The Evil Lizard Woman from Beacon Hill
Place: a quaint 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom farmhouse-style home on Beacon Hill, a quiet residential neighborhood in south Seattle. The house is over 100 years old, but has been remodeled and well-cared-for by its wealthy owners; has been retrofitted with all modern comforts. The house sits on an acre of land at the edge of a wooded area, and features flower and vegetable gardens, hardwood floors, free basement storage space, free parking, central air conditioning, and no pet rent – all rare luxuries in the Seattle rental market.
Time: Summer 2021
Characters:
Names have been changed. The housemates will be referred to by the following pseudonyms:
The House Matron / Evil Lizard Woman – visual artist, children’s art tutor, nanny and Montessori teacher. Estimated to be between the ages of 50 and 65 years old. Matron and “boss” of the house, though she does not own the house. She was once employed by the owners as nanny to their children. The owners moved away with their children to San Francisco in 2020, and leased their house to her in their absence. She then sublets the 3 remaining bedrooms to other people. At first impression, seems like an eccentric but harmless “hippie” type. Does not drive a car; rides her bike everywhere.
Character name was changed over time from “House Matron” to “Evil Lizard Woman” due in part to her being cold in the middle of a record-breaking hot summer.
Keith the Ghost – the textbook definition of a “ghost roommate.” Works nights as a cook in a hotel on Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle via ferry. Recently divorced, resides predominantly at his girlfriend’s place on the island. Seldom seen. Rents one of two upstairs bedrooms, shares (theoretically) the upstairs bathroom with House Matron/Evil Lizard Woman. Estimated to be between the ages of 45 and 55.
Barry the Chef – a line cook at a tavern 1 mile away from the house. Very friendly. Rents one of the two downstairs bedrooms, as does the narrator. Shares the downstairs bathroom with the narrator. Estimated to be 25-35 years old.
###
Prologue
Within a minute of first hearing the House
Matron’s voice on the phone, I knew she would not be easy to live with.
She bragged about how much money she made; about the
wealthy families she had nannied for, and about how much she was able to charge
for her art classes. She displayed disbelief and contempt for the fact that the
room’s previous tenant had dared to install his own lock on the door and not
give her a key.
“I mean, I make $42
an hour doing what I do, you know,” she rambled “but honestly! He could’ve died
in there, you know?! I need to be able to get in!”
She repeated this
again when we met in-person to tour the house. I nodded and smiled; praised her
artwork and promised that, if selected, I would not change the lock.
She spent the next
hour-and-a-half filling my ear with everything from:
- her egg allergy (I
needed to give advance notice, and open the kitchen windows, every time I fried
an egg while she was home, or else she’d have to stick herself with one of her
$650 Epi-pens);
-to admonishing the
importance of non-toxic all-natural (and very expensive) household cleaners;
-to complaining
about how one of the other housemates (Keith, with whom she was supposed to
share the upstairs bathroom) was never home - I wondered if he was
strategically avoiding her;
-to how she was going to have the landscaper make the front-lawn
firepit into an underground kiln for her pottery (no summer campfires for me, I
guess);
But the rent was
half the price of what I was currently paying.
I hoped that the
longer I stayed and chatted with her, the more she would like me, and therefore
choose me above the other applicants.
It worked.
“Eduardo just left so much negativity and hostility behind. Are you bothered by sage or palo santo?”
My third time entering the house, I did so to start moving in, one small carload at a time. House Matron wasn’t there, but Barry the Chef, the third housemate, arrived home from work as I was standing in the driveway. We made small talk in the kitchen as I unpacked some cookbooks and liquor into the cabinets that had been designated as mine.
“Do you know how
much of the coat closest I’m allowed to use?” I asked him. “The rod is
completely empty right now.”
“I would ask the House
Matron,” Barry said, his eyebrows raised in warning. “Here’s what you need to
know about her.... she’s crazy. She has a very, very good soul and I’d take a
bullet for her - in my arm or leg, not my chest, mind you- but she’s out of her
mind. But if you get her approval on it, then Bob’s your uncle. So long as
she’s happy, I’m happy. And no one cares what Keith thinks because no one ever
sees Keith. He moved in 5 months ago and I think I’ve seen the guy all of 6
times.”
