My New Apartment

Okay, I know I said I had pictures, and I do, but it turns out the cable I need to upload them is in one of the boxes I had to ship. Those won't be arriving for another month, so you'll have to be content with my description of my surroundings for now.

So we roll up to my new apartment building. It too seems to have been recently raided by the Mongolians. There are big piles of dirt and garbage out front. A broken bed frame and various planks of wood are scattered around these piles. A discarded pair of shoes keeps a silent vigil outside the front entrance. I wonder what this portends.

Jessica explains that the university is renovating the building. This is true. All day long I am surrounded by the sounds of hammers and power saws, and my water and electric supply are at the mercy of whatever project the workers are undertaking that day.

The inside of the building is the same as the outside except (somehow) dirtier. Crackheads would not do business in this building. The floor is covered in a thick layer of construction dust, and there is garbage everywhere. The people working on the building are actually living in the spare rooms.

Then we get to my apartment. There is a sign on the door indicating that my apartment is the women's toilet. Apparently this is a joke. "Sam lived here before you," explains Jessica. "He was very popular." She thinks about this for a second and then sort of half-smiles, half-grimaces.

At this point, I want to make a comment. Most of you who know me well know that I can neither be described as an especially clean or an especially dirty person. I think it's fair to say that I fall into the average range of cleanliness for my age and gender. While I certainly appreciate a clean space, I think most of you can recall times that I have gracefully tolerated a fair amount of dirtiness without letting it get to me. Bear this in mind as we proceed.

Jessica shows me how to work the lock, and she opens the door for me. At first glance, it seems very nice. It's quite big, much larger than my apartment in Japan. It has a dining table with several chairs, two desks, one with a computer, a bed, a couch, etc. I am initially pleased.

By and by, however, the filth comes to the forefront. I should mention something here. I inherited this apartment from the aforementioned Sam, who apparently vacated it shortly before I arrived. Therefore, I'm not sure whether the thoroughly engrimed state of my apartment is his fault, or the university's. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that in the year that he lived here, Sam never, ever, cleaned his apartment.

The first thing I notice is the kitchen. The shelves are lacquered with dirt and grime, and the floor is sprinkled with equal parts of dessicated insects and stray noodles. The dishes that are apparently for my use are a biohazard. I will never eat off of them. The refrigerator shelves are covered with some kind of neon orange goo speckled with fungus. The freezer has no orange goo but only fungus.

The couch in the living room is covered with a filthy piece of fabric that sports a fair number of cigarette burns. In fact, if the apartment can be said to have a theme, that theme is cigarette burns. They can be found on most any burnable surface, including the table, the couch, and (incredibly) the television. I have inherited two ashtrays that are packed to capacity with cigarette butts. Apparently Sam was something of a smoker.

The light in the bathroom doesn't work, which is decidedly a boon. It is a big tiled space with my toilet and shower, and it's not clear where the toiletry ends and the showering begins. What is clear, is that there is a sticky, brownish muck all over the floor. The black rag mop standing in the corner seems more threatening than helpful.

The mattress of my bed reeks of mold and is streaked with white stains. I flip the whole thing over and the other side is less objectionable, if still a bit suspect. In the closet is a set of bed linens and a winter jacket. I am in the middle of deciding whether these are more leftovers from Sam or if they are university provisions when I catch a whiff of them. I am immediately repelled by their stench. Jessica says I might want to throw them in the washing machine before I use them. The only thing I will be throwing them in is an open fire. I am afraid to touch them with my bare hands.

The walls of the apartment are marked with various scuffs and grime smears, and the higher regions are festooned with cobwebs and dust.

However, the crowning glory of the whole putrid parade is undoubtedly the computer. How a computer could get so dirty is beyond my power of imagination. The best word to describe it is "grungy". The mouse has thick, dark green patches of something that looks organic in nature. The mouse pad has a picture of two penguins who are in love. In love in a world of ground-in dirt.

But the most terrifying piece of equipment is the keyboard. Somehow, this keyboard, this thing that I am meant to touch with my bare hands, is completely encrusted with a mixture of dirt, gunk, and food particles. The keys look a like rows of rotten teeth that have never known the touch of a brush, nor the ministrations of the dentist. For good measure, the whole grisly affair is lightly dusted with a generous sprinkling of black, curly hairs. Those hairs did not come from me. I don't know where they came from. I am afraid.

Jessica is cheerily pointing out the operating features of my apartment when she looks down and sees that our shoes have tracked in a bunch of dust from the disaster area outside my door. She gasps and looks at me and says, "Oh! I'm sorry, my shoes made your floor dirty!"

I watch her face for a minute to see if she's joking. She's not.

"Don't worry about it."