Horror

Today I took the day off work to prepare my apartment for the pest controller tomorrow. I went home and see my housemate (who is also my landlord, as I sub-let from him) has just dumped a tonne of his cardboard boxes, overflowing with clothes and junk, in the hallway despite me telling him he has to ziploc everything and throw the boxes away.

His response: "I don't have bed bugs. You do." Ok.

I get to work preparing a clean-area in the kitchen. I've bought about 8 large clip-lock plastic see-through boxes, and put them on the kitchen table. Then I spend my day in my bedroom, getting a book, flicking through it, wiping down the front and back and edges, checking it in the light for eggs, and moving it into the plastic box in the kitchen.

When I'm done I clip the lid on and seal around the edges with sticky tape. Nothing bad inside, and nothing bad can GET inside.

Books: I only found bed bugs in one book for sure. I removed the dust jacket and there were a tonne inside along the edge of the spine. I squished them off and cleaned the whole thing thoroughly, and zip-locked it inside the plastic box just in case. I also was suspicious of a big cookbook I had next to it, because I couldn't tell whether the clear things inside were grains of salt from cooking or eggs. I did that one page by page. I also found a huge squished cockroach between two books. I have NO idea how it got there!!! Crazy. It was kind of funny because it had been killed by a book named "Pimp" :)

I also put ALL the linen that came with the room, and two HUGE curtains into black garbage bags. It took me hours, and many stops, to carry the 8 HUGE bags to the dry cleaners. They took everything. It will cost me a couple hundred bucks but thank heavens I don't have to do it myself.

I get home, my housemate/landlord is there. He has moved my boxes on the balcony to the corner of the balcony. He tells me I will have to get "all the linen in the cupboard that you don't use" in my room done as well. I tell him it's at the dry cleaners.

Oh yeah, so today I called the tenant advisory service of WA to get some free legal advice. They told me that although the legislation says the OWNER of a premises is always the one to sue, because I am sub-letting, in this specific case the landlord / housemate is legally "the owner". So I have to sue my housemate. The lady said I should be able to claim back the dry cleaning costs, but she wasn't sure if I would be able to convince a magistrate to compensate me for the 5 months the bugs have been biting me, or the 2 weeks I've been spending at work.

Something I've only realised in the past few hours though, is that he broke the contract! The law states he must have carried out repairs by 14 days, and it will have been 16 days by the time the exterminators come. That will work in my favor.

Actually, the lady on the phone was also getting nauseous as I explained to her what bed bugs were. She said she'd gotten a very similar call about bed bugs the day before but that she didn't realise what they were like until now.

Now when I told my landlord previously that I was going to sue the owner and why, he said I should. I'm not going to tell him now that I have to sue him instead, because he is violent and I currently fear it's going to escalate into a fight (he is about 3-4x my size though).

Oh, after wrapping some cardboard boxes into black plastic and dumping them in the bins, I came across the building manager. I mentioned that I had bed bugs and he was horrified, he said another person (6 floors below me though) had bed bugs too and was having a horrible time trying to get rid of them. He suggested I call the health department because they're a notifiable problem.

I called the health department of WA, they advised me to call the environmental health department, and they advised me to call the local council environmental health officer. I did that and they said they should be told if the landlord refuses to do anything, or it's a public place, and that they can force them to take care of it, but otherwise don't track the statistics other than they realise they're increasing. However they also knew of the person in my building who had bed bugs! "Oh, we had a similar call from someone in your building a few weeks ago ..."

Back to the story. I'm back home and cleaning, bagging, and storing my things in the kitchen when he comes home. He starts moving the plastic boxes I have put carefully onto the balcony (as per the PCO's instructions to "store our mattresses in black plastic and put them on the balcony". I know it's WRONG but I have to do it otherwise I could be held legally liable for not following instructions). My landlord starts moving my plastic boxes around on the balcony and complaining.

Me: Uh, what's the problem?
Him: I don't want them on my bloody balcony. What's the problem? (sarcastically) Move them onto your balcony.

We have a shared balcony with the bedrooms, and a main balcony on the living room.

