Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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It’s been a busy few weeks!

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I’ve had a busy couple of weeks! I guess that’s one of the major reasons why I haven’t been writing all that much.

1. Our terrible renter neighbors moved out on the 19th of March. This was after a terrible week or so of cars parking in our driveway at all ours of the night and tensions going up and up. It’s certainly a relief to see them gone!

2. As I mentioned in earlier posts I had pneumonia – probably thanks to having two bad colds in a row. So that slowed me down and made it hard for me to get anything done.

3. Then I got knocked out my that aural migraine last week. The next day I happened to have an appointment with a neurologist to see what was going on with my numb thigh (it’s a compressed nerve in my hip that’s causing that awful burning sensation!) so I mentioned to him that my migraines had been getting worse and that I was starting to have lots of visual symptoms so now he’s sending me for an MRI and made some suggestions as to how i can try to combat the migraines without adding more medications to my already huge amount of daily meds that I have to take. Did you know that 300 mg of Magnesium a day might help migraines? I didn’t – but I’m trying it out. I’ll let you know if it helps.

Oh and before I can get my MRI I have to have my eye sockets xrayed. Why? Well if you’ve ever had an MRI they always ask if you’ve had metal in your eyes and unfortunately my answer is always yes. I used to be a jeweller. A Diamond cutter to be specific – which means I cut designs in gold with a fast spinning diamond. Naturally that caused tiny pieces of gold to fly around and even though I always wore goggles sometimes a tiny piece of gold would get inside the goggles and stick in my eye. This would result in my blindly making my way down several flights of stairs in the Jewelry building that I worked in in downtown Toronto to see an optometrist who would then pull the pieces of gold out of my eyes. I’m pretty sure that I don’t have gold in my eyes anymore – but it’s best to check before I have an MRI of my head.

4. The other big thing that’s kept me busy in the last three weeks is that I’ve been editing every single page of my reptile care page. I had an offer from Google Adsense to optimize one of my websites so I’ve been working with a really nice guy from Google, even had a phone consultation with him, and I’ve been slowing working his suggestions into my huge HTML based website. Do you know how long it takes to edit every single page of a huge HTML website? Forever! LOL

Between being sick, stressed and doing a huge amount of work on one of my sites I feel like I’ve been on a treadmill in the last few weeks.

Hopefully things settle down and get back to normal again soon!





The awful renter neighbors have moved out! Yeah!

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I’m very happy to say that our neighbors from hell moved out yesterday! Yeah!!!!!

They were going to be formally evicted by the Sherrif on Tuesday if they didn’t move out on their own and luckily they took the initiative and moved on their own.

Of course, even though they apparently haven’t payed rent to the homeowner for five months or more (as well as bills like gas and electricity apparently) they still legally have possession of the house until noon on Monday … and they are taking full advantage of that by putting a note on the front door that says “we still have possessions inside and you can’t legally enter until March 22”.

So as far as I can tell the home owners are going to stay away until Monday and unfortunately … those awful soon to be ex renter neighbors are back outside right now. I guess they are moving a few last things out of the house with the big van they jammed into our tiny driveway.

I peaked out a few times yesterday while they were moving their things into the big moving van they’d rented. Man … just like the last renters they didn’t put much thought into their move. Things were coming out in garbage bags … you’d think that most familys would have few luggage sets or at least pack their things in boxes … but oddly enough both of our renter neighbors moving item of choice is the large dark green garbage bag … maybe it’s suiting since they were “garbage” neighbors.

Chris and I are very happy that the criminal element is going to be gone from our neighborhood. Over the last week there have been so many cars, jeeps, SUV’s, and pick up trucks parking outside the house or in our driveway at all times of the day and night that we feared that when it came time for them to be officially kicked out that there would be trouble.

We talked to the home owners yesterday to let them know that we finally saw the awful renters moving out and they said that they’ll probably sell the house after this. That’s a relief because just last week the woman was talking about renting again! Ah .. they’ve had two very bad renters so far … I couldn’t believe they were thinking of renting again! With their and our luck they’d probably make another awful choice and we’d have to live with the neighbors from hell all over again for another 6 months or so … instead, if we’re lucky we’ll get new “real” neighbors in a few months! I can’t wait!

I’m so stressed out!

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I haven’t been feeling like my normally cheery self the last few days. Not even close …

I’ve had two colds or perhaps one loooong cold almost all year! Out of the 10 weeks that we’ve had so far in 2010 I’ve only had two that were cold free. That sucks! I do think I’m finally starting to recover from this latest cold though so maybe in a few days I’ll be done with this virus once and for all.

We’ve also continued to have trouble with our awful renter neighbors. They were supposed to be kicked out by the Sheriff on March 2nd … but as I suspected the home owners daughter in law didn’t do all the paperwork correctly so now they’re going to be evicted by the sheriff on the 23rd. Hopefully they pack up and move on their own this weekend or the next as I think if it comes down to a formal eviction things are going to get nasty. These people are just bad evil nasty people.

