The Drain Game

It has been a while since I have posted and as I have said before I am pretty sure she knows about this blog. She continues to clean in the middle of the night. This morning I woke up to the clues that she had a midnight session. A moldy smelling mop was in the living room and assorted bottles of cleaner were laying about. That's one of the bigger issues I have with her. She never puts things away when she is done with them...and not knowing how to properly clean a house...and misuse of chemicals....

So the other day she was walking through the house and one of the roommates mentioned to her that our shower drain was becoming clogged. It wasn't fully clogged but it was slow to drain. She goes into the bathroom and turns the shower on. She lets the water run for 2 seconds (I counted) and then comes out of the bathroom. I half expected her to tell him there was no clog. However she told him she'd get something for it.

A few days later she comes into the house with a bottle of Drain-O. She hands it to the roommate and tells him to do it because she doesn't know how. As if that stopped her before. However more to the point, if you don't know how to use Drain-O they print the instructions on the back of the bottle.

Dropping a Bomb in the Toilet

I think my Land Lady is on to me. She is reluctant to clean around me. The things she is responsible for  are going undone. Sure we take out the trash and clean up after ourselves but she hasn't been around in a while. The other day I go out to a movie and I come home while she is in the middle of cleaning the bathroom.
I walk past the bathroom and she sees me. She pulls out a box of toilet cleaner. You know the stuff you put in the back of the bowl that makes the water blue. She asks me if it's alright to use it. I tell her yeah.
Later that night she comes into the house with rubber dish washing gloves on. The gloves go to the elbow. In her hands are pair of tongs. In the grip of the tongs' jaws is a round blue toilet cleaner pellet. She is treating it like it's a piece of plutonium. Everyone is looking at her as she slowly maneuvers towards the bathroom. I think she believes its a bomb of some sort. She goes into the bathroom. After several minutes she comes out and tells us not to use the bathroom for ten minutes.
We looked around at each other.
"I bet she put that in the toilet instead of the back" One of my roommates said.
He said what I was thinking. I walked to the bathroom hoping against hope she put it in the back...wishing she didn't because it would make for a hilarious blog. I open the toilet and it's clear. I guess she read the instructions and someone how mixed it with the directions for the bomb she is making????

Paranormal Dumbtivity

Welcome to another installment of Shit My Land Lady Says. Today's episode is extremely scary. To read further is to risk sanity and wits. Nah who am I fooling? You stayed with it this long you might as well read further.

Monday, July 8th, 3AM. For some reason I can't sleep. Something has spooked me but I don't know what it is. I feel evil eyes are watching me. I go into the living room and turn on Comedy Central. Laughing will soothe my troubled soul. I hear a noise in the kitchen. No one should be up. Oh Hell no. I go back to bed. Yes that's right, I am not going to find out what it is. It might be the cat-boy from The Grudge or the girl from The Ring or the puppet on a tricycle from Saw. I realize I watch way too many scary movies. I close my eyes and let the soothe sounds of Maxwell carry me to sleep.

That morning something is amiss. I can't put my finger on it but something is not right. I shrug it off. I ain't got time for a haunted house.

Tuesday, July 7th, 2AM. I can hear movement in the living room. I lay in my bed frightened. Everyone is bed. Who or what is moving around this house? Is it The Blair Witch? I pull the covers over my head. What kind of man am I?

Wednesday, July 8th, 2AM. Right on cue the noises start up again. I decide to man the 'F' up. I slowly approach the bed room door. A shuffling noise can be heard out in the living room. I decide to man the 'F' down and go back to bed. Black people don't fair well in horror movies.

For the rest of the week we've had no activity. I thought the worst was behind me. I Thought wrong.

Monday, July 15th, 8AM. I wake up that morning and notice a hazy shine to the floor. There is an acrid chemical smell to the air. Did someone mop?

Tuesday, July 16th, 2AM. A loud noise wakes me. Is this it? Is this the moment when I confront the demon in my house? There is a strange light just outside my door. I am tired of being afraid. I open the door and come face to face with a horror straight from hell....


...my Land Lady cleaning. I guess she is now aware of the inadequate process that she uses to clean the house and now decides to clean while we are sleeping. This scares me to no end. She had to be told not to use Ammonia and Bleach together. What other chemical concoction could she be mixing while I sleep? And who uses and green flash light to clean the house in the middle of the night....and by green I mean the light is green not the flashlight cover?

