tonight was a little weird.

i took some of the tape off of the kitchen cabinets, and what it revealed was this overpowering smell of bay leaf, that i remember smelling when i first moved in - and which was in fact the initial reason that i taped up the cabinets. the smell of marijuana only presented itself once the smell of bay leaf had subsided.

see, here's the thing: i don't actually care about the smell. this is a rank, nasty smell - granted. but, it's a minor annoyance. what i care about is the damage caused by second hand smoke - which means that burning sage inside would be as bad as smoking pot. worse, really, because it's pointless.

as it is, i don't know if the request not to smoke was heeded or not because i couldn't smell anything over the bay leaves.

i'm not sure where the smell of bay leaves is coming from, but i suspect that re-opening the hole on the bottom of the cabinet has left me at the whim of a number of tenants. i remember concluding at the time that the cabinet must be connected to six units moving down, around the plumbing, and that it was just never properly finished - thereby meaning that i can plausibly smell the guy three floors down when he makes a burrito. it's maybe facile to suspect that the smell of indian food is coming from the indian tenant, but it could very well be true. at the least, this is the same stench that came in when i moved in, so it's not infrequent. and, in the end, whether this is by design (by the pothead) or by coincidence doesn't matter.

i need to reiterate that bad smalls are not the same thing as second-hand smoke, and that this is a fundamentally different type of problem.

nonetheless, while the tape was only partly successful in keeping the smell of marijuana smoke out of the cabinets, it was actually quite successful in keeping out the smell of everybody else's food. if she surprises me and continues to smoke outside for any length of time, if she even is at all right now, i'm still going to need to get somebody in to fix the cabinet. i had an easy solution that worked well, but we can go with a more expensive solution if the property owner would prefer. i don't expect this happens; i'll be surprised if she's not blazing all day tomorrow.

for right now, i'm going to have to suffer this, keeping in mind the following truth: if i can smell their stinky herbs, then they can smell my fresh citrus air fresheners, too. and, i can be pro-active in pushing nice smells down to ward off their evil ones.

i've got about 1/4 of the tape off, but in the process of everything happening over the last few days, i've aggravated an injury i suffered last week when i was cleaning up my bicycle. it's a small cut on my right thumb (the most important finger.....) that has reopened and that i'd like to close before i continue with the process of ripping up tape off of baseboards. so, i'm going to wait until monday before i get back to that.

i actually don't have anything planned this weekend; it seems to be quiet in detroit. i may change my mind at the last minute, but i'm expecting to stay in and type. i keep pointing out that december shouldn't take long, once i can sit down and do it. if the weekend goes through uneventfully, i guess i'll get to clearing off the tape on monday; if it doesn't, i guess i'll file the t2 on monday morning, and focus on looking for new apartments, then pull the rest of the tape off as i'm moving out.

that was truly bizarre.

this enforcer of a man shows up, with a thick french accent, looking like denis coderre, that time he filled in for dave semenko, and declares, with a snort, that there shall be no smoking in the building.

he claims that there is a no smoking clause in the lease (there is not).
he claims that he could enforce such a clause (he could not).

and he has decided, by decree that this is the solution to the problem.

further, i am to remove all of the tape from the wall.

i'm going to take the tape down, but i hardly have faith in the outcome. it's just that i'd have to take the tape down anyways, so i'd might as well do it now.

regardless, that means they get another day or two to put off the t2.

note that tomorrow is 4/20.

i mean, don't get me wrong - i hope this works. is it "crazy enough that it just might work"? who knows. who knows. we'll see. but, i think the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and...

...i should really go ahead and start writing the t2 up tonight.

right now, i'm going to lose another day on the unit. ugh.

well, everything is in order in the space, or at least as much as it can be for now.

i'll find out in a few hours if my next step is to wait for renovations, or to file a t2 to end the tenancy.

at the least, i won't be spending any more time rearranging furniture in the other room; i should get back to this shortly, one way or another.

i'll have to continue to run through the files after jan 10th. but, it should pick up quite a bit after that, as the blog started when i picked back up in june; the direction of information then flips, and it becomes about pulling information down, rather than putting it up.

thankfully, the weather seems finally set to turn, so i should be able to keep the windows open most of the time.

well, there's my quarterly stomach wrench.

it's officially spring in windsor. finally. but i need to sit for a bit, too...

as with the last few days, i had difficulty getting out of bed this morning, no doubt due to the poor air quality in the unit. the property owner - from bc - woke me up, with a request to inspect the unit today.

this is actually what i want. sort of. i think. i mean, i put in the request for renovations. so, the next step is to inspect the two units - and i did hear the knock downstairs a few minutes before hand.

there's an off chance they could show up with an n5 or something, but if they do that i'm going to file a t2 anyways, so it's just a waste of time - that would be stupid of them. i've been clear that i want to leave, i'm just giving them a last opportunity to save my tenancy before i get the court to let me out. trying to evict me for trying to smoke-proof the apartment when i'm trying to get out of the lease due to second-hand smoke is likely to get me some judicial sympathy. it would make more sense for them to just buy me out.

i think they're worried about the duct tape. it's not the problem they're maybe imagining it is, partly because of the smoke, itself. the first place i taped up was the closet and the tape had been dried out by the smoke within three months. judging by that, the tape may fall off on it's own by the summer; even if it doesn't, it should come off cleanly with a wet rag.

so, if they try to do that, i'll have to countersue for the cost of the tape - which i was going to do anyways - and then disassemble all of the tape. i'll have to show up with some pictures indicating that there is no damage at all, but that i still want out of the lease, anyways. oops?

i decided that i'd spent the first part of the day rebuilding, get something to eat and clean the place up overnight. if the place is too cluttered, they could claim a fire code violation; obscure, but i didn't want to give that to them. and, if they come in tomorrow with a renovation plan, i could still salvage the tenancy - so why not set up the unit? there's still some chance i could get started on period 3 before i leave here.

 i couldn't stay awake so i stopped to eat early and got to cleaning early. and i got a little optimistic about things. maybe this will work out?

but, i got the plumes coming up from downstairs around 21:00, and it was just too much - this place is not inhabitable.

still, i carried through to see, and i'm going to be sad to leave here, even though i must. i like this place for what it is, but it's just not a healthy place to live, and i'm getting to an age where i need to be concerned about my health. it would be negligent to my own well-being to let myself exist in this kind of environment any longer than necessary.

the immediate fire code issue is resolved, at least. i mean, the place was always navigable. but, i'm quite thin.

i'm hoping it's just a nap, but these stomach wrenches really require me to stop until they pass.