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CrotchrocketSlm · 03-09-2005, 12:04 AM

The scene: I'm a twentyfive year old working stiff, making ends meet working at an organic grocery coop, and I rent out a nice big five bedroom house. I sublet out the four other bedrooms to other people just to help with expenses, and it's generally cool to have someone else to talk to and get into misadventures with. I've been doing this for about a year and a half, and while there have been great downs with this situation, overal it's been mostly huge ups when it is working, and I'm pretty happy with the arrangement, provided my roommates deal straight with me, and aren't shitheads. Most haven't disappointed me much so far, save a notable few...

Anyway, I recently rented out a bedroom to a 43 year old musician/artist/bohemian type. Seemed really cool in the interview, really charismatic and charming, total sweetheart with his woman around. I'm a little put off by the age difference, as I really would rather have people I can relate to a lot more easilly around, but frankly I was getting pretty desperate to fill that room, and this guy seemed cool as hell at the time. So anyway...

He moves in late this past Sunday night, makes rent and deposit then too. I go to work Monday and he goes out on a night on the town with his gf who was in town that night. I come home from work, and play with my sweet, sweet little housecats, both about two years old, farm-turned-housecats, fixed and they love people. I go to bed at about midnight.

About 1am he comes in, comes upstairs and sticks his head wide into my room (I'm barely awake at the time, so I notice this). He doesn't say anything when he sees the lights off. He goes down the hall, and takes a long-ass pee (he must have been completely drunk at this point), and staggers off to bed. About twenty minutes later, I hear some cats outside meowing really loudly, which I attribute to strays (though this time of year, they are pretty rare in St Paul, what with it being fairly cold out still).

The next morning, I can't find my cats. I look around, the front door has been left ajar. I wake this guy up to make sure the cats didn't sleep in his room or something, and he and I split up and start searching the block. I have to get ready for work again (closing one night and opening the next morning really needs to be illegal, seriously), so I leave looking to him as he doesn't have anything going on for the day. While I was at work, a neighbor/coworker says she ran into a cat roughly matching one of my cats' description, and that he was meowing at her and approaching her from up the block my house is on. Of course, she didn't know my cats were missing, so she let the cat alone.

Anyway, I get done with my shift, head home and start calling up all the local shelters and the city pound, but they haven't had ANY cats brought in lately (I even call Public Works in case they were roadkilled, but they haven't had any cats killed lately either, odd for a town this size). I've searched the area a few times today too, and put some of their litter around the yard, as well as some food in the porch with the door propped open. My roommate puts some sardine or something on top of the food, and later on I notice that his contribution is gone, though the food seems to be untouched.

My new roommate finally comes home about around 10pm tonight, drunk. He tries to console me that it'll be fine, they'll turn up, he's hurting too, blahblahblah. He tells me he saw them escape last night, and that they just snuck past him as he tried to open the door. He says he tried to go after them, but (paraphrasing him) they looked at him "mischieviously" and ran up the block.

There are two things I must tackle with this situation: finding my cats, and what to do about this guy. I've decided that I'm not going to kick him out before the end of the month, but I'm not sure if I'm really comfortable having him around. Does it sound like I'm being unfair to this guy to you? Or am I not being rougher with him? Advice on either front is appreciated, thanks.

03-09-2005, 12:04 AM	#1 (permalink)
CrotchrocketSlm Crazy Location: St Paul, MN	Of new roommates and lost cats The scene: I'm a twentyfive year old working stiff, making ends meet working at an organic grocery coop, and I rent out a nice big five bedroom house. I sublet out the four other bedrooms to other people just to help with expenses, and it's generally cool to have someone else to talk to and get into misadventures with. I've been doing this for about a year and a half, and while there have been great downs with this situation, overal it's been mostly huge ups when it is working, and I'm pretty happy with the arrangement, provided my roommates deal straight with me, and aren't shitheads. Most haven't disappointed me much so far, save a notable few... Anyway, I recently rented out a bedroom to a 43 year old musician/artist/bohemian type. Seemed really cool in the interview, really charismatic and charming, total sweetheart with his woman around. I'm a little put off by the age difference, as I really would rather have people I can relate to a lot more easilly around, but frankly I was getting pretty desperate to fill that room, and this guy seemed cool as hell at the time. So anyway... He moves in late this past Sunday night, makes rent and deposit then too. I go to work Monday and he goes out on a night on the town with his gf who was in town that night. I come home from work, and play with my sweet, sweet little housecats, both about two years old, farm-turned-housecats, fixed and they love people. I go to bed at about midnight. About 1am he comes in, comes upstairs and sticks his head wide into my room (I'm barely awake at the time, so I notice this). He doesn't say anything when he sees the lights off. He goes down the hall, and takes a long-ass pee (he must have been completely drunk at this point), and staggers off to bed. About twenty minutes later, I hear some cats outside meowing really loudly, which I attribute to strays (though this time of year, they are pretty rare in St Paul, what with it being fairly cold out still). The next morning, I can't find my cats. I look around, the front door has been left ajar. I wake this guy up to make sure the cats didn't sleep in his room or something, and he and I split up and start searching the block. I have to get ready for work again (closing one night and opening the next morning really needs to be illegal, seriously), so I leave looking to him as he doesn't have anything going on for the day. While I was at work, a neighbor/coworker says she ran into a cat roughly matching one of my cats' description, and that he was meowing at her and approaching her from up the block my house is on. Of course, she didn't know my cats were missing, so she let the cat alone. Anyway, I get done with my shift, head home and start calling up all the local shelters and the city pound, but they haven't had ANY cats brought in lately (I even call Public Works in case they were roadkilled, but they haven't had any cats killed lately either, odd for a town this size). I've searched the area a few times today too, and put some of their litter around the yard, as well as some food in the porch with the door propped open. My roommate puts some sardine or something on top of the food, and later on I notice that his contribution is gone, though the food seems to be untouched. My new roommate finally comes home about around 10pm tonight, drunk. He tries to console me that it'll be fine, they'll turn up, he's hurting too, blahblahblah. He tells me he saw them escape last night, and that they just snuck past him as he tried to open the door. He says he tried to go after them, but (paraphrasing him) they looked at him "mischieviously" and ran up the block. There are two things I must tackle with this situation: finding my cats, and what to do about this guy. I've decided that I'm not going to kick him out before the end of the month, but I'm not sure if I'm really comfortable having him around. Does it sound like I'm being unfair to this guy to you? Or am I not being rougher with him? Advice on either front is appreciated, thanks.