okay, so uh jesus christ, thank you everyone. i fell asleep mid-panic attack, sparkles in my vision and my chest about to explode, and i woke to total salvation. feel like i hardly know which way is up anymore. i'm... gonna be okay for now. apparently. π΅βπ«πππ«
i love you guys.
i can hardly express my gratitude to everyone who chipped in what they could. (never mind that one absurd anonymous partyβand i know who they are. π₯Ή) ame suggested, and with thought i agreed, to dangle this rent payment in exchange for fixing the sink, oven, railings, lights...
i'm not good at bargaining, playing games with people. it doesn't come naturally to me. but tbh the owners are absent slumlords and for all that i love my home, this whole building is a shocking disaster that the city inspectors had to step in and intervene about last summer.
even when i moved in, the porcelain of the bathroom sink was all shattered; they said to ignore it for the moment and they would see to it later. eventually a big chunk just fell out entirely.
the oven stopped working, and stove pilot lights keep going out, slowly leaking gas.
after the building inspection they sort of fixed the bannister to the front stairwell, but it's obvious that any actual pressure will yank it loose again. and, like. i can barely walk now. this is a danger to me.
so are the rickety back stairs, with their one broken light.
i am so very much not a bargaining person, i will let amethyst draft a response to the landlord. as precarious as my situation is, in terms of capital it will clearly be way cheaper and less of a hassle to finally do their job as landlord than to forcibly remove me from my home.
furthermore in ny state one does have the right to withhold payment until a landlord fulfills their end of a bargain to keep a place livable. and some of this shit has been waiting for 52 months, was acknowledged when i first moved in. so if anything this strengthens my position.
i mean, it breaks my brain to fuck around and set conditions and try to one-up or manipulate peopleβbut, i need to keep in mind here that i'm not messing with people. this is a landlord, we're talking about. and a particularly negligent one, not doing even minimum maintenance.
like.
it's okay for me to stick up for myself when i'm being taken advantage of. this is something i should be doing, right? i should be able to advocate for my own basic rights, when needed.
this is so frickin weird, yo. i have never done anything remotely like this before.
anyway, uh, tl;dr:
you all frickin saved my life.
i'm gonna be able to keep my little room here, the first place i've ever lived that i actually consider home.
i'm going to use what you gave me as leverage to finally make my home safer and more functional.
i am still reeling.
as i told a friend an hour ago, at this point i have been basically out of my mind for 24 daysβin one extreme way or another. spinning wildly in freefall.
but... i'm going to work this out. i'm going to find some kind of an anchor again. i am going to continue to be azurelore.