My neighbour, the gas leak and my back
Well, it's been an interesting couple of days. Wednesday while I was at work, a crew from the city of Montreal removed an old tree stump from the front of my apartment building. Of course, being the city of Montreal, they severed a gas main and several blocks had to be evacuated. While this was happening, the firefighters and my landlady were going from apartment to apartment, checking for people and turning off gas stoves. My neighbour is a retired university English professor who owns about a billion books. I agreed to sublet my apartment to him so that he could use my place as a sort of library, his apartment is already full to bursting with books. I spoke to the landlady and she said that it was no problem. The landlady had one look in my neighbour's apartment and apparently it was enough to change her mind about renting him the apartment. She called me yesterday and went on for 45 minutes about the state of the place and how she couldn't let him wreck another apartment. I am without a renter at this point and very pissed off at her because everyone in the building knows that she has been in the apartments to check things out for herself from time to time when her tenants are out. If push comes to shove, I'll let her find another tenant.
Yesterday morning I went out and moved my car because the city of Montreal had to cap and fill in the mess they made the day before. I got out of the car, got half-way across the street and my entire lower back spasmed. I almost dropped right there. I spent the day downing muscle relaxants and sleeping in bed. Today I'm at work because I'm hoping if I move around a bit my back will loosen up and I have a bunch of stuff to do.