And so it began.
Entry #1:
June 10, 2021
The House Matron, as I've come to "affectionately" think of her, was sleeping on the living room couch last week so as to ambush Keith the Ghost. (The Ghost does not actually live in this house, and comes and goes silently during the night, as his name implies. He pays rent on time, but only shows up during daylight hours about once a month, to do laundry. Perfect roommate, if you ask me.)
But House Matron is convinced that Keith the Ghost owes an equal share of utilities, and that he is avoiding her so as to avoid paying. He has also not been cleaning the upstairs bathroom on the bi-weekly schedule that she demands, even though she is the only one ever using that bathroom, at this point.
He did not attend the All-House Meeting (which she convened last week, solely for the purpose of cornering him); he did not respond to the notes written in angry red marker that she left posted for him all over the house.
But perhaps most heinously of all: he does not write in the Bathroom Journal.
We must all write in our Bathroom Journals (one notebook designated for the upstairs bath, another notebook designated for the downstairs bath) to log when we take our turn cleaning. House Matron calls it "mutual accountability," and says it's a Montessori technique that she uses on children.
Her attempts to lie in wait for him failed, however. So this week, she is determined to evict him, and find a new housemate.
The Twist: Keith has actually over-paid. He has written not one, but 2 checks for the amount he owes. I know this because House Matron shoved the first check in my face last week:
"Look at this! This is fraudulent, the bank will never accept this! Look! He wrote this check to someone else, then crossed it out and wrote my name over the top!"
"No," I said carefully. "I think he just messed up and wrote the dollar amount in the 'Pay To' line. I can read it right there, see?" I pointed it out, trying to be helpful.
"Well... I can't make heads or tails out of it, so the bank will reject it for sure. Which means he's late on his payments. He's too stoned all the time, that's the reason for this. I don't know what he's smoking or where his brain is, or what games he’s playing…. he’s just a bad communicator, that’s the reason for this…”
House Matron continued muttering to herself as she puttered around the kitchen, loading cat food tins into the dishwasher. She later took the angry red notes down, and grudgingly confirmed that Keith had paid up (again)... "But he hasn't cleaned in months, and I'm sick of him!"
I feel bad for Keith the Ghost, who is on the verge of being evicted on the grounds that he doesn't clean a bathroom he doesn't use. (Cleaning duties are a stipulation in the lease, though.) I suspect House Matron's real reason for anxiety is that Keith the Ghost is just not around enough for her to tell him what to do.
I have somewhat been in Keith's shoes: dutifully paying rent and doing chores, and dragging myself to and from work/school/my bed, but still on the receiving end of animosity from my living companions, largely because I didn't show my face enough.
Who knows what random person House Matron could replace him with?
Entry#2:
June 13
The House Matron occasionally wants the heat turned on…. in late May/early June. She says she gets cold and has a right to feel comfortable in her home. Conversely, Barry the Chef prefers to leave his windows open and window AC unit running all day. (Understandable. It is summertime after all, and he works 8-10 hours over a hot stove, and wants to come home to a nice cool room.)
But the House Matron is frustrated by this.
1. She sees it as a safety concern; is worried a burglar will come up to the house through the woods, crawl in a cracked window, and steal her artwork. In the middle of the day.
But most importantly: she (the same woman who thinks it’s okay to turn the heat on in the summertime) says “it’s not fair” that Barry is using electricity that she has to help pay for, to keep his room cool. So, apparently, SHE has the right to “feel comfortable” and use utilities money, but Barry doesn’t.
In her mind, Barry wanting to keep his room cool is due to what she deems as preventable character flaws: “He’s heavyset. And he drinks. And I’ve never seen him go to a doctor, so he must have very high blood pressure, so that’s why he’s hot all the time.” (Or maybe… just maybe… it’s because he comes home in June to find that HEAT HAS BEEN TURNED ON.)
I want to use her own messed-up logic against her. But I bite my tongue, and I don’t tell her that maybe she gets cold in the middle of summer because she’s a frail old bat who refuses to eat meat. Or maybe because she’s an old single cat lady, and there’s no one else in her bed (except her cats.) Or maybe she doesn’t own a f***ing cardigan because she only wears fibers from sheep and alpaca fed on a holistic diet grown by Buddhist monks, or whatever.
