Previously, on This Old House

In a surprise turn of events, Lynn and Lou decided to risk it all and stain the bottom unit’s floors grey, ensuring the future renter will ponder why their floors are not a super-glossy marmalade color like every other rental apartment’s in Boston.

 

And it had also become clear that the previous owners of this old house had a penchant for excess, as noted by the sheer number of stupidly long screws in a single 2×4, the high volume of (also stupidly long) nails hammered into the average board, and the ridiculous, obnoxious, unreasonably long staples holding down the bathroom floor. Because, you know, those floors..if you don’t staple the shit out of them, they have been known to get up and leave.

 

Someone had a new staple gun! And maybe just a little OCD?

 

You’re looking at Lynn’s Wednesday night. 

 

But let’s not forget the most serious struggle: The Great Horrible Bagster Dilemma. Many phone calls were made to a company called Bagster in an effort to actually schedule (gasp!) a specific pick-up day, for not one, not two, but three Bagsters. The Bagsters had been hanging out on the front lawn for two weeks, loitering and cat-calling at passers-by and collecting things like garbage bags full of drywall, scraps of linoleum, old floorboards, crusty pipes, wood from the basement, the first floor, the second floor, even the third floor, and trash bags that the regular Boston garbage men didn’t seem to want to pick up. The Bagsters had outstayed their welcome but their parents at Waste Management just could not be bothered to helpfully schedule a definite pick-up time when there would be no cars parked on the street “blocking”access to the Bagsters. (Ehhhhh or were the WM men just lazy? We may never know.)

 

You see, in the neighborhood of this old house, it was common practice for commuters to park their cars on the street and walk to the nearby T station, leaving their cars there all day, and of course, blocking any kind of access needed by a truck with a crane, one that would pick up a large dumpster-like object from a front lawn and put it into its bin.

 

And so, with much planning and because there were no other options, a car was rented (a beautiful gold Chevy Malibu, if you must know) and another car borrowed in an undertaking that was painfully idiotic and yet, had to happen in order to block the street off from the commuters who showed up every morning like clockwork. And despite parking the rented car in front of two of the Bagsters at 11pm on a Thursday, and planning on parking the borrowed car there at 6 am the very next morning (just seven hours later!!!), SOMEHOW the neighborhood Nissan Rogue snuck in (probably wasted and just from the bars at 2 a.m. like a jackass) and parked in front of the open Bagster, DESPITE THE REST OF THE BLOCKS OF STREET THAT WERE OPEN, putting a wrench in the plan to have their own front curb blocked from commuters until Waste Management showed up, on their FINALLY scheduled day.

 

The only thing Lou could do was write a note to the Rogue owner and hope for the best. Meanwhile, Lynn was left cursing Murphy’s Law and regretting not parking the borrowed car there the night before.

 

Stay tuned to see if the Nissan owner gets the note in time, and if they actually act on it, and if Waste Management shows up and calls Lou to move the rental car as noted in the instructions and as agreed upon by the WM dispatcher…..or if instead, we adopt three Bagsters and make them lawn ornaments and plant roses in them come spring.

 

Advertisement