Unfortunately, disaster struck yet again, just one day after the emergency services incident. I was about two hours into my working day when I got an email from the agency through which I'd rented the apartment, advising me to call them as soon as possible. Unfortunately, as I'd only started my job on Monday and it was now only Friday, I was far too spineless to ask to use the phone in the office and resolved to call them myself over my lunch break. However, the agency beat me to it, and about thirty minutes later I got a call from them, through my supervisor. I didn't really understand what she was saying, but I picked up something about having to call the landlady asap, and not wanting to be a complete nuisance demanding constant use of the telephone I awkwardly decided I'd do that later. Little did I know I was basically constructing a vortex of complication and awkwardness and confusion for myself.
See, when I went to the agency's offices the previous Friday looking for somewhere to live, they told me that they'd send me on the tenancy agreement the following Monday once I'd decided on the apartment at Ludwigstraße 2. They did not. The hotel at which I was staying up until I moved into the apartment, which was to be the Thursday, had painfully shite WiFi access available only in their poky little lobby but I dutifully lugged my titanic-sized laptop plus plug-in USB keyboard (the original built-in keyboard deigned to function when I spilled tea on it whilst either taking webcam selfies or video chatting with someone, I forget which, but it involved the webcam) down there every evening to check my email. This email with the tenancy agreement did not arrive until the Thursday, the day I was due to collect the keys and move into Mi Casa. Because I obviously didn't bother dragging my dad's HP Officejet printer-scanner-fax machine over with me, I had no means of returning a copy of the agreement with my signature on to the agency until the next day when I could hunt down an internet café, so I decided to just go ahead and collect the keys anyway. After all, they hadn't sent it to me when they said they would. And after all, I was obviously going to sign it eventually. It wasn't as though I was going to move in, refuse to sign anything then barricade myself in the apartment and start up some sort of controlled substance production line in there. That strikes me as just asking for trouble, really. So I moved in. And got locked in an hour later. But anyway.
I explained the above to my supervisor and other colleagues when they asked what the phone call had been about, and they were all so concerned! So helpful. They insisted that I call the agency to find out what exactly was going on, and even offered to put the call on speaker phone so they could speak on my behalf and help me understand exactly what was going on. I suppose they figured that while my German is pretty good, it probably wasn't the wisest idea to put it to test when scary legal stuff such as contracts and my status as a person with somewhere to live was involved. We did so, my comrades fighting my corner, and it then emerged that the bottom line was that cranky old lady landlady got her elderly knickers in a twist when I moved in without signing the contract first (or paying the deposit, it turned out) and was insisting that I remove myself and my things from the apartment by that evening. Shit, I thought to myself. I'm homeless.
By this point I was starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the whole situation so I excused myself to go to the bathroom for a bit of a cry.
When I returned to the office, I was greeted by the concerned faces of my colleagues whom I'd known for little over four days, eager to tell me that a solution had been found. The agency had found an alternative apartment in the Bierstadt district of Wiesbaden which was cheaper and on a much nicer and safer street. Two of them told me that if that didn't suit, I could stay with them until I could go back to the agency the following Monday to look for another place. I decided to go with the quickest option available, which was to take the apartment offered as the landlord had agreed to let me move in that evening provided I paid a deposit and signed a lease when I collected the keys from him. In a move of incredible generosity, Birgid whose desk is next to mine offered to drive me to my old apartment, collect my things and bring me to the new apartment because it's not too far from where she lives. I gratefully took her up on this offer and she even went as far as to bring me to her house later on to meet her husband and two children and to give me some cutlery, utensils and bedlinen as the new apartment was without them and she thought it rather pointless of me having to buy a whole new set for three months. Furthermore, the landlord turned out to be an elderly retired policeman who is well-known and much-respected locally and was extremely kind to me when he met me, even insisting that we leave the contract and the deposit until the following day so I could spend more time settling in. Mean old lady landlady could do with taking a leaf out of his book as she is still giving me grief a week and a half after I vacated her death trap of an apartment with its faulty lock. Her latest joyless and whiny insistence is that I pay the end cleaning fee, as stipulated in the contract. No way, José, for three reasons: 1) I wasn't in the apartment long enough to warrant €100 worth of cleaning. I was there for thirteen hours, for eight of which I was fast asleep. 2) The lock on the door was faulty and nobody checked that before I or anybody else moved in, which I thought was dangerous and careless, especially when I was locked in and frantically pummelling it hoping somebody would hear me. 3) She can't kick me out for not signing the contract then use the contract to make me pay a fee I shouldn't have to pay because of reasons number one and two. But I digress.
It all worked out rather well in the end. My relationship with my colleagues has been consolidated and I like to think that they're rather fond of me, I feel an awful lot happier and more secure in my new apartment (you have to get through a locked gate before you have access to the building and the landlord and I share a garden so he's nearby and he's a sweetheart), it's cheaper and I now live one door up from a small supermarket to the right and three doors down from an Italian takeaway to the left. This suits a lazy glutton like myself down to the ground. Also there is no television so I can devote my free time to more worthy pursuits such as solitaire and playing the harp. Just kidding. As long as I have my laptop, I shall never do anything intellectually stimulating or worthwhile again.
"He huffed, and he puffed and he... signed the eviction notice".
My first landlady was Lord Farquaad.
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