Real Men With Guns

Ok....so I had mentioned that I have a roommate who is hetero-phobic. However I didn't blog about it because it's a sensitive subject and I didn't want to be perceive as making fun of someone because they are gay. That being said:

I have a roommate who we will call 'Gold'. Gold moved into the compound and instantly had an attitude with people. You'd say hi to him and he'd huff and puff and if a girl said anything to him he'd roll his eyes. Eventually we just left him alone because he was acting like a dick. Word reached us that he didn't like us (the straight men of the house) because we reminded him of the guys who picked on him in school. Wow. I was just sexually profiled. It was new to me. I've been racially profiled before but this was some 'Christopher Columbus in uncharted waters' type shit to me. We were amused but we still left dude alone. You can be gay, you just can't be a dick. I am sure you are laughing that I used the words 'gay' and 'dick' in the same sentence and I can assure you I am quite amused too.

So a few weeks ago we had some female Mexican (from Mexico) dancers move into the house. Debbie Reynold's dance studio is a block from the house and the artist compound I am staying at is the perfect spot to stay at for a few weeks. Now to say that these girls are nice looking is an understatement. They are fine. These girls stay in America for the summer while they go to school so another roommate and I know these girls from last summer. So we had a welcome back to the house party for them. So we are in the backyard, drinking and chatting when Gold comes outside.

Gold begins hurling a tirade of insults at us and the girls that was borderline racist but all the way hetero-phobic. I wish to Tom Cruise that I could remember what he said but I think my brain had trouble wrapping my mind around what I was going through that his words came out as gibberish. I am pretty sure he called me a 'Nerf-herder' and other than being a really cool Star Wars reference I don't know what that means. I don't have 'nerfs' nor do I know how to herd them.

So our Land Lady jumped to action and really if you think this is going to end without their being some really awkward conversation then I must say welcome you to my blog because this must be the first time you are reading it. Go read the first ones and then come back. We'll wait.

So Land Lady talks to him and word comes back that he is jealous of the girls because they get all our attention. Well we weren't giving him attention because he is a dick...and we are straight.

Fast forward to today, July 14th 2013, Gold has to move from the loft to one of the houses to consolidate space. He has a choice between the front house (where we all are) and the back house where the land lady lives. While making this decision the land lady tells him:

"Don't mess with the guys in the front house because they are really real grown ass men...with guns."

I am pretty sure that saying those words together at the same time constitutes as a hate crime. Not only did she communicate a threat to him on our behalf (I'm sure house unity will improve now) but she punctuated it with weapons. Now we don't feel any ill will towards Gold. I take a pretty old school stance with life: "Don't F with me and I won't F with you." However this guy may think at anytime we may recreate the end of "Boyz In The Hood" with him getting blasted.

Do you know how hard it is to be a 40-ish year old black male with no record or stints in jail? Damn this land lady....damn damn damn.....

WTF Did I Just Watch?

There comes a time in human history that a person is confronted with the biggest evidence of stupidity that bottles the mind. Yes, bottles. You've seen something so incredible your mind bottles it up (thank you Blades of Glory). I hesitate to tell you because you will not believe me. Even after I show you the pictures your brain will not allow you to process it. One percent of the people reading this will lose their mind. I apologize for that. I need the readers and would never purposefully hurt anyone of you.

For the past few days Los Angeles took a break from the oppressive heat and decided to take one for the team and let it rain. Temperatures went from 200 degrees in the shade to a manageable 77 degrees. Today was an especially rainy day.
And that is why my Land Lady thought it would be the perfect time.....TO WASH THE !@#$%^ING CEMENT!!!!!
Because God, Allah, Zeus or Rainbow Brite wasn't doing the job fast enough for her. At first I didn't realize what was going on thinking the rushing water I heard was rain. NO!. It's her with the hose washing the pavement.
Yes I can see you chuckling, laughing to yourself and shaking your head...."There is no way someone would do that." You say.
My response: "Exactly." This sh!t is so bat sh!t crazy that I am sure any moment now I will start typing gibberish dcfdvyiwduh[o'bdedaPKWDN3IW8HD]Qpwdjoalwmd,sdc, v !!!!!!!


This is her using the broom to scrub the backyard...and yes thats the same broom she uses to sweep the house.

In her hand is a container of Comet. She pours it on the ground and scrubs it with the broom.

Cleaning in the rain.....

