Our Living Room is Now an Ikea Showroom
Cheri and I took the plunge today and finally replaced our grimy old couch. We got the Ektorp loveseat from Ikea with the cover that matches our other chair (not pictured).
Yesterday we reserved a pick-up truck to rent from Avis to haul the couch from Ikea to our apartment. We did this because it was much cheaper than having the loveseat delivered ($80 versus $300).
We had made the reservation to pick up the truck this morning at 10 am. When we got there we were told that the truck was being brought in from another location and would be there shortly. Shortly translated to 90 minutes. We were easily upset since we wanted to return the truck the same day. When the truck finally arrived I asked for a discount and the Avis guy surprisingly gave me one. He knocked $30 off our rental. Cheri and I were pleased as we drove down to Ikea to pick up our new couch.
While we were down there we saw a coffee table we liked too that was on sale and went ahead and picked it up. As you can see from the picture its been put to good use.
Apartment Flooding — Ark Not Required
Sunday night (read, 2 AM), our apartment flooded. Cheri woke up to a noise in the kitchen and yelled to me that the apartment was flooding. After a frantic search for my glasses I took a look under the sink to find the hose that connects the sink to the dishwasher had busted and water was flowing. The entire kitchen, bathroom, and half the living room were soaked.
Needless to say, we shut off the water and called the emergency maintenance line. In about 30 minutes the maintenance guy showed up with a wet-vac and soaked up the water, ripped up the carpet, removed (most of) the soaked carpet padding, and placed two carpet dryers on the floor.
Its been a few days now and the carpets are almost dry. Hopefully things will work out so we don’t have to move or anything. We’re just glad that we were home when it happened.
Trash Compactor Update
Well, once again, this weekend came and went. And the only thing that stayed the same was the garbage pile up at the trash compactor. It was monstrous this week. It was probably the largest pile up I’ve seen since living in this complex. One thing that I just don’t get is that there is another complex next door to ours that has a trash compactor at their entrance too, but they never have an issue with the compactor breaking down and having residents pile up their garbage in front. Maybe people in my complex are just too stupid or inconsiderate to know what to do when the compactor is full. I guess we’ll never know.
But next week, our property management (Camden) will be giving each resident a “receptacle” to place our garbage in to place outside of our apartment doors. Then, each evening a maintenance worker will come by and collect any garbage we put outside our doors (a free service for now, but when we renew our lease, then it will be like $30 a month). I wonder if this will alleviate the weekend garbage pile up or not.
Tales from a Trash Compactor
Last year when I moved into my apartment, I loved everything about it. It was a great size, the layout was wonderful, and the area we lived in was very nice. But then I noticed an issue with the trash compactor (as noted here and here). When the compactor was full, people tended to leave their garbage on the ground in front of the compactor. This led to the issue of not being able to actually reach the compactor when the compactor (which runs on a timer) was empty. Thus, every weekend, the compactor would fill up and we would be left with a huge pile of trash (as shown above).
Previously, it would pile up almost every other day. But recently, its only been piling up on the weekends. I think this is because most people tend to wait until the weekend to take out their garbage (this is the only place in the entire complex to do so). So by the end of the week, most people have 2 or 3 bags of garbage to get rid of. Because of this, the compactor gets over-worked and the pile of garbage shows up once again.
Starting on June 10th, our property management is going to start providing “valet garbage service” to everyone in the complex. Basically, we can now leave our garbage outside our doors, and in the evening, maintenance workers will come collect the garbage and put it in the compactor. Hopefully, this will cut down on the garbage pile ups, but we’ll see if that actually happens.
