Lamentations

My husband and I have been landlords for nearly five years. We have gone to great effort…and expense…to provide our tenants with a decent place to live at a reasonable rent. We spray for insects regularly, have a professional builder on call for maintenance, have installed solar water heating, new carpeting, and were honest with them about the property and its advantages and disadvantages at the time we showed it for rental. We have a “code of conduct” for our tenants so that they know what we…and their neighbours…expect from them in terms of behaviour (and actually evicted a tenant who was making life miserable for the others) and a nice, tight lease that is written to fairly spell out the legal obligations of all parties involved.

When general maintenance and repairs are needed, we always let the tenants know. The last thing we want is a tenant to die of fright upon seeing a stranger climbing up onto her roof, or a maintenance worker shot as he begins taking out a cracked window! We generally put the maintenance person directly in touch with the tenant who needs work and allow them to schedule work at their mutual convenience…then there is no concern for anyone’s safety or peace of mind.

For the past five months we have been tenants and, sadly, our experience has been one that illustrates the old saw “no good deed goes unpunished.” For as good a landlord as we have been, so our landlord is as bad.

As you all know, I am laid up with a broken foot. I saw the doctor two days ago and she declined the cortisone shot and told me “more anti-inflammatories, more pain meds, more elevating that foot.” The good news is that I am allowed to walk around some…the bad news is that I still have to spend the lion’s share of my time in bed with my foot propped up. It was from this position this morning that I heard a lot of strange mechanical noises outside my window and, when I went to check…at the insistence of my barking Yorkchop…that I discovered a man propping a tall ladder against the side of my house!!

After a moment of panic…the maid has the day off and she has gone shopping and my husband is out of town until tomorrow night…I looked down to see a drop cloth spread across the grass with a paint roller on it. In the grass nearby, however, was a hammer…why do you need a hammer to paint?? No arrangements were made with me or my husband for maintenance work to be done on the house and when the man with the ladder moved into my line of sight, I did not recognize him. He might have been the regular maintenance guy from next door, but from my angle on the second floor, I could not really tell.

Our landlord lives in Cape Town but this is a reasonably modern country and there are both conventional and cell telephonic communication between here and there. Even in the best of circumstances, I expect to be notified when people who do not live here are coming onto the property…I don’t live in an apartment building with a maintenance crew, I live in a private house with elaborate security systems…should I not be alarmed when a man I don’t recognize and am not expecting, props a ladder against my house?

So I called the landlord and said “Who is this person outside in my garden with a ladder propped up against the house near my bedroom?”

And he said “I don’t know.”

Which just freaked me out even more. Obviously the gardener let the guy in, but nobody knocked on the door, called me on the phone or even hollered up through the window to let me know there was work going on. Nope…my Yorkie starts barking like a loon, I go to check out what is fretting her, and find a ladder propped against my house where someone can peer in through the bedroom window and see me, in my skimpy nightie (I am still running my A/C during the day) with my foot propped up on the bed. And my landlord didn’t send the guy??

“I have a broken foot and I am laid up in bed,” I tell the landlord. “I am here alone…the maid has the day off. And this ladder is propped right where someone can see through the only uncurtained window in the bedroom and look right in at the bed. Nobody called me, nobody told me there was going to be work going on today!”

“Maybe it is Leo,” the landlord says, mentioning the handyman from next door.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t tell from up here. But if it IS Leo, he needs to make an appointment with us to come over to do work, and when he does, he needs to keep the appointments he makes. We kissed off an entire Saturday a few weeks back waiting for him and he didn’t show.” What I didn’t tell the landlord is that Leo told me that he works for our cantankerous neighbour as a man-of-all-work from Monday through Friday and can only do maintenance work here on Saturdays…and today ain’t Saturday.

The landlord tries to call Leo but there is no answer. He calls me back. “Try the gardener,” I suggest. “He’s here today.” The gardener is here on alternate Thursdays at the landlord’s behest, since our maid does the gardening for us and we refused to pay two people to do the yard work or to reduce the maid’s wages by cutting her gardening day. I wait a while, but the landlord does not call me back…I don’t know what is happening, if the guy outside is Leo or not, if he is authorized by the landlord to be here or not, if my growing fear for my safety is groundless or not.

Finally, Hubby calls me. He has called the landlord on my behalf and the news is 1) the guy with the ladder is Leo, 2) the landlord did not send him over here today, 3) the landlord has told him to leave, and 4) I, gimpy foot, nightgown and all, am supposed to go down the stairs and make an appointment with Leo to return to do the work, whatever it is (even the landlord doesn’t know!). I decline this last bit because 1) I am in my night clothes (I am in bed, after all), 2) my foot hurts and I have just taken a pain pill, 3) the last time I did this, Leo simply didn’t show up at the appointed time, and 4) I am not even sure he understands my American-accented English…or if he is particularly sharp with any brand of English at all.

