Although this story is coming from the perspective of a crazy roomate, it is something I still regret to this day. It all started when I moved in with my best friend at college. We were as different as night and day - I liked to drink and party alot, while he was more down for sitting on our couch and watching fucked up foreign movies. We knew things weren't going to work out when 3 days into living with each other he awoke to me pissing in his room. I can't really remember doing it, but he assures me that I did, and that after taking a piss in his room I assured him that my piss was just a little bit of hanky doodle. Sure, he laughed it off after a couple of days, but things just got worse between us.
I'm going to go ahead and take full responsibility for being the crazy asshole roommate in this relationship, but things got pushed over the edge when I decided to pull a prank on him one night, even though pranks were pulled every other night. I had another friend of mine distract my roomate away from our apartment while me and another buddy set out into the city in search of a homeless person. Of course I wanted to videotape the whole experience, so we brought my camera. After about an hour of searching, we pulled into a place called Mike's Beer Barn, where a big black man approached us trying to sell us "Miami Crip", I politely declined his offer and instead told him that if he would agree to go along with this prank I'd buy him some "Natural Ice" (the good shit) and pay him $20 dollars. Now, this dude smelled and dressed like a hobo so he was perfect for the part, plus he looked pretty crazy too. I thought this plan was going to be perfect.
We took him back to my apartment where he ate all our mini pocket pizzas, the bastard. We then told him to go lay down in my roomates bed until my roomate got back home. He suggested that he could really scare my roomate by pulling out his knife that he had been carrying on him. To this day, I don't know why I didn't stop the prank there when he had told me that. Meanwhile, I had my buddy filming the whole thing. He was in my roomate's closet so he could catch my roomate's reaction when he saw a homeless man sleeping in his bed. Well when my roomate came home, he opened the door to his room, turned on his lights and to his suprise this huge black man jumped out of his bed and started to yell in his face "What the fuck are you doing in my room?" All my roomate could do was laugh nervously, while I laughed my ass off in the living room.
This continued for a while, with the hobo chewing out my roomate and frisking him for stuff that he claims was stolen from "his" room. At one point the hobo told my friend to stop laughing, and you could see the terror in his eyes. This hobo was unpredictable, and I was enjoying every moment of it. The best was when he told my roomate to leave his room through our circuit breaker. Soon after all this the hobo confessed to my roomate that this was all a big prank and we all laughed it off, except my roomate who was still in shock. I know, I'm an asshole.
I ended up driving the bum back to where we found him, and he kept asking me for more money. I gave him my cell phone number and said call me if you ever want to earn more money like this for another prank - another bad idea. So I go back to my apartment where I see my roomate freaking out because he can't find "his" video camera (which was a $400 cannon camera) that was laying on his bed the last time any of us had seen it. So this was when I had to call the cops up and tell them that this hobo had stolen our camera and give them the whole story of what I had done. They just looked at me like they didn't know whether to laugh or throw my ass in jail. I gave them the videotape of us pulling off the prank so they could see what this guy looked like.
The next day I get a call from the hobo. He told me that he can pull off another prank for me, for more money. It was something along the lines of getting a girl he knew to dress like a guy, and then go make out with another girl only to reveal to her that she too is a girl. This dude was wack. So I figured this was my chance to catch this guy and get him to confess to stealing my roomate's camera. I picked him up from ABC liquour store and had my roomate follow my truck close by, just in case this dude decided to pull his knife on me and jimmy shank me. I had also borrowed a tazer from some guy I worked with just in case I had to use it for protection. My hand was gripped on it the whole fucking time.
I asked the bum about my roomate's camera, to which he gets real defensive and says that the last time he saw it, it was laying by the bed. At this point I was like fuck this whole situation, I'm just going to try to get ride of this bum and get back our videotape and just buy my roomate a new camera. That was a hard thing to do though because the bum didn't want to leave my truck. So I tempted him with some beer. I gave him a couple of bucks to go run into a store and buy some beer. As soon as that bastard left my truck I slammed on my gas peddle and got the hell out of there. The next step was to get the videotape back, because I didn't want my parents or my roomate's parents knowing about this incident.
I saw a cop on the side of the road and asked him about getting some evidence back from the police station. He asked me what it was, and I told him that it was a videotape. He then started to laugh and said you're that kid that put a bum in your roomate's bed. At this point I felt like a real piece of shit. But I eventually got the videotape back. I thought all was fine until a couple of days later I get a call from the hobo again in which he threatened to kill me and says that he does have our camera and wants me to come to him to get it. I just told him to go fuck off (at this point I wasn't scared of this dude anymore, just pissed off) and that I had already bought my roomate a new camera.
To conclude this story I got what I deserved, and I know I'm an asshole and should get the shit kicked out of me which all my other friends agreed with, and wanted to kick my ass the same day the camera was stolen. The moral of all this - don't use real bums to pull pranks on your roomates, get a professional actor instead; you might just save yourself $400.
Moving Your Pet
Getting through the emotional stress of moving is difficult enough for adults and children. But what about pets, a species with whom we can't even level? Pet owners are often baffled by their pets' behavior during and after a move. Sometimes it's a personality change, a regression in housebreaking habits or a sudden unexplained illness. Even if you don't notice something that dramatic, there's no question that your faithful companion is feeling stress. How do you move your pet and keep the strain to an absolute minimum -- both to yourself and your beloved pet?
Is That Apartment Hazardous to Your Health?
When you sign a lease committing yourself to a unit in an apartment complex or building, you're agreeing to live in close quarters with strangers. You're also making the assumption that your building will be properly managed and maintained. That includes such factors as air quality and adequate pest control. As a tenant, you have rights, of course, but some of the most serious threats to your health -- such as carbon monoxide -- are ones you can't even see or smell.
Does The Landlord Have To Clean The Apartment Before I Move In?
QUESTION:What can I do about a landlord who promised a clean and newly painted apartment before we moved in, but didn't deliver? We have moved in because we had nowhere else to go, but I am concerned about our children's health and the total well-being of our family. Can I report the unhealthy living conditions to the health department? Please let me know of my legal rights or how to go about this problem in a dignified manner.
