I am making astonishingly good progress on scanning my files!  I’m taking a quick break to share this letter I wrote to my property managers from several years ago.  I never sent it because I knew when I moved out I needed to be on relatively good terms with them when I insisted they give me my full refund, but I was really irritated with them when I wrote this letter.

July 21, 2006

InterWest Properties

Portland, OR

To Whom it May Concern;

Thank you for your concern regarding the safety of your tenants (or more accurately: your concern for your liability insurance rates). This concern is evident in your request for the removal of the bicycle depending from a hook in the stairwell written and postmarked on 7/11/06 and which was received on 7/14/06 (sadly ,the day I went camping for the weekend). The bike was removed this morning (the tenth day) around 11:30am. I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that the decision to place the bike on said hook was not thoughtlessly contrived nor implemented.

Let me demonstrate this by first explaining the reasoning that led to its placement. Since there is no adequate place to store my bicycle it has been propped up against various items. If I want to open the window, I have to move the bike into the dining room. If I want into one of the cabinets in the dining room, I have to move the bike into the living room. Someone wants to sit at the end of the couch, so we move the bike against the sliding glass door. We want to be out on the deck, we must move the bike again. I do not want to store the bike on the deck (per the suggestion in your letter) where it will get wet and rusty (which is not recommended for safe riding) as well as detract from our enjoyment of the deck. Combine this nuisance with the serious problem of carrying the bicycle down the stairs if I want to ride it. First I have to navigate it around the dining room and out the door, then somehow down the steps. I am grateful I only fell down the last three steps the last time I tried it. I was far more frightened by falling than really hurt (a few bruises on a shin), but spent the rest of the afternoon conjuring up visions of what could have happened had I tripped at the top of the stairs. I concluded I needed a more efficient and safe way to store the bike and get it downstairs.

I purchased a hardware hook, certified to hold up to 75 pounds (more than twice the weight of the bike), an eyelet to ensure the bike could be locked up against theft, and a length of rope (certified for up to 150 pounds/foot). I took the time to find the wooden beams in the ceiling and wall before I installed the hooks. These hooks were not installed over the second floor landing, nor the stairs. Passage past these hooks was in no way impeded, rendering the claim of “fire-hazard” unnecessary and inaccurate. I had no qualms whatsoever in the security of the bike and was completely confident that it would not (“god-forbid”) fall onto anyone on the first floor. I am more worried that I will fall through the weak floor in my bathroom onto the downstairs neighbors.

Speaking of the downstairs neighbors . . . We have taken to referring to one of them as “GodDammIt” since he seems compelled to yell it repeatedly throughout the day – although he is not limited to that phrase, nor the “day.” He likes to yell at two in the morning at his video games. Or at 11pm in the evening while throwing his bike around in the parking lot. Or yelling “Cunt” or “bitch” at another neighbor – who is male and doesn’t deserve either invective. I particularly enjoy when GodDammIt decides to rearrange the walls and plumbing downstairs at midnight – or that’s what it sounds and feels like with the walls and bathroom fixtures shaking in concert with his bellowing. When his tantrums become too much to bear we have found that simply yelling incoherently and jumping up and down on the floor quickly quiets him down. I have been pleasantly surprised to find that when GodDammIt gets really aggressive and demonstrative, the Hispanic families in our complex call for reinforcements and a pickup truck full of young men arrive shortly to glower their disapproval at him.

Anyway, back to the bicycle. With this method of storage removed as an option, I have decided that I don’t want to mess with it in my apartment anymore and am giving it to friends to store for the time being. So, now you don’t have to worry about anybody getting hurt. I had thought of storing it in the closets supposedly available to us in the laundry room. But since my request for a key to the laundry room was never honored I don’t want to put it where I might not get it. Which reminds me! I am impressed with the two reminder calls I received regarding this issue. Your office sure is on top of this! It just amazes me because I left four messages regarding the key to the laundry room before I finally actually got to talk to Tina about it. And even after my second reminder call to her, I have never received it. I am sorely tempted to disregard your request and messages just as mine have been disregarded.

This reminds me of the car that has been “disregarded” in the parking lot. It has never been moved (or even entered?) since we moved in to our apartment in January. I thought it had an interesting camouflage interior material until my roommates drew my attention to the fact that it is an incredible growth of mildew on every surface that lends it that splotchy look. The dust covered cobwebs shrouding it attest to its neglect.