Entry #3:
June 21
I need to make sure I'm not losing my mind here:
I understand that some people want to hold off as long as possible before turning on the central AC -- saves money, right? Open the windows, break out the fans and let in some fresh air, yeah?
But at a certain point.... if you let the house get too hot.... a system has to work harder to cool it back down, right?
So, in order to be more efficient (and comfortable) you want to turn on the AC *before* the domicile reaches that too-hot point, right?
And then, you DON'T turn the AC completely OFF, and then WAIT for it to get too hot again -- right? You adjust the thermostat accordingly, right?!?
Entry #3.5:
June 28
The Air Conditioning Saga continues.
Last week: House Matron entered the living room and saw the thermostat set at 72 degrees.
HM: “No. No, no. This isn’t going to work. This is just blasting-cold. We need to come to a better compromise than this. I’m absolutely freezing.”
Me: “Okay. Well, I was trying to keep the house at a reasonable moderate temperature so the AC system doesn’t have to work overtime to cool it down once the temp hits 90 this evening, or 100 this weekend - which we discussed. And Barry the Chef wants to keep his room as cool as possible, especially on hot days like today, so he can sleep when he comes home from working in a hot kitchen.”
HM: “Right.”
Me: “But you also don’t like him running his window fan all day.”
HM: “No, because it uses electricity and he has high cholesterol because he’s -“
Me: “Because he drinks, right, yeah, you’ve said as much. But you’ve also said that you’ve turned the heat on a couple times in the middle of summer because, as you said, you feel you have the right to be comfortable in your own home.”
HM: “Yeah, I have no problem running the heat.”
Me: “As we’ve seen. You know, I can get you a great deal on a nice wool sweater from the company I work for -"
HM: “No. No, I’m not doing that. I’m allergic to wool, and even if I wasn’t, I’m not doing that.”
Me: …..
HM: …..
HM: “Well, like I said, we just need to come to a better compromise than this. I’m freezing to death.”
Entry #4:
June 30
The Continuation of the A/C Saga
June 26-27: Temperatures are forecasted to exceed 100 throughout the weekend; the highest temperatures ever recorded in Seattle. The city braces for ERs to be overrun with heat stroke victims. Businesses close. Emergency cooling centers are set up in gyms and arenas. Roughly 70% of Seattle residents do not have air conditioning, and every Walmart, Fred Meyer, and hardware store is sold out of box fans.
I and my housemates are among the >30% who do have air conditioning…
…. In theory.
It’s almost noon on Saturday; the sun is approaching its zenith. I have not heard the A/C kick on all morning, nor felt any cool air come through the vents. I stay in my room most of the day because I’m taking an online workshop over Zoom. But at lunch break, I come out into the living room. The thermostat shows the system as completely off. The temperature inside the house is 82 degrees and climbing.
House Matron is sitting calmly on the couch in a long-sleeve shirt.
Me: “Oh wow. It’s already 82 degrees in here.”
HM: “Oh, no. That can’t be right. I’m not hot. It’s not hot in here. That must be the outside temperature.”
Me: (Knowing full well that the outside temperature is at least 15 degrees hotter than that.) “We’ve got to start getting the house cooled down. You’ve seen the forecast for this weekend, right?”
I again repeat the tenet that if we wait too long, the HVAC system has to work harder and use more electricity to bring the temperature back down, and keep it there. I mention that if we get out ahead of it, we won’t have to blast cold air all day. When set correctly, the system will detect when the house reaches the desired temp, and automatically switch to idle.
House Matron finally admits that she’s never had central air conditioning in her life, and she doesn’t understand how a thermostat works. She brags to me, for the fifth time, that she owns a home in Jamaica. She doesn’t have A/C there, so she doesn’t really see why we should use it here.
I set the thermostat to 73 and promise her that if the temperature comes down to that, and the vents are still blowing, we can turn the system back off.
Later in the day, I walk back through to check on it, and House Matron tells me she’s closed all the floor vents in the living room.
