Tucson home and garden.
Perhaps something this weekend I'll post some kind of "Two weeks into the new semester" post. But in the mean time, I thought todays household events merit a bit of a story.
Home and Garden Part I:
The management of my apartment has just switched to a new company. The new company just sent out a lovely letter, including an "addendum [to the lease] regarding landscaping". This addendum says ". . . .the tenant shall be responsible for the removal of all debris including, but not limited to, weeds, paper, trash, etc. from [the yard, basically]. . . . In the event that this responsibility is not complied with in a timely manner, [Realty Company] shall contract for clean up service and Tenant will be billed as needed."
Now, I find this frustrating, perhaps not wholly reasonably, but for a number of reasons:
1) So, by weeds that are debris, are we talking about flying plant matter, or do you expect me to pull the weeds growing in the yard? If you expected me to pull the weeds, could you have asked at the beginning of the rainy season, so that I didn't have to wait until they became a jungle while waiting for your predecessor to have somebody pull them? Could you, perhaps, put the yard in the state you'd like it to be kept, and then I'll take it from there? Could you be the one to deal with the giant weeds growing interspersed with the prickly pear? If I'm responsible for all of this, can I get rid of the prickly pear all together? It catches garbage on its spines!
2) You know, since they never put up that wall around the complex, do you mind if I put up a silt fence (archaeological thing, mostly built with cloth, posts and industrial staples)? It's not very attractive, but it means I wouldn't have to pick litter off the prickly pear. I don't particularly care for the little blowing through the yard, either, but none of it's mine to start out with.
3) "etc." in a legal document is creepy. What's that supposed to cover exactly that doesn't fall under "trash"? And what is a timely manner, and why is there no guarantee that they'll contact me to tell me they're unhappy before hiring someone?
Home and garden part II
I have developed a large collection of old phone books -- we have two yellow page companies here, and they update the directories multiple times a year. This summer, my apparent laziness in never throwing them out was justified when I used them to flatten the creases out of a giant map. Today they proved their utility again, this time in the spider squashing department.
I like to think of myself as someone who isn't afraid of spiders. At least, they don't make me scream, or jump, and I never hurt them if I can help it. But this afternoon, I found a black widow living in my outside storage space. And I proved that I am not afraid of spiders by bravely approaching it at a distance of four feet, with a broom handle and a telephone book. Naturally, it scuttled away and I spent ten minutes or so turning over flattened boxes (with the broom handle of course). Finally it makes an appearance, perched on the edge of a box lid. I wait for it to become a slightly better target for a hurled telephone book. It occurs to me that attempting to outwait a spider is probably foolish -- they make their living waiting, after all. But it slowly unfolds one long, spindly, bent spider leg and places it on the box edge, and then another. Have you ever looked at the legs on a black widow? They're not like squat, stout tarantula legs, or short, springy jumping spider legs, or flat, splayed meadow spider legs. They're prototypical nightmare spider legs -- long and thin, sharply angled and rising above the spider's body, and moving slowly, deliberately, and gracefully from the joint in the middle.
And then I threw the phone book at it. And squashed it into a puddle of green goo. Really green. I swear. My only problem is this: I saw it very, very close up when I found it, and it had a very clear hour glass. I was no where near as close when I flushed it out from under the boxes, so I couldn't verify the hourglass. Forensic evidence was entirely inconclusive (again, green goo). What if it was a different spider? What if it's still out there. . . . waiting?
Home and Garden Part I:
The management of my apartment has just switched to a new company. The new company just sent out a lovely letter, including an "addendum [to the lease] regarding landscaping". This addendum says ". . . .the tenant shall be responsible for the removal of all debris including, but not limited to, weeds, paper, trash, etc. from [the yard, basically]. . . . In the event that this responsibility is not complied with in a timely manner, [Realty Company] shall contract for clean up service and Tenant will be billed as needed."
Now, I find this frustrating, perhaps not wholly reasonably, but for a number of reasons:
1) So, by weeds that are debris, are we talking about flying plant matter, or do you expect me to pull the weeds growing in the yard? If you expected me to pull the weeds, could you have asked at the beginning of the rainy season, so that I didn't have to wait until they became a jungle while waiting for your predecessor to have somebody pull them? Could you, perhaps, put the yard in the state you'd like it to be kept, and then I'll take it from there? Could you be the one to deal with the giant weeds growing interspersed with the prickly pear? If I'm responsible for all of this, can I get rid of the prickly pear all together? It catches garbage on its spines!
2) You know, since they never put up that wall around the complex, do you mind if I put up a silt fence (archaeological thing, mostly built with cloth, posts and industrial staples)? It's not very attractive, but it means I wouldn't have to pick litter off the prickly pear. I don't particularly care for the little blowing through the yard, either, but none of it's mine to start out with.
3) "etc." in a legal document is creepy. What's that supposed to cover exactly that doesn't fall under "trash"? And what is a timely manner, and why is there no guarantee that they'll contact me to tell me they're unhappy before hiring someone?
Home and garden part II
I have developed a large collection of old phone books -- we have two yellow page companies here, and they update the directories multiple times a year. This summer, my apparent laziness in never throwing them out was justified when I used them to flatten the creases out of a giant map. Today they proved their utility again, this time in the spider squashing department.
I like to think of myself as someone who isn't afraid of spiders. At least, they don't make me scream, or jump, and I never hurt them if I can help it. But this afternoon, I found a black widow living in my outside storage space. And I proved that I am not afraid of spiders by bravely approaching it at a distance of four feet, with a broom handle and a telephone book. Naturally, it scuttled away and I spent ten minutes or so turning over flattened boxes (with the broom handle of course). Finally it makes an appearance, perched on the edge of a box lid. I wait for it to become a slightly better target for a hurled telephone book. It occurs to me that attempting to outwait a spider is probably foolish -- they make their living waiting, after all. But it slowly unfolds one long, spindly, bent spider leg and places it on the box edge, and then another. Have you ever looked at the legs on a black widow? They're not like squat, stout tarantula legs, or short, springy jumping spider legs, or flat, splayed meadow spider legs. They're prototypical nightmare spider legs -- long and thin, sharply angled and rising above the spider's body, and moving slowly, deliberately, and gracefully from the joint in the middle.
And then I threw the phone book at it. And squashed it into a puddle of green goo. Really green. I swear. My only problem is this: I saw it very, very close up when I found it, and it had a very clear hour glass. I was no where near as close when I flushed it out from under the boxes, so I couldn't verify the hourglass. Forensic evidence was entirely inconclusive (again, green goo). What if it was a different spider? What if it's still out there. . . . waiting?