Binghamton, NY - well, sorta

We arrived in Binghamton on Wednesday, to a filthy apartment with a wrecked bathroom and black mold growing in a number of places. Black mold is the toxic stuff, for those of you who aren't up on your molds (I know I wasn't). We ended up in a motel. After a day of arguing with the landlady, we just weren't sure that she could (or intended to) fix the problem before we had to remove the moving truck. What's more, the crew she summoned up to begin cleaning and painting (who were also appalled at the mold) were also tenants of hers. After talking with them, it became very clear that this sort of behind-the-eightball behavior and last-minute crap is par for the course with her.

We told her we couldn't take the risk of not having an apartment before the truck rental ran out and needed our deposit back, since the place wasn't habitable. (We're still arguing about this. We'll take her to court if we need to. She seems to be in violation of rather a lot of health codes and tenant rights). We have found another apartment, much nicer, and with a landlord we like. We move in tomorrow.

So we've spent too much money on hotel rooms and we'll have to spend more on a mover to help RH with the furniture (my lift limit still isn't high enough after the car accident, though physical therapy is improving it vastly).

I was going to post pictures of the mold, but RH's laptop doesn't have quite the right hookup for my memory stick and my camera cable is packed someplace in the moving van. Our internet will now be delayed until Wednesday for the new address, so you won't hear from me for awhile. And I have almost no minutes on my little pre-pay phone. I want a particular cell phone, locally, and AT&T had to have one shipped in from another store, so I won't really have a phone for some days. In other words, I'm about to fall off the face of the earth, but don't worry--I'll be back. :)