Gran theft apartment
Ade Carey
As an ex-bouncer, I’ve stood up to some nasty people in my time, so when my landlady suddenly told my girlfriend and I to leave our flat six months early, I got ready for a battle. Unfortunately, she had a secret weapon: her elderly mother, who moved into our spare room one day.
At first, we tried to make friends with her, but she would just sit in the corner of the room, silently watching us like a flabby, farting hawk until we went to bed. Then, in the morning, she would scuttle around the kitchen, fearlessly doing her damnedest to get in our way. We began to get testy, deliberately eating her food and watching extremely racy and loud movies while she sat in the room, expressionless. But her generation had already seen off the invading Japanese army - a couple of rebellious Westerners weren’t going to be much of a challenge.
The Second Cold War came to a head when we found her sleeping in our bed. We left shortly thereafter; what could we possibly do to top that?
H-2-woe
Celia Warne
My flatmates and I had enjoyed a pretty good relationship with our landlord for a year, until a visit from a workman brought the whole thing to a nasty end. He called one day with a heavy bag of tools, a friendly smile and an apologetic expression. Building upgrades to the water meters; yes, it was compulsory; no, it didn't cost anything - it was all paid for by the owner; yes, he would like a cup of tea, thank you.
All was fine until, three months later, I woke up to find my floor under a foot of water and my cat, furious, perched on a chair wondering what the hell had happened. Turned out that the repairman was not a repairman at all, but a damn dirty thief who'd stolen the expensive water meter and swapped it for a plastic dummy that had subsequently burst.
At first our landlord - until then a reasonable man - claimed that we had sold the meter for our own evil ends. When it turned out that other apartments had been hit, he concocted a bizarre conspiracy story in which we were part of some kind of evil, meter-stealing syndicate. We paid up for the repairs but he refused to let us renew when our contract was up. Bizarre.
School of hard luck
Bryan Thomson
I took a job as a lecturer at a university on the outskirts of Beijing after being assured that my fairly dismal salary would be bulwarked by newly appointed on-campus digs… with mod cons! After signing the contract and spending a grim few months in a hostel, I was informed - after much bowing and scraping at the foreign affairs office that the apartments hadn’t been built yet and, in any case, were only available to those with a residence permit, available to me from the university’s schizophrenic HR department.
I was then given the key to a dorm full of smoking, instant-noodle-slurping, permanently-web-browsing PhD students who would grumble if I came home after the curfew (a 37-year-old adult male, I was apparently expected to be in bed by 10pm). Laundy was ad-hoc and the sit-down toilet was in the shower. And as we were not to be paid until our visas were arranged and passports returned, we were stuck there.
I teamed up with the few other teachers who moved into the dorm with me to beg for a fridge, so that we might at least eat our own food and not the awful slop served up by the university. The request was worded carefully and politely, and the answer came back to us the following day: 'We have considered your request and here is our response: You won't need the fridge. Starting tomorrow all food is forbidden in your rooms. Someone will be collecting the bedding from your rooms this evening. Please provide your own. We will not be vacuuming the carpets anymore. Please note you will be fined if they are not cleaned. Laundry is for students only as they are paying for their rooms, unlike you. For the laundry, the university supermarket sells clothing. We suggest buying new ones until your apartment is ready.'
The apartment was still not ready two months later. Neither was my pay, of which I had received a a 5,000 yuan stipend (deductible from future, unpaid back-salary). With the Spring Festival approaching, the Foreign Affairs office sent another email, informing us that the workers would be downing tools to go home for the holidays. I was invited to attempt my own plumbing, painting, wiring and carpentry experience to expedite the process. Were there any alternatives, I wondered? Apparently so: 'hire your own contractors to speed the process along… or consider choosing to find other accommodation as soon as possible, as there are paying students who wish to use your courtesy dorm room.'
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