Well, a lot of our friends and family already know this, but on Wednesday (sometime during the day), our apartment was forcibly broken into and almost everything Alyssa owned (in terms of jewelry) and some electronic shit was stolen.

This includes the necklace and earrings Alyssa wore on our wedding day, her class rings, her costume jewelry, her great-grandmother's gold watch (from the 30's), some of her grandmothers antique (circa 1950's) jewelry, the rings I gave Alyssa while we have dated, etc. I basically just lost my iPod that Alyssa gave me for my 23rd birthday, but I have also lost my piece of mind about this apartment.

The landlord, from the first day has been dragging his feet, first saying, "Oh, just get a locksmith in to fix the lock" and it took me insisting that the door and door frame is seriously screwed up (and sending pictures to get him to send his handman to come see it Thursday. He originally suggested I pay the a locksmith and he would pay me back... yeah... 1) like I want to be strapped with paying for his repairs and wait until he gets around to paying me back, 2) I don't just want a fixed lock, things are really really screwed up!

Alyssa and I worried that George would drag his feet (as he tends to do with most repairs - they get done, but maybe after a month or two... sure we never had anything serious, but still). Alyssa went ahead and called in a city housing inspector. So yesterday afternoon, when working from home, Inspector Holmes (seriously, that is his name) came by and looked at it. We need to have the entire right side of the door frame replaced, the lock, the striker, the striker plate, a few plates and such on the hardware, etc. Basically everything but the door itself and the hinge. That is just to bring it up to code.

George's man, Chester, came by while Inspector Holmes was there and had the same opinion of what needed to be changed. The inspector told him that those needed to be done within the next couple days (if not yesterday, really) and that this unit needed a Carbon monoxide detector within 24 hours (which was... well, 24 hours ago from the moment I am now writing this blog post). Chester then slapped the old lock back on with big screws (which is more of a paper lock with that cracked door frame).

Fast forward to last night - George was furious that we even called in an inspector (although it was fully within our legal rights) and wanted to talk about our continued lease (I mentioned in an email on Wednesday that our continued lease is contingent on us having a safe and secure door). The way he sounded was as if he was more than happy to kick us to the curb... I merely meant that we wouldn't be coming back in September. Well, now, since George is not really being compliant (even though I am home from work today to keep the place secure, but it doesn't look like I will have a doorframe until (at earliest) Monday, from the message Chester called in this morning).

I left a message for the inspector about what has been going down. Just working until I hear back from him.

To add insult to injury - the estimated value of our stolen jewelry is over $3000, but the renters insurance only covers up to $500 on jewelry. We were in the process of getting our renters insurance rolled over for June 1st, in another company, with specific riders on specific pieces of jewelry... but that is moot now. The only remote hope is that some of the pieces will show up in Boston-area pawn sheets and we go down with the police to identify the items (one by one).

So that sucks.

Just throught you all ought to know.