I’ve been more stressed the last few days because the renter neighbors – who’s turn it is this month to use the tiny shared driveway we have – have been having a lot of cars going in and out at all hours of the night.

I haven’t had much sleep in the last few days because our dog barks every time she hears our neighbors “visitors” slamming their car doors or talking just outside our house … you know at 2, 3 and 4 a.m! Grrrr

Plus my brother was visiting from Vancouver over the last week so I was staying up to try to keep the dog quite while our neighbors were doing whatever stuff they were doing in the middle of the night.

Now thanks to the cold and all the stress I’ve been under my Crohn’s is really acting up and my abdomen feels like I just had bariatric surgery or something. I mean … it hurts. I don’t want to do anything but lie on the couch and not move, because every time I move or drink or eat anything my abdomen hurts really bad. Damn Crohn’s. What a terrible disease this is.

Hopefully if I take it easy over the next few days my Crohn’s will settle down, my cold will go away and I’ll start to feel better. With any luck our awful renter neighbors will move out on their own as well … I know that will help me de-stress!

Scummy renter neighbors about to be kicked out

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I know I’ve said it before, but it really does look like we might be getting rid of our awful renter neighbors soon. I certainly hope that we will!

We got a call last week from the home owners daughter in law. She said that they’d been trying to kick out our horrid renter neighbors since December! That was news to me because we’d called them to complain about a few of the things the renter neighbors were doing in December and they didn’t say a word.

Anyway … they haven’t paid rent since December and we know they were late on rent in November …pretty bad record since they only moved in in the middle of September huh? But of course our friends that had lived in an apartment building with these scummy people had told us that they wouldn’t be there long as they have a record of not paying rent or bills and just generally being awful people.

They were supposed to be out my March 1st. If they weren’t out, according to the owners daughter in law, the Sheriff was going to come on March 2nd – yesterday, and lock them out.

Well that didn’t happen. So I don’t know if they came up with the almost $5000 they apparently owe or if the Sheriff’s office is backed up and there’s been a delay in their eviction. I think I’ll be called the owners daughter in law later this evening to see what’s happening because we want these people gone just as much or possibly more than they do!

I have a feeling once they get their house back and the scum of the earth renters are gone they are going to find a lot of damage to the house. We’ve heard them pounding things on and off for the last three months. They’ve either been building something in the basement or they are destroying stuff. I certainly wouldn’t want to hear the insurance quote the owners are going to get once they see the house and need to fix it up again.

Oh and these people are really stupid. The home owners I mean – not the renters … they’re seriously considering renting again!

Hmmm .. lets see their first renter destroyed the carpets, broke a chandelier and a window or two and painted over oil painted walls with latex so that everything was peeling. Now these people owe about $5000 in rent and have built up legal expenses for the home owners, plus they’ve probably damaged the house … and yet they still think they might rent out to a third person?

They’re stupid! They’d be better off letting the house sit empty rather than renting again. They obviously can’t pick good renters and they still didn’t go back and call the employers that the bad renter neighbors listed on their application (they only called the supplied phone numbers which were obviously set up as the guy had just got out of jail so he couldn’t have been working for the company he’d said he was.).

I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping that the conniving renters didn’t come up with a way to delay their eviction and that the sheriff will be coming to kick them out sometime soon! I’m also hoping that if it does come down the sheriff showing up to lock them out that it goes down smoothly. these people are really bad news … I just have a feeling that it could come down to a stand off with the police or something. Yeah – that’s how bad they are!

We lost another good neighbor

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One of our neighbors passed away last week. He’d been diagnosed with cancer and had been sent home to be cared for by his family when it was discovered that his cancer was too far advanced to help.

I think it was August when he was sent home and he was given about two months to live at that time. It looks like he lasted longer than the doctors expected, but I don’t think his last months were very good.

He was an elderly man in his 80’s. Luckily he had his family constantly around him to comfort him and help care for him. I’m going to miss him, he was a good man.

We don’t have too many elderly neighbors left! When we first moved here pretty much all of our neighbors were in their 70’s or 80’s. Now they’ve either moved away to live with family, live in a retirement home or have passed away.

I guess we only have two older neighbors now.

The older lady closest to us is becoming a bit like my former stalker elderly neighbor Sofie. She calls us a few times a week to come over and help her with things around the house. Things like changing her vacuum bag for her, or checking out some strange noise she’s heard.

I feel bad for her because she has really bad arthritis in her hands. I think she just started getting some special treatments for rheumatoid arthritis from her doctor, but it will take a while to work if it’s going to help her.

It’s strange how the neighborhood is changing. I know all neighborhoods change, but I don’t think it will be as friendly once all the older folks are gone. I’ve said many times that living on our street is kind of like living in a one street small town (good and bad in that way because everyone knows your business). Now the new people moving in don’t seem to be quite as friendly.

Anyway … I don’t know if we’ll get a new neighbor in the house owned by my neighbor who died or not. One of his daughters had lived with him on a permanent basis. Perhaps she’ll just continue to live there or maybe in the spring we’ll see a for sale sign on the lawn.

Has your neighborhood changed a lot since you moved in?

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