the death throes.

the countdown is on. the lease on my apartment ends in about five days and 4 hours. (and i have confirmed that it is illegal to not renew my rent-stabilized lease unless a non-renewal notice was sent no less than 90 days before termination of the lease so...there's that.

earlier this week i sent a letter to the management company - certified, return receipt requested - stating my intent to vacate on the 30th, and a bunch of other details. and tonight i called my super and told him my plan to leave and the situation with the bug-infested furniture. he was actually very apologetic, even sympathetic, and sounded like he'll be very cooperative with me in the next few days.

he offered to "spray my furniture" if i wanted to keep it, but i know the spray he plans to use is not bed-bug octane, and i know it does NOT do the trick, so i don't want to think it works and then take new bugs/eggs with me to my nice clean NEW apartment. so he said he'll treat the apartment after i leave with the furniture in it. mmm-hmmm.

so i will spend my whole weekend not just packing, but attempting to debug everything in my new $300 packtite heating unit. the thing has already paid for itself by preventing me from having to repurchase about $600 worth of books. there's soooo much to do, and i have to do it alone because i'm too afraid to let my friend help me at the risk of them bringing bugs home with them, so i really should stop blogging and get back to the packing.

you win some, you lose some.

despite my nightly routine mattress checks, i woke up the other day with two bites on my arm. i was furious. that night, i inspected my bed again, found nothing, and was very annoyed that something had clearly bitten me and i couldn't find it.

when i woke up the next morning, i found a dead bed bug and a smear of blood near the foot of the mattress. i wanted to cry. in fact, i did cry. this is an endless battle, and i'm losing it daily. i feel like sisyphus, doomed to an eternity of constant and pointless struggle.

so i took a photo of the bug and blood, and then collected the bug and added it to my list of captured specimens. i then checked my legs for further bites and found one on my foot. then i had to get ready for work.

when i got home that night, i ran into my neighbor who had a recent court date. i hadn't yet heard the results, so i stopped and asked him. he said it went really well, that he won his case, had his rent reduced to $450, and that exterminators were scheduled to come the next day. in his next breath, he told me that the rent invoice he'd received that day had a ton of legal fees listed on it -- the building management was now trying to charge him for the fees on the case that he just won. what the hell kind of sick logic is that?!

i told him that i still had no lease renewal offer and it seems the management is handing me my hat, but in the most passive manner possible.

so, no one is really winning. we all keep losing in different ways. but i definitely need to think about my legal options, and whether i have the time to exercize them.