Drip, drip, drip. Plunk.
As I sit on my too-small bed, writing my second and last opinion column, I hear water dripping from my bathroom ceiling and hitting my toilet. Again. I get up and move all of my beauty and hygiene products off my bathroom counter to my desk. This Thursday night fiasco has happened once before, about a month ago. I immediately called my landlord to send someone to fix my leaky ceiling. A week passed and no one ever showed up.
I live in a crappy apartment on the first floor of a small complex in Old Northeast. My rent is $750 a month for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom craphole. Some might consider my apartment to be “suitable living quarters.”
It would be suitable if I didn’t have to call my landlord once or twice every few weeks because something else is broken. Or the maintenance guys neglected to fix the wall, the air conditioning and the fridge. For the fifth time, I’m over it.
I’m over it because $750 is a lot of money for a college student. For the location and space, what my roommate and I pay is pretty decent. Most two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments in the same area cost about $900 per month. I bet residents who pay that price don’t have issues with saturated carpet and ceilings like my roommate and I do.
I graduate in December, and all I can think about is my future living quarters. I plan to move out of the Sunshine State and live in an adventurous city, have an average I-just-got-my-undergrad-degree salary and live in cozy one bedroom apartment with a small office space and an amazing bookshelf.
I’m going to work hard for my money and hopefully I’ll live comfortably—realistically, of course—once I get my big girl job.
But with five weeks left until I say goodbye to my undergraduate career, my future is so near—maybe even too near. The holidays are like, tomorrow, I don’t have my big girl dream job yet, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be in this craphole. I feel like I’ve done the broke-student thing and I’m ready for the real world. I think.
Until I have to pay for health insurance.
And now the bulge of water in my ceiling is growing. I think I need to call my landlord again.
