Where I lived for 6...7...8 years?? I don't even remember at this point. I think I moved here in 2014, shortly after Alex and I started dating. I have many positive memories from living here.
This desk is where I spent many, many days and nights doing creative work, or during the pandemic, spending time with people online. I got really used to that slanted ceiling!
It sounds so silly, but I can't believe how much time I spent in this one little room, especially over the last 2-3 years of the global pandemic! Some highlights from living at Beatrice:
- The neighbours next door would have screaming matches at least once a month. I knew a lot more about them than I thought I would ever know about my neighbours. When their kid was still a baby, I would get woken up by crying in the middle of the night.
- When anyone used the kitchen, all the heat would go to my room. The top floor was an extra five degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Adding evening meal prep to the evening sun in the summer, and it was like living in an oven
- If I turned on the window a/c, the room would vibrate. The landlord upped the cost of the laundry machines to $3 per wash and per dry after I started using an a/c unit. (Was still worth it!)
- In the summer, I woke up many times with bugs in my bed, from the window in the summer. Usually a beetle or spider.
- In the winter, the walls were so cold the paint would crack. There was no insulation in the house, and I bought a heated blanket, which was the best purchase I made after the a/c unit.
- I had a total of 12 roommates over this whole time of living here, 3 different ones at a time. There was a golden age of living with Celine, Brad and Nathaniel that made me very happy...I have so much love for them. The next best was living with Julie and Roberto, and for a time, Simon.
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| Us at Igor and Celine's Wedding. Igor in the background, to the right |
- I had one roommate who said I typed too loudly....and complained that my phone calls bothered them and they couldn't focus on studying. I got a pad for my chair, and then they complained that my chair still bothered them because it creaked. They also said they wanted to get a cleaner for the house and everyone to pitch in...when they were the messiest person in the house. I also couldn't use the kitchen...because their meal prep took around 2-3 hours per day, and the fridge was always full of vegetables because they need fresh produce all the time.
- I had one roommate who gave everyone the evil eye, and I think was honestly really depressed. They left their hair everywhere, and I regularly did all their dishes. They still gave me the evil eye. When they left, they dumped all their garbage on the lawn, and it got rained upon, leaving a sopping mess. I had to pay for special garbage bags to get rid of the mess they left.
- One roommate had an issue with alcohol, and left in the middle of December for another country. Their car was towed...they just left it on the street when they left Canada. It sat there for over three months.
- The worst time I had was when I couldn't sleep for about six months last year more than 4 hours. One roommate went to bed at 3am, and one got up at 5am. In between this, the people in the basement played drumming around 12am-1am. I invested in very expensive ear plugs, which I learned, were really unpleasant to sleep with.
- I created a really sweet patio set up, and we regularly did really cool Halloween things. One Halloween, a kid asked to come in the house to see it. He said it used to belong to his grandma, and he just wanted to see what it looked like inside one more time.
- The guys in the basement had cats, and one year they moved their cat litter right next to the air vents in the heat of summer. I have never pleaded with someone more over text message to move cat litter for the good of my sanity.
- One year, a large animal died in the wall between the two houses in the middle of a very hot summer. Every time you walked into the kitchen, it smelled like rotting fish for two weeks. The landlord's assistant said just to wait until all the flesh decomposed enough, the smell would go away. (They apparently didn't care that there were animals in the walls)
- I lived right next to a 24 hour grocery store a five minute walk away. One of my favourite things to do (In my early 30s, I could never now) was to walk the store at 1am, and buy a bag of chips, and watch a show until 3am.
Despite all this, this was one of the best places I have ever lived. I previously had been living alone, in two separate basement apartment, both which flooded. This place was a chance to live with people, and find good people, and it turned out really well for me...I made lifelong friends. When I first walked in, I had such a good feeling...and that good feeling turned out to be true. It had a double sink, a dishwasher, and I could live on the top floor, which I happily did.
It wasn't a castle, but it was the next best thing to me. And the rent was cheap, too.
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