Keeping your cat’s away from the blinds

First off, I wanted to start this post off by saying please keep a friend of mine in your prayers she just had to putt down her yorkie a few weeks ago I talked to this friend last night and I can tell she is still upset over it. The yorkie’s name was Bella.

So, where we left off with my last post was when I was being told that they company that owned the apartment complex didn’t want to renew my lease. I had already made up my mind that I didn’t want to renew my lease. My thought process on all of this was, she keeps making mistakes and us tenants are having to pay for her mistakes. Not to mention I think this is the third summer that the pool was closed all summer for repairs. The pool was disgusting.

It was later, that week I ran into a guy who had lived in the complex awhile I hung out with him and his friends a lot and he was telling me that there were a lot of empty apartments, everyone was moving out because Maria, the office manager of the apartments made the tenants not happy with her. There were three more weird inspections that week. One was that Wednesday; one was also that Thursday. I asked one of the other tenants that I had seen around and had seen at a Christmas party a couple of years ago, “do you know what all of these inspections are about, there seems to be one every week.” Getting to be everyday he replied, and no I don’t know what it’s about but it’s starting to make me mad I pay all of this money to live here, and I just want to be left alone.” Same here,” I replied we talked a little longer and then I went on my way, because I had things I needed to get done that day. Me and a few of the other tenants were at another tenant’s apartment having drinks with him let’s call him Jim and a friend of his that didn’t live in the complex and that all came up about how, “yeah, she can have all of these weird inspections, but she can’t get these work orders done.” “Oh, and let’s not forget that we pay all of this money in rent every month and we can’t even use the pool another tenant chimed in.”

That next day of course there was another inspection, and I think I was about to have a temporary nervous breakdown because I was so sick of the crap that came with living in that apartment complex, and I was tired of Maria’s crap. I had to run several errands that day and several times I had to stop back by the apartment because I was finding that I was forgetting something. Seemed like I had to return to the apartment three times that day because I had forgotten something and every time, I had returned to the apartment to get what I had forgotten there was a new notice on the door. I remember that one of those notice’s said something about the possibility of evicting me.

Well, I thought that was rather hilarious because of the fact that I already had a new apartment and a move in date. I was chilling with Jim and some of the gang that hung out with sometimes at Jims apartment having drinks and I was telling them about that. I was telling them, well I’m afraid she is not going to get the pleasure of kicking me out because I already have a new place. We all had a very good laugh about that. That next weekend I moved out of that crappy studio apartment and low and behold guess what they were having that Saturday. You guessed it another inspection. I was just like these people need to get lives, as I saw them coming out of a 2nd floor apartment and descending the stairs. It was an apartment that faced the parking lot. Maria gave a smile and an energetic hi as me, friends and parents were going towards the stairs to my, soon to be empty second floor apartment I said hi back and rolled my eyes.

We got the last of my stuff into the truck, and I had to come back for the cats because they weren’t going to fit in the truck, so I left the cats in their carriers so that when I got back, I could just put them in the car and go. As we were pulling out of the parking lot Maria and her inspection crew were ascending the stairs to inspect the apartment right beside mine. I went back for the cat’s that day, and I was all moved in, and I was happy.

The next day I went back to get some of the few things that I left at the old apartment. If you haven’t moved in a while you forget just how much of a pain in the butt moving is. There was just so much to do, and I was going to make another trip back to the old apartment to do some cleaning. I didn’t get around to it. It was May and I had also actually found out that I was also told that my lease was up in June when it was actually up in July. That was another thing I was upset with Maria about. The first of June came up and there was an unusually low balance on the resident portal. I didn’t ask questions I just paid it. I ended up having to make a trip home to my parents to deal with something that had to do with my parents and upon returning to San Antonio that Sunday evening I stopped by the old apartment and what do you know there was another notice on my door. The notice was basically trying to accuse me of not paying my full amount that I owed in rent. I was not happy, I put the notice in one of my folders in my car that I use for business stuff and started doing the necessary cleaning that is required upon move out. There was a lot more to do when it started getting dark so I just said I would pick this up another day. I was hoping that other day would be tomorrow but looking at how busy I had been with stuff lately I didn’t think that was likely. When I got home, I immediately went to my computer to pay my rent on the apartment that I had just moved out of, and I couldn’t help but notice how it mentioned if the remaining balance of the amount due was not paid at a certain date and blah blah blah it could result in my eviction from the premises. I kind of laughed and was like whatever and went to bed.

