So the wacky landlord is back in town, creating all sorts of bizzare hassles. You know, it seemed so easy when I moved here: go to housing agency, find place, hand over money, wait a few months and then I’m gone. What I didn’t realize is that the guy I ended up renting from is functionally unemployed or something — when I moved in, he told me he was going to Berlin for a job, which I assumed would last the four-to-five months I was renting the place. Turns out the job lasted two weeks or so, and I guess he just wants help with the rent for the rest of the time.

I moved in around the middle of January, and he left a few days later, only to show up again at the beginning of February. He stayed for a week, living on a couch of a friend in the same apartment building, although he came to his own place to shower, cook and clean clothes — and in the process, ended up breaking the washing machine. (And I’m not, at this point, even going to get into the whole mess that developed from that; suffice it to say that I’m still ticked off about it lo these many weeks later.)

This past Friday, I’m opening the door to leave the place when the doorbell rings, giving me just enough time to begin formulating curses in my head before I see him. For this sojourn in the Hanseatic Harbour, I find out over the weekend, he’s actually moving back into the apartment; he didn’t want to “wear out his welcome” on his friend’s couch. Granted, he’s cutting my rent in half for the week he’ll be here, but, see, if I wanted a friggen’ roommate, I woulda ordered one. And it’s not even a roommate situation, actually: That I could probably handle. It’s more like being a houseguest of somebody I don’t really know, in a place that, despite the fact I’m paying half the rent, is his.

The guy’s leaving next Saturday, he says, but plans on coming back for a week at the end of the month, as well as intermittently during April. He’s gracious enough to let me break the lease at the end of March, if I so desire, meaning I’d have to find another place for about six weeks. So now I have to decide if the irritation of him eating my food and yapping at me every time I sit down to read is high enough for me to actually try moving.

Or I could just kill him in his sleep. There’s always options