Clean Concrete

Now you'd think that after the few posts about my Land Lady that she couldn't clean soap. However there is one thing that she cleans to the best of her ability.
The concrete in our back yard.
Daily she is seen sweeping the backyard with the same broom she uses on the house. After sweeping the concrete she pours bleach on it and scrubs it with the broom. After which she hoses it off.
One morning she made everyone get up at 7am...and I am pretty sure it was on Saturday...and move their cars so that she could wash under the truck parked in the backyard. Now there is nothing wrong with cleaning your back yard...but not daily....using bleach. Im pretty sure that it's against the rules here in LA to use water like that...because we're in a draught/water shortage...thingie.

The craziest moment came our new roommates were partying the night before and spilled water on the cement. The next day she was seen scrubbing the water off the concrete....using water.

And of course she doesn't clean it all off so when the sun gets hot enough...which is everyday it activates the left over bleach in the cement. So now the backyard can't be a chill spot...because she chopped down the only source of shade (See blog titled: Lord of the Flies) and on a hot day the bleach fumes are pretty strong.

I have probably been exposed to more hazardous chemicals now than my whole Navy career...and I spent 5 years on a ship that had asbestos on it.

The Turkey Day Incident"

I have found that there are moments of pure unbridled stupidity that the brain tries to bury any remembrance of it, like the New England Patriots trading in Aaron Hernandez jerseys and changing their logo. Last night as I lay down to sleep and began to take that greyhound bus ride to Sleepy town, a long dormant neuron fired up in my brain. Suddenly I remembered the single greatest dumb thing my land lady did. She cooked us Thanksgiving dinner.


Last Thanksgiving the front office of the artist compound I lived at decided that they would give something back to the people they had been making a small fortune on. It was decided that they would buy us a turkey and all the fixing and we'd celebrate like normal people. I was reluctant at first. Hell they have been promising us a flat screen TV since I have been here. Much to my surprise the food was bought and brought to the house the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It was decided that we'd eat at 6PM and then moved to 5PM the day before because the new Land Lady (this is around the time that she just got here) wanted everyone to eat and most of the roommates were flying out on late flights the day before T-Day.

So Wednesday comes and everyone leaves for work and last minute shopping. I am at the house working on my thesis script. At about noon I decide to check up on the cooking. I don't know why I did this. I am not an exceptional chef. I can cook somethings but a turkey isn't in my repertoire. I however can hook up a steak like nobodies business. I enter the back house where the cooking is to take place and see that the turkey is out on the stove to thaw. Again I am no expert but I know that cooking a turkey is usually an all day affair. My brain tried to rationalize what my eyes saw. Maybe we aren't eating today and tomorrow we'll wake up to Thanksgiving Breakfast? I asked the Land Lady what time we were eating.
"5PM" was the reply.
"5PM today?" I asked.
"Yeah"

I called one of the roommates at work to confirm which one of us wasn't considering the factors of turkey cooking.
"We're supposed to have Thanksgiving today right?" I asked.
"Yeah why?" He replied.
"You know she hasn't put the turkey in yet." I answered.
"Put the turkey in what?"
"The oven"
"WTF"

4PM rolls around and 'Suzy Homemaker' places the turkey in the oven....for a 5PM meal. The roommates gathered at 5 and the turkey wasn't done. Dinner was pushed to 6....and then 7 and then 8. Around 9PM the roommates that were catching a late flight had to leave so she pulls out all the food and serves it.
I am reminded of the sang Rapper's Delight. Before rap became about hoes and money, rappers rapped about innocent things. Like:

have you ever went over a friends house to eat 
and the food just ain't no good 
i mean the macaroni's soggy the peas are mushed 
and the chicken tastes like wood 

Like you know this brother was mad about this meal. Everyone else is rapping about how hard they are, their neighborhood and this guy uses his time on the mic to talk about a bad meal he had.

On Thanksgiving I was that guy. The Turkey was ice-cold. As she carved the turkey she commented on how juicy the turkey was. NO, that's not juice, that's ice. On top of the cold turkey, the gravy was cold and had the consistency of jello. The stuffing also was cold and had a delicate layer of frost to add to the ambiance of the evening. In fact everything was cold except for the potato salad which was left out when 5PM was the meal time.

The roommate who had a plane to catch made a small plate and put it in the microwave to cook. Everyone else followed suit. We ate so that she wouldn't feel bad. Never in the history of Thanksgiving has so many left overs been left over. No one had a second plate.

