I�d maneuvered my sedan with attached trailer through a narrow gate into a slim alleyway off a side street, all while driving backwards. Your average Teamster would have scoffed at my accomplishment, but I allowed myself a certain sense of pride, given the general irregularity of my recent vehicular encumbrance.

The recently arrived ruemate had acquired the services of the freight elevator while I hurriedly emptied the contents of my trailer. But trading one hitch for another, the landlord arrived with trouble in tow.

Almost upon sight, they began to argue, suggesting a tradition of tension between them.

At this point, I was fully and completely aware that a bad sign had manifested itself. His greeting to me consisted of �who the fuck are you?�, illustrating an unexpected yet unavoidable friction, and his instantaneous clash with my ruemate hinted at the sorted history that was about to taint my living situation.

The landlord was a hard-nosed little bastard with the head of a sixty-year-old and the body of a middle-aged bouncer. His face was mean, caught in a perpetual scowl that illustrated his eternally tense personality.

Rumor had him running from the Nazis when he was a young boy in Poland, eventually landing in either Israel or Russia before immigrating to a prosperous future in the States. From my perspective, his determined scowl seemed puppet-like, and when combined with his spiky white hair and vacant stare, he seemed more Muppet then man.

They seemed content to war amongst themselves, but without warning their argument suddenly focused on me with each trying various tactics to gain my understanding. His attack began slow and easy, appealing to my sense of logic while she countered with rude and belligerent exclamations.

�Look, I don�t know who you are, and I have nothing against you, but you can�t move in my building.�

�That�s bullshit. I can have anyone I want move in. That�s bullshit, don�t listen to him.�

The ruemate, with either feigned or real ignorance, was apparently unversed in the basics of rental law. Even I was aware that the right of subletting, unless specifically granted in a rental contract, falls under the prerogative of the landlord, and thus approval or disapproval can fall at his whimsy without justification.

However, the large majority of tenants in the building had someone subletting a portion of their space to help cover costs, and it could hardly be assumed that any of them were �approved� prior to their habitation. It was obvious that, while within his legal rights, he was hassling the ruemate intentionally.

But the question was why? It was apparent that I�d somehow involved myself in something complicated, and the landlord�s special interest in the ruemate�s affairs inspired a nauseating unease.

Seeing that his logical tact wasn�t making any headway into the impasse, he turned unexpectedly nasty, telling me that I was trespassing on his property and that I should leave immediately. His temper becoming shorter and shorter, he added that I had no right to park my car in his lot overnight, again encouraging me to leave in harsh tones before storming off to the rental office.

The ruemate expressed exasperation over the landlord�s behavior, adding that he�s �usually not like this�, a statement I could hardly believe to be true. She then ruffled her feathers and stomped after him, leaving me alone in an alleyway with all of my things spread out like some kind of yard sale.

My furniture was idle in the driveway, four floors from my supposed home, and my stomach was turning amid all the excitement, and what followed was a terse two hour stagnation.

A Mexican standoff, sans Mexicans.

I waited with my things, sitting in the back of the trailer with aims at unraveling what had transpired. With my limited knowledge and the ruemate�s propensity towards dishonesty, it was apparent that there were things that I wasn�t being told, and it was now obvious that the relationship between my apartment and the landlord was less then harmonious.

She claimed that she�d been there almost two years already, living alone, but rarely at the apartment. I found it hard to believe that a person could develop such an acidic relationship in two years of casual habitation, thus casting serious doubts on her professional and personal character. What seemed more likely to me was that she had a history of being a pain in the ass, thus inspiring the venomous reaction from the landlord.

There�s nothing good about associating yourself with a pain in the ass, and now I was almost officially living with her.

The ruemate returned occasionally to update me on the standoff, offering a repeated apology for the difficulties I was experiencing.

I desperately wanted to walk away from the whole thing, but logistically, I had no other options at my disposal. Acting on good faith, I had a trailer full of my things with no other place in which to store them. I suppose I could have backed out and rented a storage locker somewhere while continuing my apartment search, but that seemed even more painful then the current situation.

There was also the matter of the $1000 security deposit I�d already tendered, given the recent turn of events, its return could be questioned. It seemed that I was, for better or worse, committed to this catastrophe.

Fast approaching the three-hour mark, the ruemate returned with a peace settlement. In return for a rental application and credit check, I would be permitted to move in.

As I was hauling my stuff into the freight elevator she repeatedly expressed her regrets over the credit check and rental application, but I didn�t see any logical reason to oppose either. Perhaps a person with a history of fraud and delinquency might be frustrated by this, but I�d always paid my bills...

and as time would soon prove, only one of us could say that.