With Yvonne gone... betraying me and leaving me here alone in Korea, all of a sudden I was left with a three bedroom apartment and a gigantic rent. The first month she was gone I spent cleaning the aparment up and tossing out things I no longer needed as well as walking (by backpack) the things I did need (the microwave was an adventure in itself). Finally, I was in a spot where I could give notice to the Ajjumah, so after finding a small rooftop (sort of) in Mapo-gu I did. That weekend the landlady came up into the apartment and pointed out what she wanted to keep, that we had added to the furniture that was already there. This included two desks, a really nice bookcase, kitchen table, four chairs, and some kind of thingie that keeps kitchen stuff. We agreed that the nasty old mattress and the broken bureau should go.
I could have stayed until the 9th, but my new lease began on the 1st, and I wanted to give the landlady time to re-do the floor and wallpaper (a pretty normal procedure because it means you don't need to fix any real underlying problems like mold, or problems with the floor). So I told the old lady I'd try to finish moving on my three-day weekend. On Monday, the third, the dickhead son shows up without warning and decides all the furniture has to go (completely reversing all the planning I had made with his mother the weekend before), and that it has to go right then (even though I'm not technically supposed to move out for a week) - typical Korean "fuck planning! WE DO NOW!").
This meant that I'd have to move all the shit downstairs. This I did alone - the prissy little dickhead of a son beamed, gave me two gloves saying "Korea working glove, best!" a process that exhausted his English. Then the lazy POS just watched me. Then it was off to the district office to fill out the recycling center to fill out the paperwork. In the car he attempted, in is broken English, to figure out someone as apparently out of shape as I am could so easily manhandle the furniture. I didn't mention that gravity had been my strong assistant and since I didn't care a shit if the stuff got dinged up it wasn't so much a "moving" as a semi-controlled fallling.
All this unplanned bullshit took the afternoon that I was supposed to be moving away to the new place, and cost a few paltry bucks in recycling (in this way, Korea is awesome. For less than 40 bucks they hauled it all away). Worse than the waste of this entire day was the additional "oh yeah, fuck you foreigner and your stupid foreign plans") way, that I had to be there in the morning to pull the recycling into the street - when I was supposed to be in a meeting with two Korean professors.
Complete freaking lack of planning by a complete moron.
At the same time, on the other side of town, the guy in my new place is freaking out, because he needs me to inspect the place for cleanliness and get the key, or he can't get his deposit back - and he needs it to apply immediately to his next house. The landlady for the new place is in Busan, so she can't check it out, and consequently I have to make it over there to get the next step done.
Finally, as night falls, all the bullshit with mama's boy ends and I cab over to the new place and take the keys, and call the landlady and tell her the place is fine. In fact, the place is filthy.. the dude has no idea what cleaning is. Here are are a few representative before and after photos (Click to Embiggen)..
 |
| Above the sink (before) covered with mold |
 |
After, the miracle of soap having been applied |
 |
| Behind Stove |
 |
| Under Stove |
 |
| The Miracle Of Soap |
 |
| Random Smudges on Floor Previous Tenant could not see. |
 |
| First Swipe... still need to work the baseboards and to the right. |
So there was that, and the process of cleaning continues as I move things around and get the big stuff done. The place is quite cold, as you will shortly see, so I've been concentrating more on getting the place to stay warm, than to be completely clean.
TOMORROW - INSIDE THE THING.....
No comments:
Post a Comment