I was able to get everything done with the move by Thursday, but I thought it would take all day Thursday but I was amazed at how early I got through with everything so I decided to go and see what else I could get done with the apartment that I had just moved out of. I got there and parked in the front parking lot I get out and make my way to my building and then Maria walks out of the office and up to me saying “Mr. Pierce.” I sighed and answered, yes? I was not happy to see her. I just wanted to get done what I came to get done and go. “I need to have a word with you can you come to my office.” I really didn’t want to, but I just wanted to get the bad issues just over so reluctantly I said yes and followed her to her office. She was asking, “are you pretty much all moved out?”

“I answered I have some other stuff to do in there.” She asked, “well can I go in and inspect?” I told her, “I would rather you didn’t because I have more stuff to do in there.” She basically went anyway, and I followed. She was yelling and complaining about how the cat’s tore up the blinds then she was yelling

and complaining about how it still smelled in the apartment like cats, and how the maintenance guys couldn’t even go in there to work because of the smell. “I told her that her maintenance guys needed to grow up or man up or something because both of my parents are the biggest germophobic’s in the world and even they weren’t complaining as much as she was and as much as her was implying that her maintenance crew was complaining.”

She was asking me if I knew how to get rid of the smell. “I told her there is this stuff called pooph, and it is mostly to get rid of the odor in the litter box, but it can be used to get rid of cat odors around the house.”

Then she went on to talk about how, “she can’t get rid of the roaches and everyone in this building is complaining about it.” I told her, “apparently not everyone in this building because I know someone in another building that is complaining about how bad the roach problem is.” My friend that had lived there a little longer than me let’s call her Jan. She texted me one day asking me, “do you have roaches and telling me she did, and it was really aggravating her.” She said that she had her apartment roach bombed and that got rid of the roaches for a little while and then they came back. According to Jan the roaches were coming from a guy on the bottom floor on the other end of her building and apparently Jan knew him because she said he was nasty.

I told Maria this and then I told her, but I bet your going to renew his lease. I told her, “I am not one of the troublemakers so i don’t know why I am being told that y’all don’t want to renew my lease, and then y’all tape this notification on my door talking about how you’re going to evict me.” I told her, “good luck with that because I already have a new apartment.” She replied by saying, “please don’t smart off to me like that Mr. Pierce.” “I told her I have the right to smart off the sink fell through the kitchen cabinet three times and the third time maintenance never got around to fixing it.”

Then she went on to say that I was the one keeping five cats in the apartment and that’s how all of the roaches started, why didn’t you report this. I told her because I didn’t want anyone in my apartment and because I have my own stuff. She asked what that means I angrily sighed and said it means that I use to be a pest control tech I know what works. She said Well it doesn’t look like it worked very well because everyone was complaining about roaches because of you, you and your 5 cats, I hope you’re not doing that in your new apartment. That’s none of your business I replied. Well, it is my business that your apartment isn’t orderly, and you have animals that are unaccounted for. I told her it’s a little hard to keep things orderly when the sink has fallen through the cabinet, and no one has fixed it yet.

and I told her the cat situation was something that I worked out as a business deal with my business partner I didn’t know it was going to be a permanent situation, and I told her I can’t take them to the shelter because they are full, and they will only take them under certain guidelines. She replied by saying that she hasn’t heard anything about shelters being full and I told her that she obviously hasn’t been paying attention to some of the internet articles about some of that stuff because that is how I knew that.

She told me Well I thought we had a good relationship before all of this started. I told her yeah, we did until you came knocking on my door the week after the sink that had fallen through the kitchen cabinet a third time and maintenance was supposed to fix it and you were demanding to know when I was going to clean the week after it was supposed to be fixed and when I had family visiting from out of town. She said Well with the cat situation you could have come to the office and gone over your options instead you just did what you want you and your 5 cats I told her I didn’t because I am not stupid i don’t have any options that’s the whole point and it would have escalated like it is now. She then said Well you are going to be charged for the pest control fee.