Me: I'm leaving my boxes there because it's further from the bugs in my room.
Him: There are no bugs on the balcony.
Me: Some people would think I pay half the rent here, half that balcony is mine.
Him: Don't bloody speak in riddles, say what the hell you mean.
Me: I pay half the rent, half the balcony is mine, I'll put my boxes there.

He grabs my boxes and starts moving them into the kitchen.

Him: Who the bloody hell do you think are you? Half the balcony is yours? F*** you. Who the f*** do you think you are telling me half the balcony is yours? Put them on your balcony. You're a selfish pr*** and I'm sick of your sh**. You reckon half this place is yours but you don't clean anything.
Me: You don't see me cleaning because I don't make messes.
Him: It's not about what mess you make, it's about what you clean. You just stay in your bloody room, don't talk to anyone, don't even have the decency to say Hi or Bye. I'm bloody sick of it. You can move out. I don't want you here. You can move out straight away. Your rent is paid until the 18th, move out then.

I'm staying calm, he is just getting started heating up!

Me: You don't get to tell me when I move out. And you don't get to harass me. This is bordering on harassment. I'll move out when I'm ready. I want to move out.
Him: You should have moved into that last place, don't you think?
Me: I tried but it didn't work.
Him: You should move out now.
Me: I'll move out when I'm ready.

The legislation here explicitly states you can't evict someone without a court order. I can contest that in court. You also can't explicitly evict someone as a result of a complaint they've made (ie: the bed bugs).

Him: You think you can make my life hard? You have no bloody idea. You have no idea what a bastard I can be? You think you're all that.
Me: Stop dude. Stop talking to me.
Him: WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE CALLING ME DUDE? DUDE IS FOR W****** AM I'M NO F****** WANKER. CALL ME BY MY F****** NAME. WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE. YOU CAN MOVE OUT STRAIGHT AWAY!
Me: I'm not going anywhere until I'm ready.

Then I went to my room to resume packing. I was packing things calmly all that time. I called my family to let them know if something happens to me that this guy is going to be responsible for it. My family says I should just move my things home and look for another place. The thing is there really is no room for me there. I'm thinking about doing it anyway, just for a while, because I don't want to have to kill this guy in self defense.

Unfortunately as he hasn't laid a finger on me, I can't go to the police and do anything about it. I can't get a restraining order - we live there!

However, has has just broken two more parts of the legislation which state that a tenant has the right to a peaceful occupancy of the residence, and that a landlord may not harass a tenant.

This is getting bad really fast.

So I'm back at work, ready to sleep again for the night. Tomorrow I have to get up early and finish packing my things ready for the PCO around 3pm. I should have it all done in time. Basically today I did my linen and books, tomorrow I have to do all my bits and pieces and some clothes, then vacuum and throw away the bag.

Oh I wanted to mention some other things too. I noticed some bed bugs brazenly walking around my room while I was cleaning - specifically, on a chipboard plank (part of my book case) I had under my bed, and later it had disappeared and moved onto a cardboard box I was getting ready to throw out. I tested its gripping strength by slamming it against the ground - it held on really well. So I squished him. Then I saw another one walking along the headboard of my bed. I wanted to take a photo but my phone / camera battery had run out, so I let it go. It can die tomorrow. Then I came straight to work - I want to make sure my battery is charged so I can call the police if this guy attacks me.

Also, UV Light results? I finally got a 15W UV light tube, it's about a foot long and cost $30 from eBay. Long story short: not very good for bed bug egg hunting. It's not like the movies, you have to hold the thing fairly close to the surface you're checking and in a really dark environment, and even then if the egg isn't on a dark surface you are likely to miss it.

However, holding the pages of books open directly against the sun was good at spotting anything odd, because they quickly cast long shadows on the pages.

Oh yeah, as I was leaving, he had moved my empty plastic boxes off the kitchen table (my safe zone) and onto the kitchen floor :( Tomorrow I'll have to hand check it all really carefully to make sure nothing has crawled in.

I'm really exhausted, not just breaking my back cleaning today, but dealing with all the stress, being unable to move, violent housemate, having to take him to court, and everything else. ARGH.