March 24th: When I moved into this apartment, Jess and I had certain expectations and agreements with our landlady/host lady/ landlord, Nelly. We were told when we paid our month's-rent-security-deposit that we would have full use of the kitchen, appliances, washer, pots and pans, bathrooms, living room, terrace, and other rooms. We would each have our own shelves in the fridge. We could come and go as we pleased as long as we were quiet. We could have one friend stay overnight if we asked her first, and we could have visitors.
March 30th: Once I arrived (Jess moved in two weeks afterward, when the German girl moved out) Nelly also extended her generosity to include the use of her Tupperware. She also told me I was free to store clothes on Soraya (her daughter)'s terrace, where there is a large drying rack, if my load of laundry was too big for the rack in the laundry room.
April 1st: We can't use the washing machine Monday night to Wednesday morning, all day Thursday and all day Saturday because the maid uses it then to wash Nelly and her daughter's clothes. Within my first day in the apartment, Nelly came and told me I had to dry my dishes and put them away soon after washing them because the drying rack would get filled up too quickly.
April 7th: Nelly scolded me for using the drying rack on Soraya's terrace, citing the fact that we are not allowed to dry clothing out on the terraces and we would get a fine, which I would have to pay, since they're my clothes, if anyone saw the clothing out there. I would like to point out that since we are on the 10th floor, only people on the 10-14th floors of the building next door would even see the clothing, and Nelly was the one who told me to put it out there in the first place. Also, Soraya dries clothing out there every day; I can see it from the laundry room.
April 15th: Jess arrives! Nelly yelled at us for slamming doors during the night. Jess's room has a drafty window that won't stay closed and the wind slammed her door once. We put some clothing out on the terrace thinking that a few hours wouldn't hurt and also because Jess had 6 weeks worth of dirty clothes that she had no access to a washing machine to wash (the hostel and the laundromat prices were OUTRAGEOUS; close to a $1 an article of clothing!). This time when Nelly reprimanded us, it was because we were not allowed to enter Soraya's room for any reason. At this time, my doors were being opened at night on occasion; I don't know by whom, but that means someone was entering my room as well.) Within the first two days of her stay, Nelly changed the dishes rule to Dry Everything Immediately and put it away. FYI, this is the revolting result of Nelly and Soraya's dishes:
Because they have a maid to clean up after them, they stopped cleaning any dishes altogether, and instead, just pile them up in the sink and on the counter until the maid comes to do it for them. We also lost a shelf privilege and the two of us had to share one single shelf of the fridge in the laundry room. Yes, there's a fridge in there; YES, there's a second fridge in the actual kitchen. That's our shelf in the middle. See what's on the bottom shelf? a single piece of pumpkin. And the top shelf? a layer of vegetables and one milk carton. Give me a break.
April 16th: Because we have so little space to claim as our own, the maid used my frozen vegetables in food for Nelly (none of which we share, ever). The same day, one of our eggs went missing; Soraya had taken it and eaten it for breakfast, despite the fact that her mother refuses to buy any type of white or bleached egg, only brown ones. The one she took was white (the kind we bought from the grocery store as opposed to the kind you buy in the fresh market).
April 19th: A Friday night. We thought it would be fun to make cookies together. We bought a mix at Jumbo, and some zucchinis to make zucchini chips in the oven with, but were interrupted and stopped 30 minutes in to be told that a new rule was in place; we cannot use the oven for more than 30 minutes at a time because the oven required a lot of electricity and power and her bill would go up. How one is supposed to do anything in the oven that takes less than thirty minutes is beyond me. We rushed through our cookies and took them out early because we had no time left.
April 20th: Today we finally sojourned to the open air market in Santiago, La Vega, a separate blog post :) We bought a TON of groceries, so excited to sautée and stew our little aspiring cooks hearts out. In Chile, it is necessary to soak ground-growing produce in a solution of chlorine to kill bacteria that grow. We separated everything into shifts so we would maximize the amount of food being cleaned at one time. We were a little worried about everything fitting into our little shelf, but we hoped it would work out. Nelly had said if we needed more space we could put one or two things on another shelf, but we weren't sure how many would constitute too many and we didn't want her to reprimand us again. Jess and I, two wild and crazy chicks, threw a raging party that Saturday night, standing at the sink talking quietly and washing vegetables. Nelly got very upset with us for this use of her kitchen and told us to stop. She said we were using too many of her dishes, despite the fact that we cleaned and dried and replaced every single dish. We were loud and ocupando mucho la cocina. This means we were literally taking up too much of her kitchen. On a Saturday. night. at 11pm when she was in bed watching TV. Yep. As a result of our rowdiness, Nelly developed a brand new rule- We are not allowed to use any pots, pans, skillets, bowls, or big utensils. We were just using too much stuff.
April 21st: We were caught cleaning some plates from lunch! Nelly rebuked us, saying that we were not allowed to use her dish soap any longer and we have to buy our own. We were also cut off from the sponges, placemats, and dish towels.
