We hear and read a great deal about the Shady Landlord Scenario, especially since we live and work within a college community. Some landlords appreciate the student body and the fiscal opportunity that we present, and they treat us good, while others hire trained roaches as welcoming wagons. This year, my roommates and I are experiencing a bit of the latter variety.

The heat only works on one side of our house, commonly referred to as The Warm Side, and our basement is the breeding ground to a hybrid species of insect a cross between an angry water bug and a drunk scorpion. All this is small stuff, however, compared to our recent problem one in which I’m fairly confident is entirely illegal and certainly immoral.

We’re being charged $83 because our lawn wasn’t mowed properly. Now, this in itself is humorous considering the fact that the house is such a dismal eye sore on the outside that anyone driving by would have a difficult time concentrating on any sort of vegetation because of the excessive amount of White Trashish indicators that are in plain view. (Broken bottles, decaying pumpkins, paintball remains, the house goat Sanchez, happily eating away at all three.)

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However, lawns should be kept nice looking, so I won’t argue with the city policy concerning the timely mowing of grass. In fact, my problem isn’t at all with the city who found our grass length inappropriate. The problem lies in the fact that the city found our grass length inappropriate in September. As you know, it isn’t September so much as it is late January, yet we’ve just now been notified by our landlord that we owe them $83, which is a bizarre monetary sum in itself considering the situation. Why $83? Do they have something against 5s? What about zeroes? I think we could use a few more round numbers hanging around.

Anyway, we paid them the $83 after a heated and animated conversation that was punctuated with a number of Power Words such as Eviction, and Homeless, then retired in defeat to our half-warm house.

I’d like to warn others about the injustice that we are experiencing, to tell them to avoid this particular property agency, but I’m fairly confident that this noble and valiant action would only result in more living hassles for me and my roommates. Plus, I don’t particularly care.

So, in conclusion, I suppose if there is a moral to this story, it would have to be Don’t expect a half-wit goat to just casually accept the heavy responsibility that comes with proper lawn maintenance that or Burn your grass. I don’t know, I’m not really into that whole Learn from your mistakes bit. But I will say one thing, if you find yourself trying to decide whether to live in an apartment or a house, go with the former. It takes a lot less energy to warm one-half apartment.