I told her fine I don’t care but the longer we sit here arguing about this the longer it is going to take me to get this done. She said I am not arguing with you Mr. pierce. I rolled my eyes and said whatever then she goes on to say that i could have said no to my business partner about the cats I told her that I needed that business deal to work out. I was like you want your rent money don’t you. she said something that I don’t remember after that and then she needed a favor, I thought that was very interesting. I have found that it is always the most demanding and dramatic individuals that always need a favor. Will you help me move the refrigerator out. I was reluctant but I helped move out the refrigerator from the wall, walked out and went to my car to get my cleaning supplies.

As I was coming back to the apartment, she was coming down the stairs and she said Well can I call you later after you get done yeah whatever I angrily retorted. She replied angrily saying thank you for being so nice Mr. pierce. I got done what I needed to get done it was mostly just cleaning mirrors and a couple of spots on the walls and of course windows.

So basically, the reason she left her office to confront me in the first place is because where I parked, she could kind of see into the parking lot from the window in her office and my apartment is right in front of the windows that look into her office/the clubhouse. That is something I never liked while living there. The next time I went back I parked in the back of the complex that way I wouldn’t have to deal with her and of course low and behold the sink still had not been fixed. I had to go back one more time that last week and went after hours and parked in the back again just to avoid another escalated confrontation with the office manager. I have a new apartment now and all of my cats are accounted for. However, you can’t tell me that I was the only one that had a friend/not friend because I don’t like him. dump his cats on them. I think it has been happening a lot because I have another friend whose brother just moved to San Antonio and in his apartment complex apparently pest control had been by, and they send out a memo talking about there were certain tenants that had pets that are not on the lease.

Today’s topic is keeping your cat away from the blinds. Basically, the new apartment is a lot nicer, and I am able to keep things more orderly because there are closets with decent amounts of closet space. the closet is walk in by the way. The Kitching and living area are a decent size, there is also a reasonable amount of counter space. as well as storage space for dishes and food and canned goods stuff like that. What I really didn’t want was a repeat of what happened with my last apartment. I say this because my cats are very curious and the first thing, they want to do is get behind the blinds and lay on the window seal or look out the window. There was also this desk chair that I sit in when I am at my workstation that they like to sit in and claw at as well.

I did a google search on it and I found out that cat’s hate citrussy things or citrussy smelling things. So, i went out and got a spray bottle and a couple of bottles of lemon juice and poured the lemon juice in the spray bottle. I then sprayed the desk chair that I sit in when I am sitting at my workstation and then I just went around the apartment spraying the blinds all over.

Well like usual the orange cat went over to the chair to sit on it like he usually does and then he immediately jumped down. I guess you could say it worked, and it didn’t. I still see them at the blinds but not like they were. The same with the chair. What I didn’t like about the lemon juice that I spayed on the blinds is that it kind of formed a mist of brown spots and at the bottom it turned the strings that hold the blinds together brown. I kind of came to the conclusion that with the furniture you are trying to keep your cat’s off of you should probably repeat the spraying of the citrusy stuff every week.

The cats were still kind of messing with the blinds a little bit but not as much as they were before. However, they were messing with the blinds in the bedroom enough to give me cause for concern and make me nervous. My thinking of how to deal with the issue was to raise the blinds and put a blanket or something over the window. I was wanting to give the apartment a southwest look especially because architecturally, it looked kind of southwest on the exterior I thought this would be perfect and I just happened to have a blanked that had a bunch of tribal and Native American designs on it.

I felt like I needed another one, so I went to this place in the Market Square in downtown San Antonio. Across from this awesome Mexican Resteraunt called La Margarita’s. and if you have an hour or two to kill or you’re on your lunch break stop in and have their sour cream enchilada’s they are awesome! The building where all of these shops are that I got the native American blanket before are kind of square unit shops and they are in this kind of rectangular building in the market square. Well, I purchased the blanked and it was a little bit smaller than the first one, but I knew it would do the trick. I got home and raised the blinds, and I thumbtacked the smaller blanket to the inner sides of the wall supporting the window and used pushpins to thumbtack the larger blanket over the window itself. Someone from the apartment complex that I had moved from did something similar to that plus my mother had an idea and I put those two ideas together to form this one.