Okay, pull up a chair for the sad story...
Not quite two years ago the apartment building I live in - a quaint old 1937 fourplex in the Miracle Mile area of Los Angeles - was sold. The previous owners, who had owned the property for almost 50 years, died and left the property to their son who couldn't sell it fast enough.
In the process of the sale, we had to endure the extreme inconvenience and invasion of all these real estate people and potential buyers clomping through the place. We have lived here since early 1991. We had accumulated a lot of stuff, both my partner and I being borderline pack rats. And then there were all the vacuum cleaners.......
We had to endure many unkind and humiliating comments about the place, and especially of my vacuum cleaner collection. One potential buyer flat out asked, "So what are you going to do with all that crap when I buy this building and throw you out?" Even the realtor, with whom we actually became friendly and gave us much good advice, told me that if I had any idea at all of staying in this apartment, that all the stuff would have to go, including the vacuum cleaners.
Well, I just went into an emotional tailspin around this, as did my partner. And we had more than one heated argument that if I hadn't had "all those f@@@@@@ vacuums," we would not be in that predicament. (Never mind his box after box after box of old magazines etc. that lined the hallway.......)
So I got really scared and decided I would have to get rid of most of my vacuum cleaners as I had nowhere to put them. I decided to part with everything except my Electrolux and Kirby collection and a couple of other really special things, so I had a big "eviction sale." I guess I got rid of a dozen or so cleaners outright, and then a couple more machines went on eBay and I gave away a couple that no one wanted to buy. One of the casualties of that traumatic experience was my 925.
As it all turned out, the new owner could NOT have legally evicted us unless he intended to occupy the unit, but we found that out too late. Despite his threats, he could not have evicted us because our place was, as he put it, a "fire trap." It was not really THAT bad, as people who have been here will tell you.
Besides, the Los Angeles County Housing Authority has very strict rent control ordinances that crooked property owners are always trying to subvert, usually without luck as the Housing Authority is definitely on the side of tenants and goes to great extremes to enforce the rent control provisions.
But back to our place--
Yes, there's a lot of stuff. It's a fairly small 2-bedroom apartment filled with books, music, a large collection of LP records (anyone remember those things? They used to be used for playing real music and not just "scratching" by hip-hop DJs, sigh), musical instruments and electronic equipment ... and vacuum cleaners. But it was not a fire trap, by any stretch of the imagination. It was just well filled.
This was all going on while our dear sweet 16-year-old dog Oz was failing in health and we had to have him put to sleep. As if the horrific stress we were already under wasn't enough.
I think the worst moment was when a group of potential buyers were being herded about by the realtor. When they came back in my office where my collection is displayed, I overheard one of them gasp and say, "My Good. This looks like a set out of 'Silence or the Lambs.'"
Turned out the guy who made that crack was the agent of the eventual buyer. Well, I got my revenge on him, but good.
Most of you have seen the old lady character I often play on Halloween -- whom I have dubbed Dorothy Chandler Pavillion -- her face is made of foam latex [a complex theatrical makeup technique - another of my arcane interests!], and I store the face along with the wig, hat, purse and costume on a wig and dress form and she is hanging from the rafters in the garage.
Well, one day the buyer's agent came by to look at some of the work that was being done. I suddenly got a sly idea, recalling the "Silence of the Lambs" remark he had made. I told him there was something in the garage I wanted to show him.
We went out there and before I opened the garage door I stood outside of it and called out toward the door, "Mother...? Oh Mother? Are you awake?"
The agent got a VERY strange expression on his face!
I said, "There's a man here who wants to meet you."
The color drained out of the agent's face and he looked VERY VERY uncomfortable.
I called again, "Mother, are you decent? [pause] Well now, come on, get up -- you need to meet this man."
He very nervously stepped back a couple of feet, wildly looking around for some excuse to get the heck out of there, when I called out again, "Okay, I'm going to open the door now. Watch out!"
I swung the door open. At first the agent couldn't see anything inside because it was around dusk and kinda dark in the garage. He looked at with a BIG question mark on his face.
I said, "Go on in and meet mother."
He very tentatively stepped toward the door, still looking looking back at me with a VERY concerned look on his face. (Don't forget, he knew nothing about me except for the fact that I had this crazy place full of strange objects and ancient vacuum cleaners!)
I pointed up to the rafters where "Mother" was hanging from a large nail. His wide eyes followed the point of my finger upward.
His hair literally stood on end (yes, it really does happen!!), he let out a loud yelp, and stumbled backwards out of the garage.
I just stood there laughing my ASS off at him. He finally got his wits about him and realized that "Mother" was just a dummy.
I said, with a very smug expression, "THAT was for the crack about our place looking like 'Silence of the Lambs.'"
He turned VERY red, mumbled something, and then slunk away.
Eventually we actually got on fairly good terms, considering the fact that he was a crook and a slime ball, as was the new owner. The building has, amazingly enough, been sold again; and indeed may be on the market yet again. (This is called "flip-flopping" in real estate lingo - a property repeatedly being sold in a short period of time, with each buyer being able to get a huge tax credit from the "profit loss.")
I say this because just Friday riday morning I was out front with the doggies and two ladies in a BMW pulled up to the curb just by the driveway north of us. The lady on the driver's side rolled her window down and started snapping photos of the building. She took several photos from different angles as the driver drove very slowly by. The lady taking pictures was totally ignoring me, as if I wasn't even there.
When the car got right in front of me I sweetly asked, "May I help you?"
The lady just gave me a vapid, icy smile; and, without a word, rolled her window back up again and they took off with a roar as if Satan himself was after them.
I can't imagine any other reason for mysterious strangers in fancy cars stopping to take photos of our building unless it is on the market, or will soon be on the market. Again.
-ooOoo-
So after all the dust settled last June, it turned out that I would not have had to get rid of a single vacuum cleaner, but I did not know that at the time when the "Schmidt" hit the fan.
"And now," as Paul Harvey says, "You know the rrrrest of the story."
