The Roommate Saga

So for those of you who haven't heard about the roommate drama, feel free to click on some links. Or if you're really ambitious, go through my twitter feed, there is some interesting stuff going on there. This is a long post today, sorry. I added pictures to make it more fun :)

The house that was lovely...aside from the residents

Long story short, for the last few months I've been living in a crap hole. I was desperate, I had just moved from North Carolina, and I had nowhere to live so I looked on Craigslist. Without really looking into the situation, I moved into the house in Woodstock.

The first thing that went wrong was heating. I don't like to sleep with my door open, because I don't like or trust people. So I would close my door, and then freeze. Then the landlord got on my case about having a space heater, and told me I wasn't supposed to have it because the house could burn down. But I continued doing it so Baxter and I wouldn't freeze to death. Plus, the sketchy old man would leave the oven open, leave the stove doors open (a few times wood exploded out of the fire and lit the floor up). The old man and the cougar roommate also would leave candles on. All. Night. Long. Oh, and there were three cats living in the house, too. They liked to get out counter tops and tables. And yet the space heater was the problem.

I'm so creative :)

The next problem was that the house claimed to be furnished, and yet didn't have a drier. There was only a washer. Which was okay, all of my clothes were crusty, and so were my towels, but eh...I could deal. At first. There are two stoves in the house that were used for heating. One in the living room, and one near the back of the house, which is where my bedroom is. When he started fighting with me, he decided to turn off that stove so that the only source of heat was where he was sleeping...on the couch. Once the stove near the washer had been turned off, my clothes wouldn't dry. They'd freeze over night, and warm the following day and stay wet. So I decided to make my own drier.

But then the old man started fighting with me. All the time. I think it was because I freaked out one day because he was smoking in the house, which he was NOT supposed to do. Either way, I started going into work angry because he'd moved my stuff, stolen my food, picked another fight. Then the only roommate I sort of liked moved out in less than a day, and the sketchy old man stole her computer...which made me start to wonder...

What will he do to my stuff?

I stuck it out for awhile longer. But then things got worse (see Living Situations blog), and I started trying to stay at friend's places more regularly. I also started trying to take Baxter everywhere with me; to work, to friend's. I hated leaving him alone because I was now terrified that they would hurt him to get back to me.

Not only that, but they started picking fights with me when I was trying to just stay in my bedroom and write my memoir, or edit, or just not be around any of them because they were all crazy. It got to the point I was tweeting my complains (on a regular basis) and my friend made me a "Quiet Please, Memoir Writing in Progress" sign. Then I had a friend over one day, and they (at this point they is the Dickey and his mother) picked fights in front of her, too.

Huge gaping hole

I'm not sure when I hit the breaking point, but I hit it fairly recently. I started packing up my room so that way I could just cut and leave as soon as I found a place. Because I came in freaking out every day, my managers all started looking in newspaper ads for places to rent that allowed pets. None of us could find anything. Just recently, I've been spending a lot of nights at a friend's house because well, they feed me, they offer me beer, and they're lovely company. Plus, they allow Baxter.

For the last few days I'd been staying with these friends, in another town, with my pup. Last night I went back to the house so I could move more of my belongings over to their house. I called my mom when I was in my car so that the creepy old guy wouldn't talk to me as I entered the house. I went to the outside stairs to find, amazingly, he'd redone them. Up until now, they'd been removed so Baxter and I had constantly been having to jump up and down the gaping hole (which was incredibly dangerous at night).

When I walked in, out of my peripheral vision I thought I saw that he was naked, but kept my eyes straight ahead and ran up to my room, still on the phone with my mother.

The dog Baxter abandoned me to play with

After barricading myself inside my bedroom (because Baxter decided to stay outside playing with the other dog), the sketchy old man didn't even knock and came into my room. He handed me my mail, where I then fully noticed, he was completely NAKED. And I mean NAKED. Like I saw 62-year-old-man-penis.

Immediately I dropped some f-bombs in the form of "Why the f3$% are you naked?!!!?! Get the f@#$ out of my room!!"

He then tried to take my mail from my hands, and demanded that I give him my house key, which I refused because I don't have all of my stuff moved out yet (and until I get sent to court, it is my legal right to have said key). We continued to scream at each other, he remained naked, completely un-phased by the fact I was flipping out because of seeing his member.

I could tell he was drunk (as all he ever does is drink), and he was naked. In my bedroom. And not leaving. So, I told him if he didn't leave, I'd call the cops. He told me to do it, so I hung up with my mom and called 911.

The only picture I could find of the sketchy
old man. This was a game night I had with
some folks from the mountain

He continued to yell at me until he realized I'd actually called them. Then he disappeared downstairs for awhile while I spoke with the dispatcher. By this point I was shaking (and maybe crying a little bit because why the f#$ was he naked??? IN MY BEDROOM??). The person had me stay on the phone with her until the poliece arrived. During the time of waiting, Dickey decided to come back in my room (I'm not sure if he had clothes on this time) and continued to yell at me, while I was on the phone with the dispatcher. Who (thanks to loudspeaker) told him to get out of my room and leave me alone. It took her about 5 times telling him to leave, and I was terrified that I was going to get shot, knifed, or punched.

The dispatcher asked how long I've been living here, and I answered that I'd been living here since December. She asked if we'd had confrontations before, I told her we had. She asked why I'd never called the cops before, and I answered because he'd never been naked before.

At long last, the cops arrived, and asked me the same questions the dispatcher asked. I showed them my bedroom, explained about the high tensions and the fights, and how they're trying to evict me, but haven't gone to the courts yet, etc, etc, etc. They had me wait in my car, and I ran inside to get my phone to text my friends that I was okay, and would be over ASAP because old man was crazy.

When I left the house, Dickey followed me out and yelled at me to return my house key, and I booked it to the safety of my car. The four officers immediately yelled at Dickey and told him to go back inside (he wasn't listening), and thus, screamed at him until he finally listened. When the coast was clear, they allowed me to re-enter the house, recommended that I not stay there that night, and I kept packing.

It got to the point I was afraid he would hurt Bax
So Bax started coming to work with me

In the end, Dickey got arrested for indecent exposure, and some other stuff that I can't quite remember (I think terrorizing was one of them). When they hauled him out he only had shorts on. Which, I was thankful for (again, who in their right mind would think it's appropriate to be naked???)

I was told that the next time I come to get the rest of my stuff, I am to notify the sheriff's department and to have an escort with me because the old guy is batshit crazy. I was also told that he does in fact reek of alcohol, and weed. Which doesn't surprise me, at all.

The girl is the one whose computer was stolen.
The boy is the kid who got kicked out of the
bar...later that night

When I got to my friend's, a previous roommate texted me, told me to drop everything that is going on with Dickey, and basically sounded like he was threatening me, too. He also called me a psycho (although he spelled it wrong), and said some other mean things, and I just wanted to punch him. (Keep in mind, this roommate was the one who got kicked out of the bar for being a creeper the first and only night me, him, and our female roommate tried going out together. She made him walk home.)

So that was my night on April 20. Baxter and I are currently residing in the basement of a friend's house, and I'm constantly praying that my stuff is okay (as I had to leave some of it). The only downfall of this, is that Baxter and the other dog keep fighting (they've drawn blood a couple of times now), and it terrifies me because I don't want Baxter to get hurt or to be uncomfortable...Ugh. I need to find my own place.

How are you?