I finally leave the house that evening to go out to eat, hoping to find some A/C in the now-109-degree heat. I check to make sure the system is idle before I go. When I return a couple hours later, the system has been completely shut off again, and the house is 87 degrees inside. My room, with west-facing windows, is even hotter. Barry the Chef has left to go sleep on the floor of his workplace. I slam my bedroom door loudly before setting up a box fan next to my bed.
Sunday: I take an hour-long public transit commute to a friend’s birthday BBQ, so that I can consume several cans of cold White Claw and not have to drive myself home. We all spend the first hour of the party sitting under a garden hose on the mist setting. I am the one most directly in the hose’s line of fire, and the host asks if I am uncomfortable. I assure him I am not.
Entry #5:
July 3
House Matron a.k.a The Evil Lizard Woman has threatened to file a Missing Persons report for Keith the Ghost, claiming that he hasn’t been seen for 3 weeks -- which is complete horseshit.
On occasions when she has cornered me about it, I have told the Lizard Woman that I’ve seen Keith in the driveway getting out of his car, and I’ve heard him doing laundry. Lizard Woman herself complains constantly that she hears Keith coming in late at night, that he leaves doors unlocked, and that he uses the shower but doesn’t clean it. “His” (?) hair in the drain is the basis on which she’s throwing him out, at this point, because the lease stipulates that we must clean bi-weekly.
In summation: she’s trying to evict the man for hair in the shower drain, and she’s about to file a Missing Persons report with the cops because he’s avoiding her.
A re-cap of other reasons why Keith the Ghost is ghost-y:
1. Lizard Woman is convinced that Keith tried to write her a bad check for May’s rent, and she’s been on the warpath about it ever since. But the check was just on the scribbley side, and it ended up clearing the bank without issue.
2. The Lizard has served Keith notice of eviction, and has interviewed half a dozen people to replace him, even though Keith has not yet agreed to leave, or started to pack. On Sunday 6/27 alone, 3 people cycled through the house to see the room. Why would Keith want to be around for those confrontations?
3. As previously established, the woman is in fact a reptile, and keeps shutting down the HVAC system, even during a deadly heat wave. So Keith the Ghost probably went in search of some place cooler and less hostile.
4. Keith the Ghost is a grown, middle-aged man, and we are not his family. He does not owe anyone in this house a check-in, especially when he’s in the process of being thrown out.
And yet, Lizard Woman is unable to fathom why Keith is avoiding her, to the point that she can’t shut up about it.
“He’s being weird. Just weird. He’s playing games and I don’t like it. I don’t understand why he’s like this,” she keeps repeating. She’s practically foaming at the mouth.
She not only expects Keith to move out, but to do it *while she’s at the house* so she can monitor him. (She’s convinced he’s already stolen one of her paper mache bowls.) A reminder that this woman is away from the house 7am to 6pm, M-F, between her job and her bike commute. Keith works nights and weekends. So how is he supposed to move out under her supervision?
The cherry on top: The Evil Lizard expects Barry and I to text her to report when we see/hear Keith the Ghost around the house.
I am a lot of things, but stool pigeon is not one of them.
Entry #6:
July 4
Evil Lizard Woman put a paper plate in the dishwasher.
Earlier this week, Demetrius snuck upstairs while she was at work, knocked over her trash can, and peed & pooped in her shower.
When she told me, I apologized profusely, cleaned it up, and swore loudly at my cat. Lizard Woman shrugged it off and went back to talking to her own cats in what sounded like a blend of Jamaican and Patois.
She is not a woman of color.
I’m leaving to go on vacation.
Entry #7:
July 12
The day I returned home from vacation, a text message from the House Matron/Evil Lizard Woman greeted me upon turning off Airplane Mode. She welcomed me back, informed me that Keith the Ghost was gone, and let me know where she’d hidden a new key for me, since she’d changed the locks.
She also cast a spell around the front walkway. Behold her handiwork:
(2 photos: 1 showing the front door with two doorknobs, mismatched, one installed where there should be a deadbolt. The second photo shows a burned stick of sage sitting on the sidewalk in a clay bowl, next to a small white porcelain vase.)
Entry #8:
July 13
Evil Lizard Woman threw a temper tantrum this morning.
