At loose ends

Never even picked up a needle last night. That was frustrating, could've used the distraction. Made dinner, did 4 loads of laundry (which is labor-intensive when you live in an apartment complex with no washer/dryer connections, and one dryer craps out on you so you waste a $1.50), and obsessed about the news I'd gotten from the complex office. I'd gone in to put money on the laundry card and I asked nonchalantly about if they still accept short leases. They said yes, but that then the rent would go up to market value and as of next month, they measure market value by what it'll be AFTER the renovations. That's a jump in rent of $115. Never mind that that place ain't worth it, we plain can't afford it. I just asked what rent would be if we renew for a full year and was told it would only increase $25. How can they get away with a $90 difference like that? I don't want to stay in that pit for another entire year, but we may have to. I'm not planning on kicking Les into the work force until at least May, and that's assuming we get his surgery scheduled in mid-April. I wonder if that kind of rent raise is even legal, and I'm looking into it today; kind of figuring though, that we don't have a leg to stand on.

The thing that makes me livid, is that we wouldn't know any of this if we hadn't almost gotten evicted last week. In normal circumstances, we'd have told them oh, maybe a month in advance that we planned to renew--it's what we were planning--and we'd have had no clue they were going to slap that rent raise on us. When the hell were they going to get around to telling the tenants about the renovations? When they start complaining about the noise? The lease requires 60-days' notice if you're moving out. Technically, that's today; our lease runs out end of April. I was thinking we're going to have to take an extra month probably, and pay through the nose for it, because there's no way I can make that decision in 24 hours. But if the raise for a year is only up to $610...dammit, I don't want to stay there! The place is old enough to have asbestos and lead paint clauses in the lease, and it's falling apart around us! They talk about refacing the cabinets; they have no clue how bad the cabinet interiors are obviously, because they're gonna practically have to gut the place to bring it up to snuff for the Southside. My God, I hate being in a box like this! We've dicked around on the finances way too long and painted ourselves into one helluva corner.

Sorry about the vent, gang :)