Rent and Moving

Looks like on Thursday morning, I will be signing the papers and I can move into the new place. Some guy off Craigslist is going to help me with the heavy furniture. We should be completely moved into the new place by Sunday. Woo!

I was talking to Spessa earlier today about the increased cost of rent and I came up with the following excuses on why the increased rent isn’t a big deal:

• I’ll be saving $13.00 per month on garbage pickup since it’s free there.
  
• I’ll be saving $20.00 per month on doing my laundry at a laundromat, once I spend about $150 for a used washer and dryer.
  
• I’ll be saving $41.00 per month by canceling my gym membership, once I buy an elliptical machine for a couple hundred bucks. (My current apartment is too small for one.)
  
• Decreased power bill since I won’t be running a dehumidifier every other day.
  
• My car will be paid for in just 4 more months! That’s $210.00 I won’t be paying anymore! Yeah, I know this has nothing to do with moving, but it’s still a good excuse for increased rent.

Here’s a big one, and I didn’t realize it until I joked about it to Spessa…I will save a few hundred bucks per year by not living next door to Warren the meth addict. That guy has actually cost me a lot of money. Here’s my damage estimate, from 2 years of living next to Warren…

• $55.00 – bike I bought from Target stolen
  
• $250.00 – car window smashed
  
• $150.00 – car stereo stolen (from car theft)
  
• $44.00 – cool 3,000,000 candlepower flashlight stolen (from car theft)
  
• $40.00 – replacement bike I bought at a yard sale stolen (it’s a good thing I didn’t buy nice bikes)
  
• $10.00 – lock to gate cut with bolt cutters to steal this bike
  
• $15.00 – lock and chain on bike/bike rack cut to steal this bike

At various points during all this, I decide to beef up security for 2 reasons. One is that I really do like this apartment because it’s nice and it’s very cheap. And two, because it would be cheaper to periodically blow money on increasing security than it would to spend another $100 – $300 per month on rent. Here’s the increased security breakdown…

• $60.00 – Motion controlled security lights in the back. There was NO light back there before, so I had to do some rewiring in the hallway, installed a new switch, etc. So $60 is about what I paid for all those materials.
  
• $100.00 – Alarm system. With as many out of town trips as I take, an alarm system that could call me while I’m away seemed like a great idea. I think it also worked as a deterrent for Warren because he heard the door chime whenever it was opened and he was outside. And a few times I forgot to enter my code when I came home, so the alarm went off and I’m positive they had to hear that. Just from him knowing the alarm was there might have saved me from a break in.
  
• $50.00 – new motion sensor lights. The old ones stopped working correctly so I had to replace them. Guess that’s what I get for buying the cheapest ones they had.
  
• $30.00 – locking doorknobs for inside doors. I liked to keep my office locked when I was gone for more than a few hours. My hope was that anyone breaking into the house might not bother with the locked doors.
  
• $30.00 – Miscellaneous security items. Such as window locks for the sliding windows, an extra lock on the back door, a new padlock for the gate since they cut the old one.
  
• $100.00 – cameras. I set one up on the back patio area. The other I was going to point out the window at my car, but I never got around to it.
  
• $40.00 – USB to video, to hook the camera into.
  
• $50.00 – Security software – this is a neat piece of software that can handle up to a few dozen cameras. Whenever it detects motion, it starts snapping pictures and saving them in the computer and uploading them to brad-carter.com. Plus it was updating a single image of the patio area every 1 minute. It could also email any detected motion to me or send a text to my phone about movement. I loved messing with that software.

So, assuming that I’m not forgetting anything, the total Warren has cost me is approximately $1024.00. That is a LOT of money that I spent during this past two years! It comes to $42.60 per month. That’s how much I pay to live next to this guy. And there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s responsible for the issues I’ve had with theft. It’s either him or its his friends. Not to mention the peace of mind that I haven’t had because of him. I’d love to buy a new car stereo (another Warren-related cost once I finally do it) but I can’t because if I do, there’s the risk of his posse breaking into my car again. I’ve had to deal with shitty local radio stations every time I get into the car because of him. I was going to skip getting the kids bikes for Christmas this year because they’d probably just get stolen since these people are cutting the locks. I can do that now! (I guess in this case, Warren would have saved me about $100.) And vacations are a little worrisome, knowing that Warren probably realizes that I’m out of town and he might decide to break in. It’d be so easy for him to break into my place without getting caught.

So I’ve got some serious plans for Warren, which I don’t think I should rant about in my journal. But I will have at least $1024.00 of fun with him. I just hope he doesn’t die from his addiction before I finish with him. Warren, prepare for a much more interesting life.