She tore through the house and the garden at about 7 AM, watering plants, and swearing loudly to herself. I heard it all because my windows were open, because she’s turned the HVAC system completely off again.
“What the f***ing Christ!! I’m ready to leave this goddamn house…. gonna have a nervous f***ing breakdown. All this shit everywhere… tearing up the house when I’m trying to hold classes… f***ing lunatic!!”
I can only assume she’s talking about Keith the Ghost. She mentioned in passing the other night that the final confrontation and move-out had been “terrible.”
“Did you see all the crap he left on the back porch?” she asked, incredulous. “I bet he thinks he’s going to come back for it!”
I had to bite my tongue not to say “Well, what the hell did you expect? That he was going to go quickly, cleanly and quietly?” But I escaped into my room with my dinner tray before she could tell me any more of the drama.
Once she left for work this morning, I cautiously left my room and made a pass through the house. Nothing in her studio, the living room, or the kitchen/classroom was out of place. But I did find a rotten banana in the hallway outside the laundry room, sitting on a pile of her things. It looks very much like she got a snack and then absently left it a few days ago, to decompose in the heat.
But, you know. She’s gonna have a screaming fit about OTHER people leaving a mess.
Entry #9:
July 16
(Photo depicting a handwritten sign taped to the front door. It reads: “EMERGENCY: House Meeting tomorrow, Saturday July 17. 10:00 AM. Everyone. Yesterday there was a large box in front of the door – I had to Lyft to work as I could not bike – Do Not block the door. Cost me $50.00.”)
Well, there went my morning hiking plans.
P.S. - there’s another door on the same level of the house that she could have wheeled her bike through.
I’m also in trouble because Demetrius has taken to eating one of her plants, and barfing the pieces right back up onto the hardwood floors.
Entry #10:
July 17
The Evil Lizard Woman does indeed appear to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
In addition to the tear she went on Tuesday morning (see Entry #8) I have since overheard her 2 more times, whimpering/muttering/crying to either Barry, or herself, saying:
“I can’t do this anymore. I can’t f**king take this anymore. These assholes.” Etc.
No one has been able to get her to articulate what the big “emergency” is (see Entry #9), which apparently can’t be communicated through text, and requires an all-house mandatory sit-down.
She tore into me this morning as I was trying to leave to go hiking (at 6 a.m.), raving about how she can’t sleep, that Barry the Chef and Antonio Banderas* kept her awake last night, and that someone is stealing from us - some pieces of cheap plastic porch furniture have gone missing. She suspects Keith the Ghost is the culprit.
(*Not the real Antonio Banderas. The new housemate who replaced Keith the Ghost just sort of looks and sounds like the famous actor.)
I have not noticed anything missing. But then, I’m not in the habit of keeping track of all of the junk she has sitting around on both the front and back porches, unused, gathering dust and cobwebs. Further: if she cared so little about a plastic table and flimsy chairs that she left them unsecured outside for months, then (whether they walked off by way of Keith or some mischievous neighborhood vagrants)… why the sudden histrionics that are being laid the other housemates’ feet, as if this is our problem?
And none of that even has to do with the “emergency,” she told me. Though once again, she wouldn’t say what the actual emergency was. What she did say:
“I’m seriously thinking about closing up the house. I can’t live like this anymore.”
As usual, I’m left scratching my head. The house isn’t hers to “close up.” She’d have to get out of her lease with the owners. And, since everyone in the house is doing their best to AVOID her at this point, what exactly is this unbearable horror she thinks she’s being made to endure?
The meeting is set for tomorrow at 11 A.M. I have a feeling it’s just going to be a tirade about how everyone in the house needs to do things differently, heel to her, and magically intuit/accommodate her needs, mood swings & neuroses. I’m trying to decide if/how much I should call her out on her bullshit, or if I even want to waste the energy trying to rationalize with an insane person.
Entry #11:
July 18
The Day of the “Emergency” Meeting, Pt. 1 (There’s so much here, I’m gonna break it down into 2 parts) :
The following might constitute the use of the word “Emergency” among a group of housemates:
-A sewer pipe has ruptured.