I don’t want to deal with all this confusion. I barely slept last night and this insomnia and its aftermath are very new to me…I have never EVER had trouble sleeping before this foot thing and in the past two months I’ve had only two or three nights of more than 4 hours sleep at a pop. I’m tired, I’m getting cranky, and the last thing I need is strange men climbing up ladders to my bedroom window and scaring the willies out of me! I just want to sit here with my foot propped up and wait for my pain pill to work, and not have to worry about strangers propping ladders up against my house and climbing in through a window or over the balcony railing.

Most of all, however, I want my landlord to get his act together and behave responsibly and with concern for something more than having the rent arrive in a timely manner (which it always does). We were mislead about this house from the beginning: it is smaller than we were told (sorry, but the patio, balcony, and garage are not part of the square footage of the house), it was infested with vermin when we moved in and the landlord knew it, the front security gate malfunctions regularly, something else the landlord was aware of (revealed to us by the gate repairman on one of his many, many visits). The landlord knew that the electricity supply to this street was unreliable…the neighbour across the road told us it was notoriously unreliable and the landlord lived in this very house until just this last December. We’ve had the exterminators out here more than once but we continue to have evidence of rats, I’ve seen fat, happy cockroaches gambolling in my cupboards, and if you want to have meat in this house, get out the Raid and lock all the doors and windows because the minute so much as a piece of lunch meat comes out of the refrigerator, the flies show up in swarms…even after the house and grounds were sprayed.

I would not allow my tenants to live this way, and I go out of my way to make sure their homes are comfortable, clean, safe places to live. When our hot water heater went on the fritz, the landlord would not even take our phone calls after the first one! Steaming water poured down the chandelier in the stairway and cascaded down the stairs like a water fall, a sheet of hot water poured out of the eaves and blocked access to the front door , scalding the plants on either side of the door, and our landlord would not respond to our SMSs or voicemails. We had to call his mother , who authorized a plumber to come out.

Add to this the local infrastructure problems: five water main breaks in four months, each one leaving us without water; two trash collector’s strikes; weekly power outages; and last Friday night someone set the vacant lot behind my street afire, menacing the entire neighbourhood, and the fire brigade, when my husband tried to call to report the fire, put him on hold!

Joburg is no fun. Aside from movies, one casino, and malls, there’s pretty much nothing to do here, and the infrastructure is totally unworthy of a city that thinks it is the be-all and end-all of Western civilization on the continent of Africa. There are pot holes in the posh sections of town you could easily lose a wheel in (no exaggeration!), the traffic lights are so notorious for not functioning that one of our car insurance companies has hired and trained “pointsmen” (non-police traffic directors) to put in intersections when the lights aren’t working to reduce traffic accidents…apparently it is cheaper to train and pay these pointsmen than to pay for collision damage! Street lights don’t work, malls shut down at 5 or 6 pm on weeknights, and few are open after 2 on Sundays or at all on public holidays.

I still don’t like it here…it is a crappy place to live…but it would be improved if I wasn’t stuck with a landlord who is barely one cut above a slumlord. This guy cares about the property looking good, but seems not to give a fig for its functionality or the well-being of those of us who must live here.

I want to go back to Cape Town. I really, really, do.

Open Plan Gone Awry

Well, I'm back. Have been in my too-small and insect-infested rental house for a month now...and have more than 60 mosquito bites to show for it...and we are desperately, daily, house hunting. And so far, the results of our search is, at best, dismal. Contrary to local myth, Johannesburg is much more costly than Cape Town, it rolls up its sidewalks at 6 pm (except for the unbelievable abundance of bars, clubs, pubs, and other watering holes), the roads are worse than any country road I've ever driven, at any given time half of the traffic lights in town are not functioning, the traffic is akin to LA's, and I don't think I have ever encountered so many rude, self-absorbed people in such a short time anyplace else in my life. To put it succinctly, Joburg sucks and I am not happy here. (And that is without even giving a passing mention to the absolutely horrific weather here.)

But despite my feelings, I am stuck here, at least until we can find a way back to the Cape and, because Hubby must pay back the cost of relocation if we leave within one year, we are pretty much stuck here for a while. (Don't even ask about the move...suffice it to say that my list of grievances against the moving company has more than 50 items on it, from breaking a piece of heirloom china to packing an antique doll beneath a cast iron door stop to finding my missing lingerie packed in a box beneath a soiled dog bed and blanket to damaged furniture.) Yesterday was Valentine's Day and after a sumptuous lunch at a landmark restaurant, Hubby and I hit the streets, looking for open houses (called "show houses" here).

