Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Moving again. Part 5. Saturday.

Saturday morning I woke up kind of early, and there was a big pile of dog poop outside my bedroom door. Our kitchen trash was all over the kitchen floor. Apparently "Magic" (Jeff's dog) got into the house. I didn't touch anything, and by the time I got back from my hike with the Institute, it was all cleaned up and the carpet from the front door to the kitchen was soaking wet.

I went on my hike, and then I went to the Institute to watch the U of U - Michigan football game. I was having fun! I had been making friends, and learning our school song, and eating chili and tortilla chips... and then Jeff started calling me.

I debated answering, but decided not to because:
1. He was calling from a blocked number.
2. The football game was loud, and I was busy.
3. How often do I really have to talk to him? Good grief.

So he called like 3 times, and each time I clicked to send the call to voicemail.

Halftime started, and I saw Carlos! We waved, and he came over and sat next to me, with some girl. And then almost immediately after he sat down he whispered "OH NO. Jeff's here. He's right there!" Jeff was walking on the aisle to our right. But he just walked out of the room. "HE CAN'T SEE ME!" Carlos worried out loud. Apparently Jeff had asked Carlos to go to Home Depot with him. Carlos didn't want to go, so he said he was going to his parents' house in Springville. And I don't know if he was actually going there at all or not, but he came to the game. Anyway, it was none of Jeff's business.

My phone rang again. Still from a blocked number. I knew it was Jeff again. And I hung up again, even though he was probably watching.

As soon as I sent the call to voicemail, Jeff stormed up to us.

"BOTH OF YOU ARE OUT! YOU NEED TO BE OUT OF THE HOUSE BY SEPTEMBER FIRST!" He shouted in the middle of the activity. "YOU," he pointed at Carlos "FOR LYING. AND YOU," he pointed to me, "FOR... HAVING A BAD ATTITUDE!"

"Jeff, I didn't lie to you," Carlos said softly, calmly.

"YOU'VE LIED 3. 4. 5 TIMES!"

"I've never lied to you Jeff," Carlos repeated.

"I'M GOING TO SPRINGVILLE, I'M AT MY PARENTS HOUSE. YOU DIDN'T LIE?!"

"Jeff, I had to come see her on my way," Carlos said quietly, pointing to the girl next to him.

"ALL YOUR STUFF HAS TO BE OUT BY SEPTEMBER FIRST. NO. THE NIGHT BEFORE."

"We have contracts," I said.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER."

And Jeff went on, swearing at us, and saying that he hated the Church because of people like us. (... because I didn't take his phone calls while I was watching a football game? Really?) (And also...he hates the Church, but he goes to the Institute to hang out and watch the game? And Friday night he said he also takes a class at the Institute. Whatever.) And he told Carlos that he was lucky that he didn't take him outside to fight, because (he said) Carlos would be too big of a wuss to do it. (Ummmm. Okay.)

And then he stormed off, and he went around the room and unplugged the sound for the projector that was showing the game. (It was halftime so nobody really cared. Someone plugged it in before the game restarted.)

One of the girls sitting behind us was like, "How do you know him?!" and we told her that we rent from him, and we wondered if she had been kicked out too. And she was kinda confused, she was like "No, no, he did the same thing to me in the middle of Sacrament meeting last week." Good one, Jeff.

Carlos looked at me, and told me that this time he was actually going to move. He said he couldn't deal with Jeff anymore. Noooooo, I said, because obviously there was NO WAY I was going to stay at the house without Carlos there too. We should probably look for somewhere to move to, he suggested. (Since Jeff gave us a day and a half notice. Jerk.) Dang. Probably.

So as halftime finished, Carlos and I got up and left. We would help each other, he said.

We went out to the housing board at the Institute and combed the ads for anything that would work. Jeff started calling me again. He called me three times in a row. I didn't answer. Mostly because I was still pretty freaked out about the whole thing. Then he called Carlos a couple times. Carlos didn't answer either, and Jeff left a message.

