To replace things in their context, just let me tell you that I’m still homeless. I was supposed to move in my new place last week end, but I got to learn that the landlord decided not to make me sign the contract.
My friend, who could have been my flatmate, being travelling at the moment, it’s been a couple of days that I’m squatting in her room. I’m alone in the apartment at the 7th floor of a wealthy building, in the maid rooms corridor.
It’s in this apartment that this morning, as I was barely awake, something pretty stunning happened.
I was heading to the kitchen for my morning coffee, when I heard a noise of water pouring in the shower. I checked out the bathroom door : locked. No one but me slept there that night, and it’s impossible to open the entrance door from outside.
As a matter of facts, a total stranger was taking a shower in my bathroom.
Pretty pissed off, I took my breakfast anyway, waiting for the stranger to be done with his shower, and to show up.
Fifteen minutes later, it’s girl, barely older than me, who got out of the bathroom. I guess we looked as surprised as each other…
Embarrassed, she explained to me in what I figured to be an eastern Europe accent, that she’s the neighbour. Since she has no shower in her apartment, my friend Anne, tenant of the apartment, gave her the keys for her to come in the morning and have her daily toilet.
What could have been my apartment...
Made me ponder all along the day… How are you supposed to manage, not to live with a shower in your apartment? Especially when your apartment stands at the 7th floor without a lift?!
We happened to pass by in the stairwell tonight, and to have a longer chat about our surprising morning meeting.
This girl, actually from Russia, turned out to be actually nice. Arrived in France two years ago, she studied in a quite good business school where she got graduated, before getting a position in finance within a big industrial group.
As she’s a foreigner, and despite her rather brilliant background, she even struggled getting the shitty apartment she rents : 9m², 7th floor without lift, no shower, 400€/month.
What really struck me, is what the landlord told, while she was visiting the apartment for the first time, and asked about the shower lacking.
He actually answered that there is a public swimming pool in the neighbourhood, where she could consider to satisfy her basic hygiene needs…
Of course I was totally stunned.
But this, my friends, is Paris.
Behind the Eiffel tower, the Champs Elysées and Montmartre, life sucks.
For the anecdote, this s** o* a b*** of landlord, could actually have been mine. And I must say that I’m glad, not to pay him a single cent for his crap.
As I always say : everything happens for the best!
Finally, among this heap of shit, I finally found an apartment. I’ll live alone, in a 18m². Of course, it’ll be in a creepy neighbourhood. But at least, I’ll have a real place, and proper washing machine! ;)
The 7th floor apartment prehistoric washing machine...
I look forward to be home, somewhere…
