It is Sunday and I should be in bed listening to my Sable original soundtrack on my record player. It’s my ritual of peace and joy to start my week right. Instead, I’m in my car at the waterfront, a place I haunt when things are going wrong. I stare into the rippling water, despondent. My body was unable to sleep from the stress. Did you know that sleep deprivation is a form of torture?
In the end, I should have known better.
The four-plex is blue with white trim and red shutters. I should have known then.
I guess in that regard I’m no different than everyone else in the country, insisting that if I just keep at it and continue to do the “right thing”, then I can just live my life in peace. Right now, doing the right thing is keeping myself together enough to check into my hotel at 3:00pm.
The first leak in my apartment managed by Real Property Management Today happened in September 2025. I had moved in May of the same year. I only noticed it as I stepped into the second bedroom I designated as my office and studio space. My foot encountered an unpleasant squish. I pressed down, one, two, three times to make sure I wasn’t trippin’. Water came up through a small hole in the floor in the corner.
They make you pay for their 24/7 maintenance response portal so in that moment I guess I was glad for the extra cost. I submitted a ticket. They asked if I could identify where the leak was coming from. There was nothing I could see, but that wall did house a water heater. I told them about the squish in the floorboards.
A charming older man who clearly smoked too much in his time came and stopped the leak. He opened the wall, and turned the water off to the whole building. He said the pipes would likely need to be replaced.
Management sent someone to close up the wall that week.
What?
They texted to confirm the technician had completed the job.
“The leak is resolved, but y’all may want to have someone come assess how bad the water damage is.” I told them.
Sure, sure. We’ll follow up on that! they responded in their formal, customer service jargon—you know the kind that ensures you know they don’t give a fuck—and that was that.
I managed to complete my gallery wall in this space during this time. These are remnants of the beauty that was captured there.
In November, they sent their quarterly inspector who made no mention of the worker they were supposed to have sent. I pointed out the water damage and they assured me that was the owners responsibility. I was far from soothed.
It’s at this point, I’m realizing that maybe I need to make plans for other living arrangements but I didn’t want to move. I’m so tired of moving. Moving brings back painful memories and reminders of days where I had to stay in judgmental households and had no place to call mine; of being unable to eat from stress and of the darkest corners of my mind. It isn’t just as simple as my things. My heart is connected to my home, and I had just gotten them to barely match.
Still, I knew maybe this Porchfest-land haven was turning into something more sinister. I convinced myself I had time to figure it out so I just tread lightly and kept my plans in my head. I wanted to have been there for at least 2 years…
I suppose this is not the era for planning.
December brought it’s usual darkness and then some.
A second leak.
Same ordeal: same unpleasant squish, from the same place behind the water heater, but the cold water pipe instead of the hot one. The same charming man joking that we had to stop meeting like this. This time at least Management did send water mitigation specialists out. Their machines made my office space barely usable. They were loud and dried out my skin and my throat. For once, I was glad it was Christmas time and I didn’t have to worry as much about work. Things were still relatively slow. The clock was ticking though.
The machines eventually were taken out, but I had no word on what was next.
I waited and I worked, catching up and distracting myself from the disarray I found myself in. I had paintings to tend to and a project to work on; I didn’t want to think about anything else even though thinking in that place proved difficult.
I got sick in December too and it was a sickness that just wasn’t letting up. My voice (a prized possession) struggling to speak let alone sing which is how I would normally regulate through such a time.
At least the new year will be better, I told myself. Right?
March 12th.
The ides are almost upon us.
The rain is pouring down and it isn’t worth trying to go play pool at Parky’s, my local spot. So I read in bed, trying to be good on a school night. I’ve already started packing. In fact, that day I had taken several boxes of books to storage. I was supposed to be getting surgery on my foot the next day. Resting was smarter than pool.
The rain was relentless.
There was a sound in the bathroom.
The emergency number on the response portal doesn’t go through at all. I submit a ticket as I watch blue, brackish water rise in the toilet and pour out from the overflow in the tub.
It stops, just before it overflows.
Ticket submitted, I decide it isn’t worth it to take risks. My PC…I can’t lose that to this.
I download something my sister sent me earlier. Then as I’m shutting down, the sound in the bathroom starts back up again. The PC is taking its time closing out. As soon as it’s off, I’m pulling things from its back, terrified the water will reach it. I apologize to it for the quickness with which I have to move.
The water reaches its pinnacle and topples both over the tub and the toilet.
I submit a second ticket once the PC is somewhere water can’t touch it since I haven’t gotten a response yet from their 24/7 portal. The number still won’t go through. I go have a cigarette as I wait for Management to tell me what’s next. What to do.
It sounds like I am calm through this. I was not.
Management gets back to me, trying to assess the situation before sending someone out via text instead of picking up the phone to call me:
“It is flowing on and off…
There is now sewage all over the floor…
It’s both in the tub and the toilet…
And fyi the number in the portal you have that says it’s for emergency does NOT GO THROUGH…
It’s not actively flowing right now but I’m stepping outside because it smells like shit…”
They aren’t responding fast enough for me. I remember my foot. I forget so many other things as I pack. I can feel my heart through my skin, and I’m filled with a deep knowing: they are going to be terrible about this.
“I am leaving the premises. Door’s unlocked for whenever your techs show up.”
I’m glad they can’t hear the vitriol over text.
I go to a friend’s house, but I barely sleep.
