The day before Thanksgiving, Michael stopped at home after work to change clothes before meeting me at his parent's house. When he opened the door, mail in hand, he heard a noise coming from the kitchen. He went over to the doorway and hit the mail against the fridge and...wait for it...a rat scurried from out from our "makeshift pantry" and out of the opposite doorway from the kitchen to the dining room. AHHH! (a month and a half later and I am still completely grossed out!). Needless to say, we stayed at his parents house until the management "took care of the problem" and an exterminator came to spray the entire apartment. When we were finally comfortable that the coast was clear, we went back to our apartment. Two nights later, Michael woke me up a little after midnight and told me that he kept hearing noises, that he couldn't fall asleep, etc, etc (this is the day before his first final, by the way), and when I asked him if he wanted to go back to his parents house, he said yes without hesitating. So, at one in the morning, we packed up our bags (again) and headed back to his parent's house...where we have been ever since.
We spent the next three weeks trying to figure out what to do...we obviously couldn't live in our apartment anymore if Michael can't get any sleep (I apparently do not have any trouble falling asleep these days), so we hired a lawyer to figure out what our options were. This may sound a little extreme, but our management company had been very unresponsive in the weeks prior as we tried to communicate with them about getting the rodent situation resolved, so we had to take more severe matters into our own hands. So, the day after the exodus from our apartment, I called a lawyer and we went to the courthouse that afternoon to file a "tenants' assertion". That got their attention. We pretty much let our lawyer take it from there--she had to negotiate with the attorney for the management company, yada yada, and we ultimately moved out of the apartment...the day before we took off for the holidays...all in the midst of Michael's stressful finals and work schedule (I swear that boy didn't sleep for a month straight!) I had a birthday somewhere in the middle of all the chaos...I spent the day working and then I went to pack our apartment while Michael took his last final...a super fun way to ring in my 24th year! (we did celebrate a few days later, so it wasn't a complete bust)
So, the good news is: we survived the last 5 weeks. We moved out of our apartment and into the Wheatley's basement for the time being. We aren't sure where we are going to move next...or if we are going to make that move before the baby arrives (which is my current stress, although I have given myself the holiday to take a vacation from my problems, and am not planning to think about it until I go home). We somehow managed to get some Christmas shopping done before Christmas morning--a Christmas miracle! And, for the last week, I've gotten to have my husband back! (Michael always jokes that law school/the LSAT/finals, especially are a jealous mistress--ain't that the truth!) The final details of our settlement with the management company haven't been completely worked out, but they asked if we could be out by the 31st of December (which we are) so I am confident that the rest of the details will be worked out shortly. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