-Something has gone wrong with billing/payments, and our utilities are being shut off.
-We have hard evidence that someone is breaking into the house.
-A roommate has gone to jail, a psych ward or rehab, & is unable to pay rent, and we’re going to be short this month.
-The owners are returning from abroad and we have 90 days to gtfo.
-The walls are bleeding and a hellmouth has opened up in the backyard
But none of those things have actually happened. Evil Lizard Woman called an Emergency House Meeting because:
1. “people” (me) misread the Red Notebook (more on that in a sec), and
2. because the floor and the back deck are not being swept enough.
This is the horror that’s been sending her over the edge; this is why she’s been threatening to “close up” the house and put us all out in the street.
This is also the very first time I’ve ever heard her demand that the deck needs to be swept. It’s not on any of our chores lists.
I understand the need to intuit labor needs, but:
Except for a special occasion, why would you sweep a deck, when leaves, pollen, pineneedles, grass clippings etc. are always going to be falling or blown onto it? Especially when you keep a permanent trash pile of broken-down cardboard boxes stashed on one end of it? You can’t use the excuse that you want the deck to look clean and nice.
But since apparently this is what she needs to hold onto her sanity this week, it’s what will happen. Antonio Banderas went out and swept it right after the meeting, bless his heart.
It’s so difficult to live with other people.
We all have different definitions of what is “clean”, and what is “normal” housework that everyone should anticipate, and just DO without being told.
The Lizard complains that no one is sweeping the kitchen floor… but she’s also the only person wheeling a bike inside & across the floor every day. She also has a fun habit of leaving food debris everywhere (onions left in the middle of being chopped, open jars of condiments left out all night, whole spinach leaves dropped on the floor), and walking away and forgetting about it, leaving me to clean it up the next day.
We also all have different definitions of what “good communication” is. ELW thinks she’s a perfect communicator because she writes out all the utilities costs that everyone owes in a red notebook on a table in the living room. Anyone who doesn’t pay her exactly what she’s written down is a delinquent jerkoff who isn’t reading/isn’t paying attention, and is in violation of the lease.
Except that her handwriting is barely legible, and her math is wrong. (For anyone who knows me, you know that for ME to catch someone on faulty arithmetic is a FEAT.)
To be continued… in the next entry: Keith the Ghost’s alleged physical assault of ELW, and her ambitions to meld magic and artificial intelligence together in an unholy alchemical alliance to protect the house from the forces of evil.
Entry #12:
July 19
The Day of the “Emergency” Meeting, Pt. 2:
The train is already off the rails, so now we’re going to see it start to careen into a canyon.
Evil Lizard Woman wants to install an app-based security system with facial recognition, and she expects all of us to pitch in to pay for it, program it, and figure out how to install it.
From the moment I started moving in 2 months ago, Evil Lizard Woman has exhibited paranoia/“PTSD” (her words) about the former housemates she has evicted. (By my last count, she’s up to at least 3 or 4, at this point. Apparently the cops had to be involved for one of them, though I didn’t learn that until today.)
She is convinced that these ex-roommates keep coming back to steal worthless pieces of junk: a teapot, a citronella candle, a plastic tub, a broom, and now the plastic chairs and table. I know for a fact that, in at least one of the above cases, she simply misplaced the thing.
But now her fears are apparently justified because Keith the Ghost allegedly attacked her while I was away on vacation. According to her, she hired someone to pack up and move his stuff out onto the porch, then she changed the lock (badly, see Entry #7)… but only on one door. So that night, Keith came through the other door and wanted to pass through the house. ELW physically confronted him and said that he was no longer legally allowed inside, and that’s when he allegedly shoved her and raised his arms so as to batter her about the head and neck. According to her, his stepson was there to help Keith move, and the stepson got Keith under control and talked him down.
Keith has been completely moved out for a week, but ELW is convinced that he is still returning to the house, to steal random things. (This is perhaps what Evil Lizard Woman should have lead with, but as previously established, the primary reason for the “Emergency” meeting, in her mind, was that the kitchen and deck were not being swept enough... wtf.)