Speaking of neglect, I’m reminded of the child we refer to as “Naked Knife Boy” who lives across the parking lot on the second floor. He looks to be about three years old and is often on the deck in only his diaper with a pen knife carving on the deck railing. He is very friendly and likes to talk and share disturbing information such as “rat poop is not food” and a story which has subsequently led us to discreetly referring to his parent as “Scat Porn Mom”.

Porn reminds me, too, of the guy who sells Goodwill gems to anyone he can talk to off the street. We call him “The Guy Who Doesn’t Want to Sleep With Carrie”. He likes talking to pretty young women. Don’t get him wrong, he loves his wife and doesn’t want to sleep with you, but he likes their pretty smiles. He lives in my building, too. Next door to “Ferret Camero Kid!” We’ve never seen him, but you know he’s around because of the unmistakable stench of ferret. My neighbor shared with us that we wouldn’t want to use the laundry room after he was there because of the huge amount of cockroaches and other bugs attracted to his filth and your laundry smelled like ferret when it came out of the dryer.

Anyway, talking about the laundry room has reminded me that, those same neighbors gave me a key to the laundry room (since you never did) and I went down to check out my storage closet. It was full of stuff and padlocked closed. I called your offices numerous times and sent letters, but you never did anything about it, either. I can only assume you were guarding the safety of whomever it was that used my storage closet the five years I lived there.

Thanks for your concern!”

I have finished chapters 6-8 in Organize Now!, which coincides well with the blog-iverse trend of organizing our paperwork and/or offices this month.   Chapter 6 was regarding Finances (see my previous post), 7 is Bill Paying Systems (also taken care of along with 6), and 8 is Receipts & Taxes.  We are fortunate in that our taxes are pretty straight forward.  We have taken care to track and keep the paperwork the last few years for our free lance work, but neither one of us has made any significant money to be taxed or to exceed our standard deductions.  Even last year won’t be too bad with my and Robin’s hospital stay since we spent less than the minimum needed.  So, from reviewing last years taxes, I think this year we’ll only need three folders:

1. Expenses – for items that might be deductible (medical bills, child care) and insurance explanation of benefits
2. Income – to verify against our W2s, etc).
3. To Pay – for those bills that are still mailed to us (everything else is automated).

I keep these in a Longaberger Sort and Store desktop basket (Which is being retired soon.) along with my notepad for letter drafts (I write a rough draft of all my letters and notes because my spelling and handwriting are horrible!!); note cards, stamps, and (coming soon!) Project Life cards.

Next up in the Organize Now! book are:

Week 9: Organize Your Files – I am working on it! I have a lot of weird miscellaneous stuff to go through and scan or just finally DO, but I have the bulk of it taken care of.

Week 10: Organize Your Magazines and Newspapers – We don’t get newspapers at all and we get three magazines total and they are all organized already (my two magazines are on my scrapbooking shelf and the husband passes his off to his father).

Week 11: Organize Your Email and Social Media – This is also done already.  I keep these things in check pretty constantly.

Week 12: Organize Your Mail – Also done! We don’t get much mail and I am very good at opening, sorting and dealing with the mail right away.

SO, after taking care of my files, I’ll be moving on to the section “Organize Your Things” where I’ll be working on organizing Robin’s toys, then my crafts and photographs.  There are other “Things”, but these three things alone are going to take me a LOOOONNNGG time.  Heck, the scrapbooking shelf has already been a big project for some time now…  But, I’m excited to be able to mark it off!!

I thought I’d jot down my plans for the scrapbooking shelf reorganizing!
I’d like these photo boxes to go with the green notebooks, etc, or come up with a complementary color. I’m also not thrilled with how my off sized albums are fitting.

This is the “big sized paper” shelf and I’d like to cover a box to put it all in. Then an open paper divider for the papers one shelf down can sit on top of it.

I’d like the pen drawers to be white, but … meh. Those papers on the left will go up a shelf.

Paper labels are going to cover the drawer fronts and that’s all that’s changing here!

Prettier boxes will store my vintage articulation card collection and stamps and supplies.

And then I’ll put up some framed photos and be all done! 🙂

Another free, easy project I did this week was to make my magazine holders look prettier.

Here’s the before:

And after!

As part of my scrapbooking bookshelf revamp, I had some ugly notebooks I wanted to prettify. I picked a green fabric to complement the folders I made of Robin’s medical information.

I sewed vinyl on the back to create a pocket for labels to go. I think they turned out pretty good!

Check out this link for my step-by-step directions!

I’m linking this to my first ‘party’ ever!

UPDATE: Only use the vinyl along the spine – it sticks to itself on the bookshelf or in stacks and makes it a pain putting them back on the shelf!