I am not impressed with South African architecture, in the main, but then I'm not terribly fond of certain trends in American home design in recent years, either. I remember when the “open plan” concept, as applied to homes, began popping up on such programs as “This Old House” and Bob Vila’s home renovation shows. Touted as the latest and greatest thing in home design and already incorporated in newly-built tract homes, I was appalled at the blatant attempt on the part of builders to reduce their construction costs (fewer walls, less cost to build) by snookering people into accepting their self-serving, penny-pinching new design as something desirable. Two decades later, open plan is not only incorporated into newly built homes, you are hard-pressed to find a separate kitchen in even older, classic homes…everybody has jumped on the bandwagon and remodelled under the “open plan” banner. And, for the most part, the results I have seen have been unmitigated disasters.

I hate open plan. Just hate it. When I have spent hours banging about in the kitchen, dirtying pot after pan, piling the sink full of soiled dishes and littering the countertops with colanders, cutting boards, measuring cups, half-emptied cartons of milk and packets of pasta, why would I want the disaster-filled kitchen to be in full view of my guests? Or even my family, for that matter? Clean as I go along? Sorry, when making a choice between burning the chops or swabbing the sticky stuff in the sink, the chops win out every time. Besides, that is what kitchen doors are for…to separate the grunt-labour involved in putting a meal on the table from the innocents who should be allowed to eat their meal in peace, unburdened by the potentially guilt-inducing knowledge that their smiling hostess has just sweated off the equivalent of a marathon in her pursuit of their gastronomic happiness.

Think about it for a minute…have you ever worked in an open plan office? Think not? Do the words “cubicle” or “cube farm” ring a bell with you? If you truly haven’t ever been subjected to this kind of work environment, do you know anyone who has? Know any cube denizens who love working in a cube? There is no privacy…the sniffles of the allergy sufferer to your left cannot be shut out; the incessant and annoying giggle of the phone-addicted twit on the right cannot be silenced, and the toilet-mouthed guy with the booming voice over your third wall precludes any phone conversation you might want to make, for fear of the background noise of sniffles, giggles, and F-bomb backdrop offending your listener. You cannot speak freely as you most certainly will be overhead, and your activities (or lack thereof) are visible to anyone who happens to walk by your non-existent cubicle door. I used to laugh when given a “confidential” memo to type…just how confidential is anything you type up in a cube where anyone can stand at the entrance and see your computer screen without your knowledge because your back is to the doorway? Life in a cube farm is devoid of any kind of privacy, peace, or dignity…why would we want to replicate that in our homes?

But the marketeers did their jobs well, eventually convincing First World home buyers across the globe that spending more money for less privacy, fewer walls (and a lot fewer cupboards!) was the hip, modern, trendy thing to do (did I mention I also hate “trendy”?). Now, a couple of decades later, in order to attract serious buyers a house must have an open plan kitchen. And that is where it all started to go wrong.

You see, aside from the desire to save some money on construction and gouge gullible buyers out of a few extra bucks, the concept of “open plan” was supposed to be a way to keep the cook from being isolated from the family during meal prep times. Personally, I relished that brief respite from the demands of family life…let Daddy parent the little darlings for a while so I can vin his coq for him, steam a little asparagus and whip up some lemon butter and a mountain of fluffy mash to delight his taste buds. But sentimental home buyers…read that guilt-saturated career moms who left the fruit of their loins in daycare while they work…bought into the “spend more quality time” with their kids idea and the open plan concept took off.

But, like anything else, the basic reason for the whole concept became forgotten as the trend saturated the market and owners of traditional kitchens began dragging down cabinets and smashing down walls. Open plan as a concept, but devoid of reason, began to take over. Traditional houses, venerable older homes, seldom had family rooms and if they did, those family rooms were seldom adjacent to the kitchen. In the more classic home layout, the dining room was adjacent to the kitchen and the living room was generally on the other side of the dining room. In the frenzied stampede to jump on the open plan band wagon, homeowners overlooked the obvious: the room in which Mom slaves over a hot stove is NOT adjacent to the room where the kids sprawl out in front of the tube…but open plan now rules home desirability so dining rooms and kitchens began merging into a single open space. The fact that Hubby and kiddies were still in a separate room and Mom can no longer close the kitchen door on the mountain of dirty dishes and other detritus of meal preparation was immaterial in the face of the power of the trend.

The next phase of the movement returned to the new home build. I now live in a house that was built to have the lounge and dining room in a single open plan space. Interestingly, the living room is beyond the dining room and it has double doors on it to shut out the noise from the kitchen and the cooking smells! A large granite breakfast bar divides the dining space from the kitchen space…what kind of sense does that make? A breakfast bar literally beside the dining table! The purpose of the open plan concept is completely defeated in this house…Mum is still isolated from Dad and the kiddies while she cooks and they sprawl in front of the big screen, but now Mum can’t shut the kitchen door to hide the eyesore the kitchen became during meal prep.