Early in the morning, I decide to go back to asses. I walk out to snow and something inside me breaks a little because I hate the snow so of course it is snowing in March on today of all days. After a cigarette (or two) I do go back to assess. The door is locked so I know someone was in there at least.
The water is gone, but it seems I’ll have to clean this all up if they aren’t going to. It’s a mess. At the time it didn’t seem like they were going to do much of anything. As a single person, I only have 3 towels to my name. I make a plan in my head to get supplies later. Another expense.
It is 11 or so on the 13th and I have had to call out of work and cancel my procedure. Partly due to the snow, partly due to the the absolute chaos cast upon me.
Management sends an ominous message:
“When you’re feeling up to it, please let me know a good time for us to talk about your unit, tenancy, and a few items we need to review together so we can discuss next steps.”
This is verbatim. I know the language they use is meant to disarm—them wishing my procedure well, and all—but my hackles are up. I know once again I have to tread lightly.
On the phone, it’s a matter of coordination to start.
“Yes, I can be there in half an hour.”
The snow is messing with my flow and I tell them as much but I go to move my things out of the way for their containment techs.
“Why do I have so many books?” I jokingly lament to yet another new contractor to ease my own tension. He told me I need to at least clear this area so I am moving my things. I am scattered. I am empty. I only lose it when he says my shower curtain has to be thrown out. Such a stupid silly thing, but it mattered. It was joy. It is gone. I try to compose myself as I work, throwing my clothes on my bed, putting this thing here and that thing there, making space for the intrusion.
“We legally don’t have to help you.”
It’s the first thing out of the representatives mouth on our next call.
“I don’t think that’s true.” My voice trembles against the harshness of hers. She doesn’t care at all and it’s very apparent.
I’m met with a response that’s basically “test that at your convenience.” They know I’m all out of convenience.
Is it true? That this is how we allow corporate entities to treat real life people. That there are no safeguards against this?
I’m continuing this piece up in my hotel room. Homeless even though I’ve paid rent through March. My space is unlivable, and Management has not offered me anything except that I can leave early if I want to. If I have the resources to.
It’s not my first stint of not knowing where to go but the word that keeps coming from folks is “egregious”. I’m inclined to agree.
There are others here like me at the hotel. Their things packed haphazardly in their cars. Their shoulders slumped and their spirit dampened. They do not have the same privileges as me. I’m so lucky to have friends and community and resources and a job that actually remembers that first and foremost I am a human being.
Even with all I have, I don’t know the right next steps. I’m out a $40 application fee for a place I didn’t get. I may not get the next one or the next one and I may not be able to make my body move the way it needs to if I accept this “deal” from Management. I hurt in a lot of ways. I can’t seem to get a hold of a lawyer but I have other moves. I am not helpless, though my bank account may be a little more sad.
What about the others?
I was paying attention the first time I came to this hotel. This time is no different. There are people here who have nowhere else to go. There is a woman that greets me with a smile every time I come in from a smoke. She doesn’t work here. She sits in the lobby and is there often; I haven’t had the courage yet to ask why. I don’t have the fortitude to hold her the way she probably needs to be held. Her name is Jackie. She was here last time too.
There’s a man with a hat (that I’m pretty sure is a confederate flag hat, but what can you do?) and a very well-behaved husky. He sometimes sits in the lobby, husky laying calmly by his side on the floor. I wish I could ask his name, but then what else could I possibly say? He was here last time too.
Regardless of their potential affiliations, I hurt for them as much as I hurt for myself if not more. I have myself. I worry they might not have themselves because it’s such an easy thing to lose when you have nowhere to hold yourself together.
This experience makes me think of all the other hotels with all the other people who are just barely at the end of a thread, like a spider hovering over the ocean in its web where all it’ll take is a wave to crest just a little too high to be lost to its depths.
I think of all the people who do not have even the hotel to fall back on. I thought about that when it snowed. How the people in the cars driving by have no idea if the folks in the tents on the side of the road, under the overpass, could be freezing to death as they drink their morning coffee. How that thought probably doesn’t cross their mind.
As someone who has had to consider sleeping in a tent in their life, it crosses my mind often. More so now as the weight of this reality threatens me like the ocean threatens the spider. There was no amount of success to shield me from ultimately becoming prey to this. My paycheck didn’t prevent this. My credit score didn’t stop Management from their so-called “courtesies”.
I’m wrapping this piece up in my new apartment.
I moved fast.
I couldn’t have done it without my friends and community.
Yet, I still can’t find a lawyer. There’s a stench that clings to the experience that makes it hard to enjoy the new space. I’m sure that will fade. This will all be memories someday, but until then, I’m mired in unpacking and strategizing and worrying that next time I won’t be so lucky. That tents are never too far away.
What a shame we’ve turned this existence into.
I was truly hoping I could end this on a happy note. A tone that says “I won, and I’m proud, and so so grateful!”
I am proud and I am grateful but…
I never found a lawyer. The one that did answer my call and seemed willing to help me, ghosted me. I guess there’s no money in tenant law for me to find another one. The injustice of it all festers in me more than I’d like to admit. It’s less that I care about this specific company doing me especially dirty and more the overall disgust with the world. I’m left wondering how I’m supposed to move on from being trodden upon; how am I just supposed to accept how quickly and mercilessly a company could endanger my life for money, to make the bottom line look better to whoever they are beholden to.
I guess finally sharing this with the world is my last stand. My last attempt at some kind of justice. Even if it’s merely knowing that the truth exists outside of me. They might take away my housing, but they can’t take the truth.
As Afroman said… My proof’s on the internet
