42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

I’m not a dirty person.
Sometimes messy. Often covered in cat hair, yes. But not filthy. The house always is clean enough; in a short while, it can be made presentable.

But it becomes apparent while trying to get out of the old place that dirt has a way of creeping up. It highlights negligence as a housekeeper.

It’s especially embarrassing to have your friends help you move, and to see the dusty outlines on furniture where you clearly dusted around books and DVDs, rather than moving them. It’s also nice to see the outlines of furniture rarely moved, or to see the stray pieces of crap stuff left on the floor during the hustle of moving. I shudder to think what our friends thought. They were at least polite enough to keep most of it to themselves. Though one of our helpers was allergic to cats and asked me to put the “cat couch cushions” on the truck myself.

We tried to clean the old place to get most of the deposit back. But the long laundry list of things to clean is as long as a book.

After cleaning behind and under the washer and dryer, I’m convinced nobody ever cleans there. Not current tenants and not past tenants. I found the dryer hose unhooked, and I wondered whether I’d accidentally unhooked it in trying to move it, or if it had always been unhooked. It’d explain the amount of lint and moisture in the air every time I did laundry. It’d also explain the thick carpet of lint glued to the floor. The lint that I ended up scrubbing up into a disgusting pile with a mop.

At some point, I realized it wouldn’t matter how much lint I cleaned up. I knew I wasn’t going to see all that deposit back.
The carpet also shows some areas of dirt. I think apartment complexes deliberately install light carpet because complexes charge you for carpet cleaning, despite the fact that you’ve been paying them huge amounts of rent for a year and a half. Despite the fact that carpet cleaning ought to be a cost of them doing business. Oh no. You will pay.
You will also pay for any stray cobweb in an exceptionally spidery complex. You will be charged if your patio is not swept, though leaves are still falling on your patio. You will be charged for dirt in the patio door tracks even when you’ve cleaned them as well as they can be cleaned without taking the doors apart. You will pay for nail holes and painting over the nail holes. Even though everybody hangs pictures. How can you not hang pictures? But I discovered my love of the self-cleaning oven, though. I did more work figuring out how to get the oven to clean than I did cleaning out the little pile of ashes.

The cleaning process is over now. We were informed that we’d be charged about $200 of the $800 deposit. Maybe more, since they still haven’t tackled the pet part of the inspection. Even though the rental person told Heather, wow, this is one of the cleanest apartments we’ve seen. Thanks for leaving it so clean!

The charges: for the carpet. For a light painting, because I attempted to spackle in some aggregious nail holes. For a light clean on the showers. Because the showers are nasty and old and probably looked that bad to begin with. I know my shower had a big patch in it when we got there.

They also told Heather that they’re planning renovations, including putting in stone tile instead of the cheap linoleum and plan on replacing the appliances. And putting in new shower doors. Yeah. Because the old ones also look cheaper than hell. I figured all that work we put into cleaning the place was wasted. Why mop? Why clean behind the appliances? The cleanest they’d ever seen, yet we still lose $200?

But at least it no longer feels like home. It was strange to be there, cleaning, without all the stuff that made it a home. The familiar configuration of couches. Being able to walk through the townhouse in the dark. The placement and rise of bookcases filled with well-loved books and knicknacks. The small kitchen with nice tile counters but not enough storage and counter space. The two sets of patio doors, one off the patio, and the other off the kitchen, letting in tons of light. The large closets, including the under-stairs closet often referred to as the black hole, because once you put it in the closet, you’d never see it again.

I’m a little sad to see the old place go. I often said during the condo buying process that if I could buy that place, I would. But alas, the rental condominiums were not for sale. Not now, anyway. In Fresno, there’s a new trend of converting apartments (or haughtily named rental condos) into condos. I even dreamed the old place was being converted for sale, but that I couldn’t afford it.

I think we ended up in a place that seemed a lot like the old one. It’s a townhouse, meaning there’s an upstairs and downstairs. There’s a patio, fireplace, and two-and-a-half bathrooms.
But there’s tons more to love about this place. The fireplace is gas. The patio is larger, with a cover, and has sideyards with some bushes, including an dwarf orange tree! Three bedrooms. There’s a beautiful tree towering over a bedroom window. A skylight. A pretty wooden front door. Two-car garage (though it’ll be a challenge to actually fit two cars in there.) Wood parquet floors downstairs. Instead of a black hole closet under the stairs, there’s a half-bath.  A larger kitchen with tons of cabinet space and tile counters. Lots of storage space. Newer appliances that finally are all working.

I miss the old place, distantly. The new place doesn’t really feel like home. It feels like a stranger’s house. Like I’m housesitting. Like I’m trying it out. Like I’m playing in a dollhouse, pretending to be a grownup. Too bad playing for real involves bills and mortgage payments.

The unpacking is moving along. It’s also funny to notice that even as one discovers one’s own deficiencies in houscleaning, that one also discovers the previous owner’s shortcomings. What looked immaculate during showing and even the final walkthrough looks a bit dirtier on closer examination. The kitchen cupboards are scary without shelf paper. There’s a dent in a tile in the kitchen counter. The kitchen sink could’ve been a lot cleaner.

But it’s still going to be home. Someday. When I don’t feel like I’m camping out. When I don’t discover new things every day. When everything is put away. Sometime after that.