Developers, however, are building on their success. If people will swallow the ridiculous notion of paying more money for fewer walls simply by telling them that this is a new trend, why not take it further? A couple of years ago we looked at a flat we were considering as a rental…until I saw the bedroom. The bathtub and the sink were in the bedroom, as was a shower stall. Only the toilet had its own walled-off space with a door. The salesman tried to tell me this was “romantic,” but I am sorry, as much as I love my husband, some things…like spitting toothpaste into the sink and gargling afterwards…should just remain private. Besides, who needs the steam getting into the closet and mildewing the clothes?

In our house hunting last week we saw a house that just floored me…this open plan bathroom thing had been incorporated when it was remodelled but they had just gone too far…from the bed you could see the toilet and there was no door! Speaking only for myself, there are times that being able to close the loo door is all that saves the rest of the family from being gassed in their sleep, such is the consequence of indulging in certain delicious but pungent and lingering culinary delights.

Maybe I am just getting old, but I value privacy. I want a door on my bedroom…a door that locks. It is nobody’s business but my own what goes on in there. I want to close my kitchen door when I bring out the roast so you don’t see the greasy pan, the gravy spilled on the stove, the mixer beaters coated with mashed potatoes still plugged into the machine…you should be looking at the art on the walls, the beautiful garden out the window, the perfectly steamed artichokes sitting invitingly in front of you. I want a door on my bathroom, too. There is nothing “romantic” about some of the ablutions and processes we go through to make ourselves clean, well-groomed and presentable. Give me a door and allow me to keep a little of the mystery alive, please!

Most of all, let’s stop getting sucked in by greedy corporations because they prey on our insecurities and lingering adolescent desire to be “cool.” Paying more money for a house that has fewer walls, less storage space, and deprives you of essential privacy because some marketing hack in a construction company tells you it is the “newest concept” (read that “trendy and saves us big money”) makes no kind of sense at all.

Moving…

I am sick with sadness. Yesterday it was confirmed that my husband is being transferred to Johannesburg on 1 December. It is a permanent position, so we…me included…have to move.

I don’t want to go. I love Cape Town, I love my life here. I have put down roots and established a kind of security and contentedness that is new in my experience, and it is precious to me. My previous moves have always come with the sense of either moving away from something I did not like or moving to something better…this move feels like I am being ripped away from the very fabric of my existence. I do not know if I can ever again feel as settled and secure as I have over the past six years. Now I feel guarded…I know this can happen again and I don’t ever want to feel this way again.

I feel very much like I did nearly ten years ago when I answered my phone to hear a doctor telling me my husband had died. Shocked. Shaken. Unsettled. That was an event that shook my world to its foundations, changed my life in a way I did not welcome and without my consent. In certain aspects this is worse…that was dealing with an act of nature that none of us can change and therefore must accept. This is a human act that is ill-considered in more ways than you would believe: it will unnecessarily cost my husband’s employer a boatload of money and it hurts people unnecessarily.

You see, my husband is not just a mechanical engineer, he is also nuclear qualified. The only nuclear power plant on the continent of Africa is just 10 kms up the road from our house here in Cape Town. Because it is the only nuke on the continent, there aren’t a lot of nuclear-qualified engineers hanging around South Africa, so the company imports them, largely from Europe. Since these imported engineers come in as contractors, this means the company has to pay these guys a boatload of money and perks to get them down here and keep them around.

One of the nuclear divisions offered my husband a position and it was not approved by someone in headquarters…they want him to come to HQ and take on a position for which he has no background or experience: HVAC. He is a nuclear-qualified turbine specialist with two years of engineering management experience…why are they importing, at a much higher cost to the company, nuke engineers from overseas and sending one of their own nuke engineers to work on something else…something for which he has no background or training?

If they imported an HVAC engineer, it would save the company the cost of transferring us halfway across the country, a process that will not be cheap. They have to pay for the cost of moving our possessions, moving one of our cars by rail, flying us up and back (and paying for hotels, etc) for house-hunting trips, and it is going to take at least two moving vans to get our stuff up there. Then, they are obligated to pay rent on a furnished place (as much as 50% more costly than unfurnished) for the first six months we are up there to give us time to find a permanent place to live while they pay for storage of the stuff that came up in the vans. This is easily going to cost the company hundreds of thousands of rand (tens of thousands of dollars), every one of which could be saved by simply transferring him to the nuclear power plant a few miles up the highway from our house and importing a qualified HVAC engineer to work at HQ. Considering the citizens are up in arms over the company’s 31% rate hike…and another rate hike is scheduled for next year…one would think that the company would be eager so save a few hundred thou by deploying its technical talents less wastefully, ya know?

I keep having these unexpected “sadness attacks” between bouts of pragmatic thinking. Just like when Chuck died, I feel my nose swell up, my eyes water, and a hollow feeling opens up in my chest. I feel grounded and secure and content in this house, in this city, in my life. And it hurts to have it ripped away.