my computer, which I have taken into account with the 1,600 Wh bank (I think I actually subtracted the restriction already, as my earlier calculations seemed to have another third added in to the power restrictions).

Again, with lighting, if I do use an LED light source, I will only be lighting around 150 square feet as opposed to a larger apartment. The same goes for heating: a smaller area to cover equals less consumption and waste. There is also the security issue: chances are the exterior will be some form of metal wrapper with portals for light and windows, as well as ventilation.

I'm sure I could entertain you with the other prosaic points as to why this would benefit me, but I'm sure the vast majority of the readers here with ADOLS Syndrome (Attention-Deficit Oh Look Shiny!) are probably beating their head against the wall regarding this.

I feel it is best to put my foot where my mouth is and turn in for the night. Still, I do find something esoteric about this subject that I feel the need to subject you wasteful louts to. Still I suppose that if any of you out there are genuinely interested, I suppose I could continue talking about this... but you'll have to catch me on a day when I'm not being lazy and working/ducking my obligations.