I was ready to write off her conviction of Keith hauntings as paranoia… until Antonio reported seeing a dark figure lurking through the house, while the other 3 of us were in bed. He even offered to buy more hardware and get the necessary tools so that the locks can be changed “properly.” ELW looked confused. My suspicions were confirmed: she doesn’t know the difference between a doorknob and a deadbolt.
ELW further reported that she took a photo of the house, and showed it to a shaman from Olympia, who immediately said he detected “a cloud of malevolent energy” at the front of the house. He’s offered to come cleanse the house with more sage and palo santo… for a price, of course.
This assessment doesn’t really make sense to me, because Keith’s old room is toward the back of the house.
“My art studio is at the front of the house,” ELW rationalizes. “And Keith was always trying to open the windows in my studio! And, see that empty spot??” She repeats the story about why she thinks he stole one of her decoupage bowls.
I’m not worried about Keith coming after me, and I frankly think that ELW has brought this on herself. Nevertheless, I offer to pony up $5-$10 a month to help with the security system, if it will help ELW’s mental health (and maybe keep her pacified/out of our hair) — then I kick myself. She will never be pacified. Her brain will find something else to freak out about, no matter what.
But perhaps I offered the money to help put her off my trail. Wanna know whose room *is* at the front of the house?
Mine.
Entry #13:
July 25
Evil Lizard Woman claims that she found the exterior basement door kicked in this morning.
I got home late, and I don’t know if it happened before or after I came in. So far, I haven’t noticed anything missing.
Evil Lizard Woman is sure it was Keith the Ghost, of course. Of course, she has zero proof, other than:
“This is his M.O. This is his energy.”
“When he attacked me, I SAW his evil.”
“He’s so high… that’s why he’s doing this.”
I want to yell at her that
1. smoking pot does not make people into destructive burglars… but being illegally evicted might, especially if they think some of their stuff was left behind and they’re trying to get to it.
And 2. Though it doesn’t excuse someone breaking down a door and inflicting fear upon the residents, if it was Keith the Ghost, then she brought this on herself and on the rest of us.
ELW hasn’t called the cops, to my knowledge. And what would they do, other than question her about the nature of Keith’s eviction? She probably knows in her lizard guts she did it in a way that was not above-board.
But this further validated her assertion that we need a new security system ASAP. She also wants us to work together to stack boxes in front of the basement door.
Yes, I am sleeping with my bedroom door locked and yes, I am looking for a new place.
Entry #14:
August 1
Evil Lizard Woman has confirmed what I have long suspected, which is that she doesn’t wash her hands - not even after she defecates.
She feels that this practice strengthens her immunity. To this end, she would also be an anti-masker, if she wasn’t a nanny in the service of doctors, who apparently require her to be masked and vaccinated. (Imagine that.) She feels that the masks are an invention of the government to “separate us, keep people apart,” and that the vaccine is “something they’re trying to pull.”
ELW: “What is this Delta COVID that everyone is taking about?”
Me: “It’s a variant. A mutation. You know, kind of like how the flu mutates every couple years and you have to get a new shot?”
ELW: “So they’re just gonna make another vaccine and the government is gonna make us get it all over again? Yeah, they’re definitely trying to pull something.”
She had another swearing fit earlier in the week when she came home, because I put recycling items in the wrong bucket.
The ten gallon bucket we normally use for recycling was gone, and she had left a woven wastebasket in its place. So I put in a couple crushed La Croix cans and some cardboard.
I later heard her upend the basket all over the floor while yelling “Jesus f***king Christ, these motherf**kers!” She then scratched out another one of her infamous notes: She explained that this was her special Art Studio Waste Basket , and it was NOT to be used for recycling. She forgot to take it back upstairs because she’s just so exhausted (from dealing with us) all the time.
As the week went on and afternoon temperatures crept into the 90s, the other housemates and I worked to surreptitiously run the A/C behind her back. But Friday morning, the thermostat had masking tape over it, with red Sharpie handwriting: “Air Conditioning OFF at night!!”
I stopped in the kitchen on my way out to fill up my water bottle, and ELW cornered me. She fumed about how she hadn’t slept at all the night before because she was listening to the A/C run continuously.
Me: “Well, it’s been getting really warm again. The system was probably trying to catch up from being left off all week.”
