Evictoria.

The next time somebody insists that landlords provide a service, I’m going to punt them to the moooooooon.

Even if it’s in the form of an online comment, I’ll track them down: I’d be doing society a bigger favour.

The roomie and I are getting evicted as the landlord plans to sell the place. The landlord bought a place and found tenants to pay their mortgage while waiting for the property value to climb high enough to translate into a massive profit. That is “providing a service”?

Long-time readers might remember how I got evicted from my prior place. That means I’m dealing with back-to-back evictions!

I grew up in two different houses. Since becoming a renter, I’ve moved almost 20 times! Bad roommates, break-ups, or evictions have been the cause of most of my moves. I’ve moved so often that I’ve given up on buying furniture: I either obtain freebies dumped by the sidewalk or repurpose storage containers.

I’ve already had to deal with advice from those who haven’t had this kind of housing instability.

“Get a roommate.” I already have one.

“Move in with a friend.” Most of my friends are also renters or don’t have the space.

“If you live near a university or college, look into living in one of the dormitories.” Non-students aren’t eligible. Besides, a one-bedroom dorm on the UVic campus is still $1,235 monthly. I was baffled by the ridiculousness of this suggestion.

“You could find something affordable if you lowered your expectations.”

Here are some photos from the place I’m getting evicted from illustrating my high expectations:

All these photos are from my bedroom/bathroom. That’s a perma-bucket under the leaky sink, and that’s sealant filling the 2″ hole in the sink. The shower isn’t functional as its lining has cracked and has already been re-sealed to death. The shower faucet falls off if you as much as sigh in its general direction.

But it’s the “umbilical cord” that runs from the breaker panel in the living room that Jordi–who has years of carpentry experience–finds the most aggravating.

The place will require substantial work before it can be put on the market unless the landlord wants to put it up as a “fixer-upper” with the price significantly reduced. The suite isn’t even up to code: trusses were removed to make room for what is now my bedroom. The outlets in my bedroom use old-style fuses that require a visit from an electrician if they get overloaded, and it doesn’t take much to overload them. Only my clock gets the fortune of occupying one of those outlets.

And the thing is: I have lived in worse buildings. I’ve lived in a basement suite where the landlords threw plywood directly over the concrete and stapled cheap carpet onto it. The boards were warped and would slap against the concrete by being walked on.

This eviction, however, is anticipated rather than official. The roomie hasn’t received the formal paperwork and says the landlord hasn’t even found a realtor. The housing market has also slowed down, hopefully buying us extra time. I wonder whether this is in part of the new ban on foreign buyers.

On an an unrelated note, my arm hurts. I agreed to let a med student do my blood work this morning. Why not? I figured I was a good candidate as I’m typically unbothered by needles.

To begin with, she applied the tourniquet way too tight: I had to tell her to redo it. Even the redo was still too tight. When she inserted the needle, my upper arm became freckled with blood from the poke. The needle was pushed further into my arm with every change of the sample tube. Then, even after applying pressure to the puncture for three minutes, the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. The med student was not convinced that I’d applied enough pressure, took over, and rammed the cotton ball in the crook of my arm so hard that it practically went inside the perforation. This was three hours ago, and my arm is still sore. Hopefully, I don’t wake up tomorrow to find it looking like Jared Leto’s arm in Requiem for a Dream.

My new meds require regular monitoring (every 2-4 weeks!) of my blood. The next time they ask me if I’m okay with a med student drawing blood I’m going to say, “No thanks, I’ve already done my part.”