Carlos found a new house really quickly. He called one that sounded good (and close to campus!), and it turned out to be Ben! Who had tried to sign at our house to begin with! He checked his message, and it was a yelly message from Jeff saying that he had to have his stuff out, or that Jeff would throw it out. Carlos also talked to Courtney, who said we could put stuff at her house if we needed to, while we were finding somewhere to move.

I called a few people and left messages, and decided to walk around the neighborhood and see if there were any FOR RENT signs at other houses. While I was on my way, Courtney called me. She wondered if I had a place to sleep that night, and if I'd found anything, etc. I didn't. I hadn't.

We started talking about crazy Jeff stuff, and I decided to stop by her house so we could chat. I told her about the other stuff that had happened since she left.

She walked with me to look for places, but we didn't find anything. We helped Carlos move.

She told me more stories from when she had lived there, before I moved in.

Like, Carlos had a whiteboard on the fridge, and it was at Courtney's house because Jeff had hidden it. What happened with that was, Jeff ate some soup that belonged to Carlos. Which, like, weird, but whatever. And either Courtney or Carlos wrote on the white board "ONLY EAT IT IF YOU BUY IT" (or something like that), and then Courtney added "JK" because like, it wasn't actually a big deal that he'd eaten it.

WELL. Courtney and Carlos were...at Walmart, I think, and Carlos got a call from Jeff. He didn't answer it. And then Jeff called Courtney. Who DID answer. Jeff was irate. He got all mad at her for writing "Jeff is a jerk" on the whiteboard. "Jeff, JK means "Just kidding"," she explained. It doesn't say "Jeff is a jerk." She said, but he wasn't having any of it. "I catch on to people," he said. "Jeff, I would never write that," she said. "We're friends." (He had been calling her family his adopted family...) "WE. ARE. NOT! FRIENDS!" he screamed into the receiver, enraged. And Courtney was like...afraid to go home that night. But she's sure that if Carlos would have answered his phone, Jeff would have blamed him. So she said the reason I got kicked out was for being next to Carlos when he was kicked out.

And there was the story about how she slept with a hammer, just in case, while she lived at the house.

Also, we discovered that he had promised all three of us parking spaces (I think there was just one open one).

And Courtney told me about how Jeff hadn't told people he was living in the house. So he one time walked in on a girl showering, and she didn't even realize he lived there.

And when Jeff kicked Courtney out, he kept telling people "I blew it." and they were like "Yeah." and when he was trying to convince her parents to let her stay living there, he promised to turn one of the garages into a game room with ping pong? and pool? so that Courtney could use that with her friends. (Which reminds me of something I forgot earlier-- in our Friday night chat, Jeff totally offered to rewire the house so that I could have the Internet in Courtney's old room. I was like, it probably wouldn't be worth it, and told him I'd keep my room, thanks.)

Also, Courtney said this made 6 of us now who had been kicked out of the house in the past week and two days.

So we decided I would stay the night at Courtney's. I went to my house and grabbed my work computer and my important documents, and church clothes.

Carlos drove Courtney and I to the grocery store, and while we were in the car, he got a call from someone who had seen his ad about the house and was interested. It was the funniest call. They wanted to stop by, and Carlos was like "this isn't a joke but, when I placed the ad, I was actually living there, but today the landlord kicked everyone out." He was like, "if you want to see the place, I'll give you the address and you can stop by. The location is REALLY good. The landlord is a little crazy...." Awesome.

And then on the way back, I got another call from Jeff. From an unblocked number, so I answered it. "If your stuff isn't out by the morning of the first, I'm throwing it in the street," he told me, and hung up on me. Oookay.

So we went home, and I called the police. I kind of explained the situation, with him breaking the contract, and I told them I was worried he would bother my things, and they basically would not do anything, but told me to call if he did touch my things. Or I could also call to have them escort me to get my things. (I told them I didn't have anywhere to put my things yet, so I didn't need a police escort. Yet.)

And then I went to sleep.

(I think Saturday was the most interesting day because I went from him offering to rewire the house and make car keys for me to being kicked out in like, less than a day. And I didn't do anything. Sunday was pretty interesting too, though, because it involves the police.)

2 comments:

erin said...

Even though (for you), this story is horrible, I love reading your stories.

Emily said...

They're kind of funny/random, aren't they?