Let's Not Meet Again

House Sitting and the Owner's Crazy Ex

Some few months ago, a friend of mine in the Navy was given orders to be stationed in Virginia. She had attempted for a while to find a renter for her house, but was unsuccessful. Still hopeful, she offered to let me stay at the place for free if I help find a renter and keep maintenance on the place. Additionally, she had to leave one of her cats behind since she had no room to take it (it seemed a bit negligent if you ask me, but it wasn't my decision, and I love cats). Originally, I was pretty excited to live in a house for free. I live in the barracks and it can get cramped being in a small room with another person. So I accepted.

When I got to the place however, I was very disappointed. The house was large, but holy hell was it trashed. Junk laid around willy-nilly, dust covered everything, fleas were everywhere, and it definitely smelled like cats lived there. This was pretty surprising to me, since my friend seemed like she was a pretty clean person. Sadly mistaken. Still, I stayed a bit hopeful. It would be simple to get some friends together to clean up the place and make it comfortable. I helped her finish packing and we sat around and chatted for a bit. That's when she told me about her ex.

He was Army, like me, but in a different unit than mine. Originally, he had been charming according to her, but had become unsuitable for her for whatever reason. When she called it off, and told him that he had two weeks to leave, he became insufferably annoying and childish. Hiding her boots, terrorizing the cats, leaving the place a mess (more than it already was), and parking his car behind hers so that she couldn't leave without her pitching a fit. He eventually did leave, and that was the end of it.

Apparently.

After she left, I pretty much stayed away from the place until the scheduled day for me and my buddies to clean up, dropping by every day to clean the cat box and feed the cat. One night however, after dinner with a friend of mine, she offered to tag along with me to go feed the cat. She was one of the people that had agreed to help clean, so I figured it'd be good to let her see the place to plan out what needed to be done.

When we got to the house, and stepped out, I remember hearing a loud rustling coming from the surrounding trees. I figured it was some animal. As I think back on it, it could have been my memory just making the situation worse, but it is a pretty big part of the memory. As I walked up to the door, I felt incredibly uneasy, like something was wrong and that I shouldn't be here right now. But, I didn't want to waste my friend's time, so I shrugged it off.

I was a bit confused when I went to unlock the door as well. The bolt lock was a bit finicky, and sometimes wouldn't unlock properly, so I often had to "unlock" it multiple times; that is, turn the lock, try to open the door, and so on until it actually unlocked. This time however, the door opened after the first turn. At the time, I mostly figured it was just luck; but in the back of my mind, I pondered whether or not I had forgotten to lock it to begin with. Either way, after entering I was about to head upstairs to feed the cat, but when I attempted to flick on the lights in the entryway, only one of the two lit up. The other one didn't, so I assumed it must have blown, but when I stepped closer to see, I stepped in a small puddle of water, catching me off guard.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the light fixture was completely filled with water, and some leek from wherever was dripping water onto the floor. Additionally, I heard a light rumbling that, at the time, I assumed was the AC. I knew the AC was right above the entryway on the top floor, so I thought maybe it was faulty or had broken and was leaking (I've never owned my own place, so I don't know the ins and outs of this type of stuff, so this made perfect sense at the time). Great, I thought, more issues to address. Still, I was there for a purpose, so I told my friend to check out the place to get an idea of what supplies may be needed to clean it, while I went upstairs to feed the cat.