Heading back to Montreal for Phase Deux, I was certain that living with someone was something I wanted to experience. Both Montreal Phase Une and Paris Phase Une had been spent by myself, in decent apartments, but without the company of colocs (roommates).
It was great, being the Ruler of the Kingdom and not answering to anyone, but it did get lonesome at times. That and the romantic in me thinking that my new coloc(s) would be Joey, Ross, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe, and we'd all live happily ever after while drinking coffee.
I asked my Facebook friends about having roommates, and their responses were fairly similar…it is real fun to be around people your own age at home.
It did not work out that way.
Living on the other side of the country during the summer meant that I had no choice but to use Craigslist and Kijiji to find a place. I was armed with my criteria (max $700/month rent, near a metro station, in Le Plateau neighborhood, coloc around my age), and found a place that, as the cliché goes, was too good to be true. An apartment in Le Plateau, a five minute walk from Mont-Royal metro, with a 23 year old Concordia student, for $450/month.
Sign me up, eh!
I arrived to the apartment on August 27th. My roommate was still in Toronto, where he lives. Great, for the first couple of days, I get to see the place for myself and form my own opinion.
My first instinct was that it just wasn't a nice place at all. For starters, the design of the apartment was very odd…it was long and thin, with very little open space. The bedroom was terribly painted had loose floor panels (both were common throughout the apartment). The living room was tiny and right in front of the bathroom. The bathroom itself was very small, didn't have a mirror, and the pipes were leaking in the shower. I remember thinking that it was only a matter of times before Bed Bugs invaded us.
The kitchen was fairly open, but full of fruit flies, empty liquor bottles, and chairs that were assembled wrong.
Still I wasn't fully convinced I had to move.
And then I saw the bong (for those unaware, a bong is an apparatus used to effectively and efficiently inhale marijuana).
That was enough for me to send some Facebook messages to friends back home. No one wants to live with a druggie and, while most of us have smoked pot at one point or another, having a bong in the living room implies that it's a very habitual activity.
I began looking for places, thinking that I may just be able to leave the apartment before even meeting the guy.
Meanwhile, I was sleeping on the couch, as my Ikea furniture had not arrived. In total, it was a full week that I went without sleeping on a mattress. Adventuring through Europe was a Taylor-Swift type lifestyle compared to this.
He came three days later, and I thought we were going to get to know each other and establish some house rules/guidelines, etc. Unfortunately for me, he came with four friends back home who were going to crash with us for the Labour Day weekend. Not the greatest first impression.
They were all alright guys, including him. We talked, went out one night on Boulevard Saint Laurent, and got along well enough. But him and his friends smoked (both pot and cigarettes) CONSTANTLY during that weekend. I mean, several times per hour they would do it. The house wreaked. But because his friends were there that weekend, I wasn't comfortable talking about it. It seemed like the relationship started off on a horrible foundation.
His friends eventually left after a couple of days, but not before they dirtied up the apartment with cigarette butts and smoke, and just bringing junk in.
The roommate and I talked about the smoking and he said he'd limit it to the outdoors (which, to his credit, he did).
At that point, I had cancelled my Ikea delivery, thinking it was only a matter of time before I moved. But I still hadn't found a place I wanted to live in, so instead I found a company that rented furniture.
I was still sleeping on wood floors, and the roommate and I got to know each other over a few days. While he was a nice enough guy, I knew I probably wouldn't be friends with him if I met him in the streets. His body was fairly tattooed up (not that it's a problem with me), he smoked weed CONSTANTLY (several times an hour), and he swore every other word ("I have to shop for some f#$% groceries"). We hung out a few times and watched some movies, but those habits, combined with his awful first impression, meant that the relationship wasn't starting off on the right foot.
Still, I wasn't very vigorous in my search for a new place. My parents were constantly phoning me, begging me to move out.
The kicker for me was two-fold…firstly, when his drug dealer entered the house to deliver the weed, and secondly, when my coloc told me stories of him doing cocaine, ecstasy, and MDMA (all sold to him by the same bulky, tattooed Lebanese fellow who had entered our house).
At that point, I knew I had to get out, and fast. Still, I was stalling. Moving all your stuff from one place to another is a pain in the ass. No other way of putting it. And a part of me figured that I could make it work in a fruit-fly laden, smoke-filled, horribly painted apartment. We all have that Garbage Apartment during university, I figured that the place could be my Garbage Apartment that I looked back on with fond memories.
Then I got a phone call from my parents, with them basically threatening to fly across the country unless I moved out within a couple of days (they called on Sunday, so I had until Tuesday to move). Yikes.
I aggressively looked, and found a couple of studios and a furnished three bedroom apartment in a student-exclusive building. I decided on living with other students. It was the right call. I had paid rent at the other place, which meant I could gradually move my stuff out.
I then told the coloc that I was leaving. He was baked when I mentioned it, which was lucky for me.
I learned a lot from that whole episode, and have my parents to thank for much of it, even though they were a few thousand miles away. Parents can do many things: teach us how to shoot a hockey puck, buy us school supplies, and kick us in the butt. I needed a swift kick in the rear, and am now in a much nicer, cleaner, more comfortable living situation. Thank you, mom and dad!
I also learned that money is just money when it comes to comfort, safety, and living properly. If the police went into that apartment, they could easily come away with hundreds of dollars worth of illegal drugs. My roommate was an alright guy, but nothing would have stopped him from throwing it all into my room and blaming me, should that situation have arisen.
Money's hard not to think about, but it's just that: paper and plastic.
My new place was a bit more in rent, but very much in the heart of downtown, and just a 10 minute metro ride from Le Plateau, my favourite part of Montréal. I'm right beside McGill University, have a gym and games room in my building, and am in a very nice apartment.
I came out here to go to a university I am proud of, and now have an home I am proud of. And yes, there is a couch waiting if any friends want to come by!
À bientôt (et avec plus des histoires),
