Po
Boy views
By
Phil
LaMancusa
Moving
In New Orleans
Or
Mystory
I’ve had a series of ten personal moving experiences in New Orleans in the last twenty years, I’m not
talking about dancing steps, psychic breakthroughs or intestinal functions; I’m
talking about the whole relocating ‘pilot experience’: “pick it up here, pile it there”. Granted the moves were from not
only my living quarters, but my brick and mortar shops as well; in both cases,
in a word, it sucks. Angrily I threatened
with this last move, that if there is a next time, in another insultingly short stretch of inhabitational tenure, I’m
gonna pack the wife and critters in the car and drive out of town, leaving
everything that we own for the termites and the trash men. I am tired of being
pushed around by the Fates and Furies; I’ll move to Gretna and begin life over
as a virgin.
No matter how good a relationship you have as a tenant with
your landlord it’s still a tenuous situation at best; only one move was made
voluntarily, the rest have been a case of me being forced out against my will,
either by monetary demands or uninhabitable living conditions. Moving in,
moving out, moving in, moving out, moving in; it’s enough to drive a person sober.
Money situations in general occur when the landlord
believes they can get more rent than you’ve contracted with them, and the
conversation goes: Landlord: “either pay the increase or move”. Generally these
increases are structured to get you out or misuse you financially like a
redheaded stepchild (am I allowed to say that?).
The
living conditions that may force you out is generally the landlord who is more
concerned with taking your money without reciprocating by performing logical
necessary maintenance of their property. That can include everything from
inadequate protection from the elements (leaking ceilings, faulty plumbing) to
lack of protection from other invasive life forms (roaches, frogs, rodents);
and all that falls under the expansive category of ‘demolition by neglect’. It boggles the mind how landlords can rent out
property then turn their backs on it; conversely, it’s a darn shame that
tenants have been conditioned to the mind set of ‘if I complain about needing something fixed, they’ll either raise my
rent or throw me out’ which is very warranted. My personal philosophy is to
pay the rent on time and contact the landlord as little as possible (like
never).
All of these moves come at most inconvenient times, cost
money, time and mental/emotional upsets; it’s unsettling and psychologically
demoralizing to wake up in the middle of the night to take a leak and have to
re-acclimate, recalibrate and remember in which direction the bathroom of
reality and not memory lay. Yes, we’ve
recently moved again.
What has become tradition in New Orleans for folks
relocating within the parish is that you’re ousted from what has become home
(10 years) by forces beyond your control (termite infestation); what you do is
find someplace smaller and more expensive. In our case we found a lovely place
with a terrific landlord (who lives in the other half of the double) in the
same neighborhood that we’ve been living in. So, we’ve lost our house but not
our neighbors. Win win?
So we ‘downsized’ five rooms into four; five bigger rooms
with taller ceilings in to four smaller wonderfully well maintained rooms.
Central air and heat, washer/dryer of our own (new for us), great place. The
first months the cats went from bewildered stares to feline ‘stink eye’ glares.
The dog kept wanting to go back to our old place; the feral cat that we’d been
feeding was/is discombobulated by our departure, as well the possum that used
to visit our porch for evening feedings. Our mail has not come through; our
water bill is somewhere in limbo; somebody stole our recycling container.
We moved two bedrooms, desk, piano, armoire, the entire
kitchen and living room and 125 banana boxes of ‘stuff’. We look like a mobile
garage sale. Our old furniture looks like a herd of mastodons trying to elbow
their way through a Salvation Army shop. Even our car looks like it feels out
of place. After four months of us vacating the old place, virtually no work has
been done on it; we could have stayed and enjoyed Jazz Fest and Fourth of July as
we had done for ten years; but nooooo. Our neighbor on the other side likewise was
thrown out.
All
of our yard plantings had to be uprooted or abandoned as well as the three cats
that are buried in the back yard.
I am in fear that I’m going to be moving for the rest of
my life. Floods, fires and the destruction of the city have all come with moves
already; what’s next? Plagues, the overthrow of the government, free tickets to
Paris? “Sorry, I have to wait for the
cable guy”. A cure for what
ails me; a kidnapping; scholarship; dinner for two in a fine bistro? “Can’t
tonight, I have to get up early to rent my U-Haul”. Let’s go fishing, to a
ball game, I’ve got tickets to see Beyonce! “I’d
really like to but, I need to catch the produce guy at Rouse’s and beg for some
banana boxes so I can pack”.
Yeah, it’s gonna go
on forever; I’m gonna miss the Zombie Apocalypse, Alien invasion, winning
lottery payoff and the epiphany of our elected officials; I’ll be at the bank
getting a loan for my first down/security deposit. Years from now it’ll be summer
by the beach, an evacuation, tornadoes, and the second coming that I’ll be
missing; I’ll be hauling boxes and making out changes of address for the mail
that will never reach me. At least one thing I know for now: come hell or high
water, there’s nothing that’s gonna chase
me out of my city. New Orleans: you’re stuck with me!
