Poughkeepsie is home to Marist, Vassar and The Culinary Institute of America, plus a branch of Adelphi University and Dutchess Community College. And although many spots around the city have been named Registered Historic Places, Poughkeepsie kept popping up on forums and other websites as being an ugly, crime-ridden town that no college student really wanted to venture into.

For the record, we lived 3-5 minutes away from Vassar. Neither Paul nor I ever thought of Poughkeepsie as a college town. It was mostly a shithole with a couple of bright spots. We’re extremely happy to no longer live in the overpriced dump of a city.

So, Paul called the Yonkers office on Thursday and told them it’s been over a month without our dishwasher getting fixed. Again, we get the runaround. Gisene tells Paul that she has to call Sal and makes him wait on the phone. When she returns, she tells Paul that Sal just ordered two dishwashers and we have to call back on Monday. That’s it. End of story. She hangs up.

I swear to God, if this isn’t fixed on Monday, I’m calling the City Attorney’s office and filing a complaint. Then, I’m taking fifty bucks off the rent for every month it’s not fixed. I pay for a dishwasher. If I don’t get one, I’m not paying for it anymore.

Yep, who wants to take bets that Sal actually shows up this time?

At 10:20am, Paul calls the office in Yonkers. They claim that Sal must have confused us with another tenant. Yeah right. The person in the office said they have to get permission from the owners to replace the dishwasher but the owner isn’t in today and they’ll have to call us back. They also don’t know why Sal said he could replace the dishwasher when he can’t give authorization. Finally, the person in the office said someone would be over next week to have a look at the dishwasher.

Sounds like a giant run around to me. Now I have no dishwasher and the stagnant water in the dishwasher is starting to smell.

As usual, no one is anywhere to be seen. No one returns our messages either.

So, he walks over and proceeds to switch off some circuit breakers.  Fortunately, I stop him before he gets to the computer and computer equipment.  Surprise!  The dishwasher still doesn’t work.  After a whopping five minutes, he tells me, “I have no time to fix this.  I’ve got other things I need to fix.  I two dishwashers on order and I’ll just give you a new one when they come in.”

Yeah, I know.  Moron.  So he goes to the closet door and messes with it.  “Yep, it’s broken,” he says and then moves on to the front door.  I insist that he fix this as we haven’t been able to lock the door properly for nearly a month.  He fixes that and leaves at 2:20pm.

No, I don’t think the dishwasher will be fixed before we move out of here.

I just love living here and having every section of our lease broken by the landlord day after day, with no help from anyone to force them to fix stuff.  Friggin’ slum.  I feel sorry for anyone new who moves into this shithole.

Get up at 4am, hit the reset button on hot water heater.  This is the only way to make heat because the hot water heater has turned itself off, again, while you were sleeping.  You will have hot water by 5am, but only for one 4 minute shower.  You will not actually have heat.  You must choose heat or hot water.  You cannot have both.

The hot water heater will turn itself off again and you will have to go upstairs and hit the reset button again around 5:30am to get heat for the house.

Wrap up in a blanket until around 7am, when you have to go back and hit the reset button again.  Wrap yourself up into your blanket until 9am when you telephone the landlord, leaving a message to inform him of the problem.

Go about your day as best as you can, considering you have a blanket wrapped around you.   Hit the reset button again around noon.  Go back downstairs and keep your hands warm by making something hot on the stove for lunch.  After lunch, call the landlord and leave another message, this time adding that the leak in the kitchen is worse than before and that closet door is still not fixed, three years after moving in.

Go back to your usual routine for a few more hours until the heater packs it in again sometime between 3pm and 4pm.  Run upstairs and hit the reset button.  Find something to cook for dinner and hover over the stove to keep warm.  Telephone the landlord once more (because the repairmen leave at 4pm) about your condition and then eat dinner.

Wrap up in a blanket on the couch and watch the news on TV.  Go back to the heater and hit the reset button again between 7pm and 8pm.  Get back to the warm couch as soon as possible.

Watch Keith Olbermann at 8pm.  Get ready for bed at 9pm, checking to make sure there is heat.  Go to sleep.  Get up at 4am and start the game over again.

Last Wednesday, someone decided it was a good idea to rake the leaves and leave them at the bottom of the stairs.  Everyone that lives in my building had to kick the leaves away so we could get through and see the bottom step.  It’s now Monday and the leaves are still sitting there.  At this rate, we should have some good compost pretty soon.

This morning, as I took Paul to work, I literally got to drive through an obstacle course of garbage bags.  Some were still sealed, while others were busted open, making the obstacle bigger.  I just love how people can’t seem to manage to actually put garbage into the dumpster.

Lastly, on Thursday, the owners, in their infinite wisdom, decided that we needed more speed bumps.  We had four.  Now we have eight.  That’s eight speed bumps for the 1/4 mile that I have to drive from the entrance to the townhouses to my parking spot.  The best part: they are too high and not rounded off.  There are ninety degree angles on both sides of the speed bumps.  I’m sure that’s good for my car.

I really can’t wait to move from this shithole.  I swear to God, my cursing will be cut in half just by moving from this place.