April 22nd: Monday morning. Yes! Nelly would be at work, we could cook a bunch of stuff and clean and get it out of the way without anything going bad and she would never even know! We wouldn't get in trouble! Until, of course, when she surprised us and came home in the middle of the day (for the first time ever in our month in the apartment; she was having lunch at home so she could play with her 5 month old infant grandson who happened to be staying the week with us. Oh, did I not mention that to you guys? It's ok; it was a surprise to us too! Hooray!). She was muy enojada. Very angry. She told us we needed to have a talk. She berated us for about 15 minutes on how we were no longer allowed to use the kitchen. PERIOD. She complained that we used the kitchen a lot and all her previous renters never did this. She said she doesn't like people in her kitchen. Yes, you read that right. I directly asked her why we were not allowed to use it when we cleaned and replaced everything immediately and never made a mess or much noise. Her response? "It bothers me. I don't like people in my kitchen. I don't like it. I don't want you in here." She argued that most of the other renters were students and they didn't use up her kitchen and her house all the time. They only made pasta and other small things and used the microwave. From now on, she said, you can only use the kitchen once a week, and can only cook pasta. Yes, I clarified that with her too; "We can only cook pasta????!?!!?!?!??!" "Sí, solamente fideos. y usar la microondas" (Yes only pasta. And use the microwave). From that point on, we were monitored anytime we were in the kitchen. The maid would wander in and back out without doing anything; Nelly would come in, get water and go back out; Soraya would come and eat a piece of bread and then leave.
April 29th: Jess was told not to use their toilet paper anymore, and would have to buy her own from now on. (I had my own bathroom so I understood having to buy my own. Jess shared one of three bathrooms available to Soraya and Nelly.) SERIOUSLY?!
A few recurring issues: constantly chided for "leaving lights on," though I never did because I never left my room (my bathroom is attached) and Jess was extremely careful to turn them off behind her. Basically, the daughter Soraya would do something, tell her mother she didn't, and then Nelly would come blame us. At one point Jess just lied and said she did it and she was very sorry, just to get Nelly to stop yelling at her in Spanish! This greedy, foul old woman also threatened at least once a day to raise our rent if we didn't teach her English. She knew we were teachers and at first, joked around about us teaching her. We didn't find it very jocular however, when we are paid 10,000clp an hour to teach. This is our profession! If she wanted lessons, she would need to pay for them. There was no basis of respect that would have made us feel obligated to teach her a little bit, just to be nice, or to appease her. She would demand it, in a nice or kidding sort of way. When we didn't laugh or give in, she would huff or pout until we awkwardly changed the subject. When it got to the point that she wouldn't let the subject change, and also told us she lowered our rent (see this post, back when I bargained with her for our current rent rate) I finally got the guts to tell her Listen, our fee for teaching English is 40,000 a month for one hour a week of lessons. You only lowered our rent 30,000 so if you want lessons for free, you need to lower it more. So she responded, Well I guess I just need to raise it higher then! Hahaha. To which we replied with a stony-faced silence, because this was no longer a joke, and was never funny.
At this point, we knew we needed to get the HELL out of here. This crazy witch was clearly not adhering to the "bargain" we had agreed upon in March. I say bargain because my room is no larger than my actual bed, we have these ridiculous rules, and yet we each pay almost $450 per person per month. She reneged every single advantage or offer she made when we moved in, and still expected us to be pleased with living in this awful situation. Jess and I were stuck; on the one hand, if we tried to leave, she would no doubt keep our security deposit. On the other hand, if we stayed, we would be miserable!
We asked our coworkers for help because we didn't know who else to turn to. One of the girls from the office actually came to our apartment to help us talk to her to explain the situation and discuss our options with her. But of course, almost as if she knew what we were planning, Nelly came home uncharacteristically early, and left about 5 minutes before Jess walked in the door with our friend. Next up we tried Andrea, the coordinator of our TeachingChile program. She came over late on Monday night to help us talk with Nelly in a civil way. Our end result was that we would stay for two weeks, until the 15th of May, because in Nelly's words it was customary to give two week's notice so she could find replacement renters (an unlikely possibility- if we can warn anyone and everyone in Santiago NOT to live with this psycho woman and her entitled brat of a daughter, we will). At the end of the two weeks, she would give us each half our deposit back. Thank God! We can't WAIT to get out of this loathsome apartment and have a little freedom! Now, we just have to go back on all the search lists and try to find a new place to live.... oy vey.
UPDATE! May 7th: We have a new place! It's a one bedroom apartment. Jess and I will be sharing a double bed, but it's only for 1 month; I think we can handle it. We move out and in on the 15th. Can't wait!!!
UPDATE! May14th: I talked to Nelly three days ago to ask that she give us our deposit on Tuesday night because we were leaving early on Wednesday evening (we have to meet the new landlady so she can let us in; it can't be too late at night). At first she said yes, but then she said what time, and when I told her 730pm, she said she would be home and that first we had to "entregar," deliver, her rooms to her in the exact condition we received them. Aka, she's going to inspect them for anything different, dirty, or wrong, and try to take money out of our deposits. I REFUSE to let her however, since the room is cleaner now that I'm living in it than it was when I moved into it. We are very nervous for Wednesday because we don't know if Andrea will be around to help if anything goes wrong, but we'll see what happens. You'll be the
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