The next morning I woke up the creature from Alien trying to burst its way out of my stomach. In the other room I could hear groans and moans. In the bathroom one roommate cursed Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims out.

Now you probably think I am making this up. Well a picture is worth a thousand words.

After two days of being in the refrigerator we just threw this abomination out.

Dumb On The Fourth of July

Today I thought I was going to have a relaxing day. The roommates decided to go to the beach leaving me home alone.  They would come back at 5PM and then we'd grill. Perfect time for me to get some writing done on the feature and two TV shows that I am working on. However stupidity doesn't rest...ever.

At 4PM the land lady came into the house with her collection of cleaning supplies. It took her three times to bring in all the chemicals that she was using to clean the bathroom. Luckily the discussion I had with her about bleach and ammonia yielded results. However she still managed to come in with several bottles of stuff with high chemically smells including her new cleaner of choice: Pine-sol. I text the roommates and let them know what is going on. Translation: Stay at the beach because the house will not be in any condition to cook or eat in.

At 6PM she completed the bathroom. Two hours later. Mind you it's not a big bathroom. It's a small apartment bathroom. Then she moved to the living room...where I am set up with notepads and laptop...where I am writing...also I am watching a Walking Dead marathon. Fortunately she decides to clean the dining room first. She wipes off the tables and then pours a soap called Fabuloso on the floor. She swirls her mop around a few times and them moves into the kitchen.

At 7PM she begins the kitchen. It is at this time I notice the air conditioning not working. I bet it's because the kitchen door is open. I walk into the kitchen and sure enough the kitchen door is open. I close the door and get back to my writing and Walking Dead. She comes back into the house. I hear the door open but not close. I go into the kitchen and the door is wide open. Again I close the door. Again she opens it and leaves it open. I close it again. In the back of my mind I can hear my grandmother yelling "Close the door, we ain't cooling off the whole neighborhood." She leaves the door open once more. At this point I am at the edge of my wits.

I beckon her to the door and begin explaining how our air conditioning works. "Our air con is set on auto, that means that the house will try to keep itself at 75 degrees. When you leave the door open the outside hot air rushes into the house and warms the house. This causes the air con to work harder and if we do this often it will cause the air con to burn out." I said this as if talking to a child. The only response is "Ok."

She continues to busy herself in the kitchen. I glance over to see her cleaning the refrigerator. Now when I say cleaning the refrigerator you'd probably think she was pulling out all the food and wiping down the shelves. Wrong. Nope. She wiped the parts of the shelves that didn't have anything on it. In a refrigerator shared by eight people this left her with two small spots to wipe.

It is now 8PM. I can't have my 4th of July steak because the house smells of chemicals....and now she is beginning to sweep the living room.....FML.

The Bag Lady of Burbank

Yes we live in North Hollywood but Burbank rolls off the tongue.
Also this blog now has a theme song. Kendrick Lamar's "B*tch, Don't Kill My Vibe." In the song Kendrick repeats over and over again to some dumb person not to kill his vibe. This is as close as you can come to talking to my land lady.

As I mentioned before the compound I live in is made up of two houses. The house I live in is run pretty intelligently. The back house where she lives is run as if an insane clown was in charge. Our cockroach problem got worst. However for some reason our problem was confined to our kitchen. The back house had a house wide problem. Perhaps if she closed the front door the bugs wouldn't get in. I bought a few insect products and traps. Not seeming to work we decided to 'bomb' the house. After we bombed the house we saw a decline in the bugs. The back house did not. As a measure to keep the bugs out of their food the land lady had everyone bag up their food.
Yes you heard that right.
They put their food in plastic shopping bags and tie them up.
And not just all your food in one bag. Everything has a separate bag. I saw a girl put a closed can of corn in a bag. I asked her why she was putting a can in a bag.
She gave me a thousand yard stare and said nothing.
Hey if I was driven to almost insanity from dealing with her an hour or two a day what could the poor souls that live with her be going through. For a minute I felt like the men at the end of The Fly (the original) when seeing the fly/man caught in the spider's web. Should I put her out of her misery?

Their kitchen has a mound of shopping bags on their counter. It looks like a small landfill....and she is proud of this. She suggests this to us as if it is a proud new discovery.
"You guys should put all your food in bags....it works for us?"
I look in their house and roaches are crawling all over their bags. Instead of fending them off you made them an amusement park.

After a few months they stopped bagging all their things. No one could tell who's food was who's.