Her: “….. no. No, it doesn’t work that way. You know, I have a house in Jamaica, and I don’t have A/C there. So I don’t really believe in using it at all.”
Me: “Yeah, you’ve told me before. Do you own that house?”
Her: “Yes, I own it! I built it myself.”
Me: “Oh, that’s really cool. Any chance that you’ll go live there soon?”
Her: “…. no. No, I’m not doing that. The economy is crap. It’s crap here, which means it’s even worse down there.”
I’m continuing to shop for & tour apartments, and I’ve put in one application so far. If you are the type who believes in prayers, or good vibes, or sending out positive intentions and requests into the Universe, please send out a wish for a safe, stable, affordable living situation for me and my cat. This will be my third move in the last year; my fifth in 4 years of living in Seattle.
And also ask for Evil Lizard Woman to be out of my life permanently, and as soon as possible.
Entry #15: (Slightly-Spicy Edition)
August 13
Strap in for an episode reminiscent of a telenovela:
Antonio (Keith the Ghost’s replacement), who has lived in the house a grand total of 4 weeks, has already reached his breaking point, and intends to move out at the end of the month.
He relayed this to me in hushed tones, during a brief but intimate exchange as we worked together to run the A/C, take out the garbage, finish our laundry and go hide, all before Evil Lizard Woman arrived home.
A gorgeous young Latino man (who cooks and sings, btw) helping to do chores *without being asked*?? I know many of you are hot-and-bothered already, but WAIT there’s MORE.
Antonio imparted his troubles: He is recently separated from the mother of his young daughter, and wanted to move into this house because it was near to where his daughter lives, and seemed like a safe, quiet place for her to come visit him and play in the backyard.
Over the weekend, the mother’s new boyfriend apparently sent Antonio a taunting, illicit video of the mother and this new man together. Antonio spared me the details of what this video contained, but apparently it was enough to provoke him to 1. have some very loud phone conversations 2. go out and get pretty drunk and 3. Arrive home and smash some bottles out in the street.
I somehow managed to miss all this over the course of my weekend, but you can bet that Evil Lizard Woman did not. According to Antonio, a very aggressive confrontation ensued, wherein ELW also tore into him for his cigarette butts. (Which, I can report, he disposes of very neatly in a small mason jar at the end of the driveway. He, like Barry the Chef, is very considerate and smokes several feet away from the front door, if not all the way at the end of the drive.)
According to Antonio, he apologized profusely. But apparently things still got so heated that he eventually vocalized his desire to walk away before things got physical. He also voiced his intent vacate his room as soon as he found somewhere else to live.
If my plans go as I wish, this will mean that Antonio and I will make our escape at almost exactly the same time, and Evil Lizard Woman will then be burdened with not one, but TWO rooms to fill in order to make rent. She just doesn’t realize it yet.
P.S. - Antonio’s bedroom shares a wall with ELW’s.
Were this to become the basis for a novel or short-story some day, I think this is the part where our heroine might devise to offer poor, messy, broken-hearted Antonio a certain kind of exciting send-off.
Very loudly. In the middle of the night.
Entry #16:
August 4
Not much for you today except a little photo essay. I call it “ELW does NOT share dishes” -- (photo of the Lizard's bike lock randomly fastened over a set of cabinets)
Entry #17:
August 13
(photo of the interior of a studio apartment, moving boxes and furniture piled up)
Insert the William Wallace GIFs and blast the George Michael:
“Brand new clothes and a big fat place..
I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so…
Freedom!
Freedom!”
After giving 30 days notice on Tuesday, my official “last day” at the house would theoretically be Sept 10, but obviously I got out of there much faster than that. (Thanks to a bunch of awesome people* who helped me move over the last couple days while ELW was gone, I Irish-goodbyed outta there, y’all.)
I want to say thank you to everybody who has been supportive throughout this weird tale. I’ve had no fewer than half a dozen people reach out to offer everything from legal advice, to leads on new rental/roommate situations, to temporary safe places to crash, to help with moving- and I am so very grateful.
Even those who have commented or talked to me in person about how entertaining the writing has been: that’s a great mood-lifter and excellent emotional support, which is just as important.
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