New Residence

It seems my attempts at domestic normality have failed miserably. I lasted one week and got myself kicked out of my residence by my crazy landlady. To be fair, it's not my fault but it may be a sign that I am not yet meant to truly settle and should continue to live in hostels, hotels and beach-side bungalows... Or maybe it's the family curse of horrible landlords continued in the next generation. Either way, I am no longer in my little garage room and I'm not actually very surprised. I had moved in knowing that the landlady was crazy, but I was thinking more along the lines of potentially amusing crazy as opposed to the under-medicated psycho crazy that she turned out to be. I had seen the signs coming for a while and although our initial meeting had been fine, looking back there had been problems even before I'd completely moved in.
I'd been getting notes on my table in my room from her throughout the week accusing me of one rule infraction or another, usually involving cleanliness that could not have been me in the first place. Ok, I know I'm not exactly the cleanest person in the world but how can you say that I was not cleaning up my dishes and putting them away when I'd used 2 knives all day to make some sandwiches and they were drying on the dish rack? Or that I was spitting toothpaste all over the shower (who brushes their teeth in the shower), the bathroom walls, mirror, etc when I hadn't brushed my teeth in 2 days? I rarely saw her because of my work schedule but when I did she would have some sort of comment about me needing to follow the rules or I'd be kicked out. So, a week after I moved in, just after getting a note that I was no longer allowed to use the kitchen table but would have to eat in my room at my own table because of space issues (not that I ever ate at a normal hour when other people were around) I was sitting at the kitchen table reading my book waiting for my pasta to boil when she came in a started chewing me out for 1. sitting at the table, and 2. for not turning on the stove fan while cooking. I knew I was supposed to use the fan, but the windows were open and the fan was industrial-strength loud and I didn't want to disturb anyone for a relatively harmless cooking of pasta noodles. It turned out to be the last straw, she came back a few minutes later to tell me to leave asap. I said I'd need a few days to sort stuff and she granted me a few days until a few minutes later she came back again and started telling me to leave by the following morning because I was a perverted creep spying on her through the bathroom keyhole! To say I was baffled is the understatement of the year. Up until this point I had though she was just mistaken and being anal about her rules but this was ridiculous on a few immediate grounds. 1. Nobody in their right mind, valuing their eyesight would ever spy on her, and 2. there is no keyhole in the bathroom door!
After a week of abuse I finally felt compelled to defend myself and could not even open my mouth to utter a protest before I was accused of more and my time to move out shrunk to “immediately”. As some of you know, I do like to argue and rile people up so once it became obvious that she was insane and that I wouldn't be staying any longer than the time it took to eat and then pack, I definitely tried to make the most of my opportunity to piss her off some more. I was in control emotionally, getting kicked out is not the worst event in the world and I cycled between totally baffled to amused and entertained to worried as every few minutes for the next hour or two she came in to utter new insults, accusations and threats and make sure I was packing to leave. She'd told me before she'd had to throw a few boarders out with the help of the police so I was torn between calling her bluff and having the cops show up or making a run for it before I was arrested for whatever stupid unprovable, thus undefendable crime she accused me of. I have little down how my word would look compared to hers in their eyes. Unless she actually had a psych eveluation or failed a drug test I doubt I could win, especially considering I was also beginning to suspect she wasn't actually crazy at all but coldly calculating and trying to stir me up and get me to do something stupid so she could actually bust me. Her accusations had by this time escalated to theft, threats upon her person and even assault was mentioned once or twice (this as she was actually physically hitting me in the chest and threatening to put her heel through my bare foot) and she had a couple show up as guests very conveniently just before I was actually supposed to leave and were at their most heated. I could hear her perfectly normal and entertaining them in the house and then she'd come to the back and go off on me like a total nutjob a minute later (of course where they couldn't see). She gave me back most of my money that I'd paid in advance except for about $40 that she kept after accusing me of stealing a tv remote that never existed in the first place. Had she been a taxi driver.... But I decided not to try to kill her and get out of there before she hurt herself and had me arrested for assault because I wouldn't put it past her to do something like that. It seemed like a lot of effort to go to to scam me out of $40 after a week but I can't help but think there was some sort of scam element attempt in the whole thing. I've certainly heard enough stories from other backpackers in Australia of scams from jobs and landlords all over the place to know that there is a very significant element of the population here that is taking advantage of the tourists.
My biggest regret ended up being that I had gone shopping earlier in the day for more food so I was out on the street with my backpacks full and an additional 5 shopping bags full of all sorts of other crap that I have right now. I have to do some serious culling before I leave this country. As I was standing on the street work called me and asked if I wanted to do night shift again at 11pm. I'd been doing night shift for a few days in a row and had suspected that I was going to get a call so, it being about 8pm I just walked over to work, threw all my stuff in a locker and worked until 7am and once finished staggered my way over to the closest and cheapest hostel to go start the dorm life again....

Ammon