Week 10B

My first night in this old house in NY was a little spooky.  It was getting cold in here around midnight when I was ready for some shut-eye.  I hunted down a thermostat and cranked it up to 70.  Every room has pipes coming up out of the floor and entering a wood and wicker box enclosing a radiator.  After I cranked up the heat and turned out the lights, those little guys came to life.  It sounded like giant anacondas were climbing around inside the walls and banging steel pipes together.

I could hear the one in the kitchen hissing and popping so loudly that I began to wonder if I had done something that would end up burning this old mansion to the ground.  Each room's unit seemed to wake up and start making noise until it had warmed up, then another unit would begin to sizzle and knock.  I'm guessing it was the expansion of the heated pipes that caused the wood floors to start snapping and creaking, or else this place is haunted by the ghosts of medieval woodpeckers.  Once everything had warmed up, the noise subsided, and now it's quite cozy in here!

This morning I was met by Kristen, the realtor.  She's an interesting one.  She may be the first realtor I've ever met who you might be able to recognize via the glamour shots they paste all over the internet and their business cards.  I guess that's a good thing.  She's also been quite assertive when it comes to getting us information on the region and researching for potential homes to rent, another plus.  On the downside,  her assuming, can-do, go-gettum, gitter-dunn attitude reminds me more of a tiger shark's than a social worker's.

Rather than ask, she told me she was picking me up at 9:45 this morning to look at a property- and she did.  We went to one apartment complex, less than a mile down the road, and that's where we met Bob- I'm not sure if he's the owner, the maintenance man, or both.  He was an odd character, his gray head sort of rolled in circles as he shook my hand, his eyes rolling the opposite direction and never focusing on my own.  He had two lower rows of teeth in the front, and a massive belly that somehow managed to hold up his trousers rather than flowing over them.  He smelled funny.

Bob showed us three different units and jabbered on about how the rent for one of them was going to depend on whether he decided to install large vanity mirrors or not.  The floor plans were nice and spacious, but I wasn't all that impressed.  Kristen and I hit the road again and did a drive-by of another place that she plans to show me tomorrow when it's empty, then she took me all around town, talking as if she were the only realtor in the world and I had pledged my undying loyalty to her patronization.

She's picking me up at 1:00 tomorrow.