Tag Archives: home

Meet the Neighbors

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As you’ve read, I have recently moved, and with a new home comes many new beginnings. A new roommate. New furnishings. And most exciting, new neighbors. At my Filbert apartment I was lucky enough to have amazing people in my building over the years…People like…

  • Man in Unit #2 Who was officially the tiniest asian stoner I’d ever met. I never witnessed him in a sober state. Never.
  • Woman in Unit #3 Who sold drugs and sex…Not literally of course. She was in pharmaceutical sales and sold sex toys to housewives on the side, but doesn’t it sound more fun to say drugs and sex?!
  • Woman in Unit #5 Who partied with the likes of Steven Tyler and consistently passed out in our hallway because she couldn’t make it up the next two flights of stairs.
  • Men & Women in Unit #6 Who still to this day prove to be the most awesome wastes of life a friend can have. Well at least two of them are.

On Filbert I felt comfortable and at home, and was admittedly nervous about what crazies would be living next to us in Fort Mason. That was until I met the following: Shaggin’ Wagon, D-Pain, El Presidente, Vin-Tatum, Alaska, Australia and Texas Hold ‘Em. (Oh and yes. These are their code names. I promised to respect their privacy and protect their identities.)

In the last three weeks these folks have proven to be everything I could ever ask for in a neighbor. They’ve supported us during a trash bust, shared a laugh over family dinner, provided wingman support at the bar, dance partied in our living room, rolled through the hills of Fort Mason, played king’s cup for hours at a time, flip cupped in the rain, and raged through the wee hours of the night, even on a Sunday.

And if all of the above wasn’t enough to know it was fate that we were all to live together, I most certainly knew when during a week night family dinner, D-Pain showed us this:

Yes. This is an incredibly inappropriate photo of two people incredibly drunk hooking up on D-Pain’s brand new bed set. But instead of stopping them to let them know that no window treatments had been installed and that all of the party attendees could see their dirty deed or just to say get the hell off my bed, he snapped this picture and shared it with all of us over a good hardy laugh.

(And no, the two hooking up are not anyone that I know. And yes, they do still have their shoes on.)

 

Fire Burning! Fire Burning in My Bedroom! Whoao!

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Over the past couple of days the heating unit installed into my bedroom wall has been making a strange clicking sound. After discussing with my roommate Sean we decided it must just be dirty and if I keep it running it will eventually just clean itself out and go back to working just fine. Eh…Wrong!

Last night I started the heater once again and within a couple of minutes the unit began sparking red hot and suddenly flames came flying out of the wall. After screaming “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Sean ran into my room and somehow managed to turn off the heater, which subsequently turned the flames into an odorous smoke. Knowing close to nothing about the work of an electrician, we decided to leave the heating unit off and to call my landlord the next morning to discuss what to do next.

So this afternoon I spoke with my landlord who said he would have an electrician to come out at some point this week. The whole thing didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency at this point…That was until I shared this story with co-workers, friends and family, when it was STRONGLY recommended I contact the local fire department to see if there were any further actions I should take to avoid an actual fire.

So after dinner tonight I finally called the SFFD and within moments of telling my story to the deputy on-call a truck was hauling ass down Filbert Street, lights flashing and sirens wailing. I immediately called Christie for both moral support and a wingman in the case they were super hot!

Next thing I knew a lieutenant and his five men came storming through my front door asking where the fire was…I had explained to the deputy on the phone that the flames had in fact been the night before, however when I described the situation to the six men in their heavy duty suits, I promptly received a LONG lecture about how incredibly irresponsible it was for me to not have contacted them sooner.

Thereafter they rushed into my apartment and tested the unit where once again the sparks began to fly and smoke began to rise. Immediately the lieutenant demanded to speak with my landlord, while the rest of the men pulled the unit out of the wall and cleaned up the mess. Tomorrow the landlord’s handyman is expected to come to take a look…for now I’ll be heading to bed a little chillier than usual but much at ease…

RIP Wall Heater

SIDE NOTE: This incident reminds me of a time when one of my girlfriends had gone home with a new guy for the night and only a couple hours after falling asleep, awoke to the smell of smoke and the sound of a fire alarm. It was the coldest night recorded in years that evening and the space heater they were using to keep them warm had suddenly burst into flames. With little time to grab more than a pair of boxers and a t-shirt she was immediately shoved out of the kitchen window, onto the fire escape and down to the sidewalk. As she stood in the street, the water from the fire hose ran under feet…a truly low moment magnified only by the fireman saying “You and your boyfriend will need to stay somewhere else tonight.” The guy she was with was not her boyfriend but would be spending the night at her place.