Luckily,
the end of the month was a weekend. Wim
and I went to Schemmerhorn to make sure that Ray was leaving, and to clean
the #apartment once he'd gone. Thus armed with cleaning tools
and supplies, we advanced on number 51. We were pleased to find Ray in the process of moving things out of the apartment and loading
them into the huge old station wagon. Wim and I sat next door on Shirley and
Jerry's front steps to watch and wait.
The old station wagon was bursting at the seams by the time all the to-ing and fro-ing had stopped. Without a word or a glance in our direction,
Ray piled his children into the car, and it creaked slowly away up the street, listing to the left as always under the extra load.
Miz
James came bustling out at that moment and followed Wim and I upstairs, eager
to see for herself what condition the apartment was in. She was not to be disappointed. We could smell the stench, even before we reached the
top of the stairs. Bluebottles were also
thoroughly enjoying the smell of feces and God-knows-what-else, judging by the
hordes of flies that buzzed furiously in every room.
The
first thing we did was open the windows.
Ugh! How could they have lived in
that stink?
Apart
from dirty walls, the living and dining rooms were not too bad. But, the
bathroom
.
. . !
I stopped dead in the doorway. The floor was strewn with used sanitary
napkins lying face up, and there was a pool of what looked like pee around the
base of the toilet. Feces floated in the grimy bowl.
Holding
my nose, I hastily flushed the toilet and escaped to find rubber gloves and a
garbage bag to collect the offensive, bloody napkins.
In
the second bedroom, caked on the floor and in-between the floorboards, was what
appeared to be more feces – human or animal, I couldn’t tell. I hastily opened the window, and Wim went to
work with a putty knife.
In
the third bedroom I found not one, but two buckets full of urine.
"What
is this!" I exclaimed.
"Don't they believe in using the toilet?"
Miz
James, who had been poking around in delighted horror, bustled off downstairs,
no doubt to regale Shirley with the disgusting news. The #cockroaches were again very much in
evidence, but an urgent call to a #pest #control company got me an emergency
visit early Monday morning.
This
time, I chose a company called Action Pest Control, who advertised a lot on TV. They claimed that bugs wouldn’t stand a chance against their
Ghost-Buster-look-alike “Action Man.” They
charged nearly twice as much as Greatest Pest Control – $160 for the initial
visit – but follow-up visits were the same: $42.80. I don’t know why I opted to go with them – Greatest Pest Control had done a good job previously – so I guess it goes to show what aggressive advertising can do.
Wim,
Allen and I worked hard, scrubbing and cleaning all afternoon. I was just about to attack the refrigerator,
and Allen the oven, when Bryan dropped by.
"Hey,"
he said, sauntering in – a sexy figure in blue jeans and flowing, chestnut
curls. "Heard about the mess from
Shirley. How's it going?"
"Not
so bad," I said, slowly straightening my aching back. "You'll be able to move in
tomorrow but I won't be able to do any repairs
or painting until Mr. Catcher from Social Services does the inspection
in a couple of weeks."
"That's
okay," Bryan said. "Hey, I was
gonna ask you. Would it be okay if I put
a fan up in the ceiling of the living room?
And I was thinking of putting sliding doors between the living room and dining room, like you have downstairs. I mean, they'd stay if we left, and it
wouldn't cost you nothin'."
"I
don't see why not," I said.
"As long as you don't gouge holes in the walls, or anything like
that."
"Oh,
no," Bryan assured me. He took a
last look around. "See ya."
"I'll
leave the keys with Miz James!" I yelled after him.
"Okay!"
On Monday afternoon, a few hours after the "Action Man" had
defogged the apartment, Mamie and Bryan moved in. Wim met with the #building #inspector a few days later and with Mr. Catcher the following week. I was delighted to learn that I
was again eligible for the maximum amount of Ray’s #security #agreement – two
months’ #rent – and Wim informed Mamie and Bryan that he would stop by the next week to
make repairs.
Meanwhile,
I received a phone call at work from Child Protective Services. The caseworker told me she was investigating a neglect
charge, which had been filed against Ray Molinard. Hoping to somehow help Ray's kids, I told her what I had witnessed - the
condition of the apartment, the cockroaches, buckets of pee, dried feces on the floor. I suspected it was Miz James who had reported
Ray to the authorities, and the next time I saw
her, she gleefully told me that Ray’s next-door-neighbor-friends had also moved out.
"Done
a moonlight flit," she breathlessly announced. "I heard as how Ray and them 'ave taken
over a #two-family nearby."
"Well,
good riddance to them," I said fervently.
"So long as they stay away from here. I pity their new #landlord, though."
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