Broke into the old apartment

I truly hated my last apartment.

Hate would almost be an understatement, it was a dive to beat all dives, it was just plain horrible.

We thought it was a great deal at first. Huge living room and balcony, 2 large bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, great location overlooking the river, could it get any better?

Seriously, does that not sound fantastic?

Until we moved in. We lived there 6 months, and during that time, there was 2(.5) floods in our apartment, and a major flood in the building. Everything that produced water in our apartment leaked. The .5 flood was a pipe in the kitchen that we caught early enough to have a bowl under so it doesn't really count. Flood #1 was our shower, which leaked into the wall and the hallway flooring, completely destroying the parquet. A week after we moved in. When did they fix it? Literally, the day we moved out. They actually had the nerve to ask us not to step on it as we moved all our furniture out of the place.

Flood #2 was in the second bathroom. The toilet leaked. Badly. The wall around it is basically ruined, and we essentially did not use that bathroom for the duration of our stay there.

The balcony was used as storage, as the solid cement "railing" was too high to actually see over, and the spiders out there were terrifyingly huge.

There was absolutely no ventilation, the kitchen had no natural light, the place was a haven for thieves, and it constantly smelled of... I don't even want to know.

For a month in the summer they drilled on the cement balconies for no apparent reason. No matter where the drill was in the building, it sounded like it was in my room, or at the very least, directly outside my window. I work 11-11 most of the time. It started every day at 7.

Once they had a scheduled power outage. It was supposed to be 9-5. It was actually more like noon-10. There was absolutely no emergency lighting - apparently windows to the sun and moon are sufficient in their minds. I was afraid to go out at 2pm because it was so dark in the hallway I was afraid I would get mugged - we had to take flashlights with us all day!

Finally, we moved. And on moving day I said good riddance. Everyone asked how I could not be even a little emotionally attached, and I wasn't. I hated everything about it but the fact that I was finally on my own. I also liked that it was parked next to a beach, but that had nothing to do with the place itself.

Months later, my roommate shocked me by saying he missed the place. "It had character," he said, "and you could do anything you wanted there." This was true, though I was absolutely sure they would charge us for something. The previous tenants had left it in awful shape and there was no inspection since it was a lease take-over. He was right, though. Now we live in a gorgeous place with carpet, white walls, a dishwasher, washer, and dryer, and no spiders. Other than a few flaws, it is very pleasing. But we can't through pieces of the floor at each other. And we can't paint equipment on the floor in the living room. Nor tromp through all the rooms with our shoes covered in mud partially because we don't care, partially because we don't want to get the dirt already on the floor on our feet. I remember I used to wear flip flops indoors at all times. I guess it really did have character.