I feel like i'm constantly on my last life. I don't want to be home anymore. My depression has slowly started getting worse and worse as the months go by.
My boyfriend (M21) and I (NB20) moved into our first place back in Feburary. We moved an hour and a half away from home to have a slower pace of life where we could transfer our jobs. Now we're trapped in a lease with the worst neighbors attached to the duplex downstairs.
Every day i'm breaking down crying. Having sensory overloads because of varying neighbors, feeling disgusting in my own home, a stench from below that's eye watering, and paranoid bugs are crawling on me. They're everywhere.
When we moved in, the real estate lady told us that they'd clean up the place but were waiting for a person to sign on. Nothing really stuck out. A weird smell that we thought might be the old tenants dog. A smell promised to be ridded of. Dead lady bugs everywhere. Because of the recent cold months- not a sign of a true infestation. But otherwise a normal place with expected wear. For our budget of 1k+utilities we didn't expect a spotless, crackless, perfect home. Those promises were not kept. We moved into the same exact condition when we arrived.
They rushed us into signing the lease... We weren't ready but felt FOMO... Within 2 weeks of seeing the house we signed the lease and were moving in.
First it was water leaking downstairs. The faucet and handlebar falling off of the shower/bath exposed water inside of the walls. Water leaked into the downstairs unit like crazy. We couldn't shower for a week. They just caulked it up. The caulk has already come back up. We bought our own and kept patching it so we can bathe.
Then, they had to redo all of the pipes in the laundry.... closet. If even AND bathroom. It took all day. But water continued to flood downstairs anyways.
Our trash cans were ignored for 3 consecutive weeks. We didn't know what to do with trash... But thankfully, my boyfriend and I don't go through a lot and are clean people. We called up the city multiple times until they started collecting our garbage. Confusing us with my disgusting neighbors who scatter trash all over the yard, have overflowing bins outside of city guidelines (so they don't get collected), throw trash in our bins, and are the source of the smell.
One night, while shit faced drunk, the cabinets that were installed before we arrived fell off the wall. They were mounted to straight dry wall. No support beams. Same with the TV mount. We mounted our own in replacement... waited weeks before a matience man came to fix the cabinets. He had my boyfriend fucking help him do his job. I cried, holding up these heavy cabinets while my boyfriend tried to drill the screws out. We eventually had to slowly tear it off the wall because these screws went to NOTHING.
The central heating/air does not work. The thermostat doesn't even have batteries. We use the wall mounted units. They're disgusting with a black film over them that we can't seem to clean no matter how hard we try. I notified them and they told us to keep cleaning it anyways. They don't send replacement filters... but the units themselves are dirty anyways. It's always so hot... even with them all on at full blast
And the bugs. Oh my god the bugs.
I'm losing my mind. It was very gradual. They slowly came up. One by one. We killed them, sprayed, and called pest control. This was before they were everywhere. Then... a month goes by... then two more weeks... and they're bold. On our couch, kitchen table, our computer desks... They're crawling along the walls in the shower. They come out of the facuets and the cracks of the walls. When I turn on the shower, at least 3 roaches splat out into the tub with the water.
Now they jump on me when I bathe. I can't shower without one appearing on my shoulder. They crawl into our food. We threw away all of our pantry... Which we keep sealed. They're in my cat food. The fucking cat food. I keep breaking down crying because they end up inside the cat food container and under their fish tray. I took my laptop with me to my favorite coffee shop and two crawled out of my fucking laptop. They're all over our silverware. I'm cleaning the black gunk they leave from the sorting tray every week.
And so so much more. So much overwhelming overtake of bugs. They've sprayed twice now but it does nothing.
And it's all my neighbors fault.
We're attached to them in a duplex unit. The neighbors are awful. They're trashy. They have 3 dogs. 12 cats. They do not let the dogs outside. The bug man said that they had literal dog shit on the walls. The plumber said that when they went to check the washing machine for leaks downstairs, the connector to their unit made him winded from the stench. They have 3 kids who were taken by defax 2 weeks ago. They fight. All the time. They're so loud. They have a disabled elderly woman. This is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath, TINY duplex. About ~600ft. It's plenty full with my boyfriend and our 2 cats.
We can see inside. Their windows have been destroyed and they've ductaped literal children's books to block the gaps. It smells so bad when we walk by on the staircase. We can always see inside the bathroom and feel so uncomfortable. 3 CHILDREN live in there. The eldest is barely 5 years old. We always look the other way. The doors inside lean against the walls, broken off from their hinges. They have various things scattered around the floors and the front porch is loaded with trash... bagged and not.
They block the drive way. We squeeze our cars every day because we have to park behind the building... but they park beside it... Instead of in the back where we all 3 fit. Street parking not permitted. Their car is filled with trash. Their car mats are a strange, brown, dirty, sticky color laying in the yard. They are just... disgusting people.
And we try so hard to keep it clean but no matter what we do... the bugs come back. I made ramen one afternoon, checked the pot, no bugs. When I finished making the ramen... a cockroach was ontop of my ramen boiled and dead. It crawled in WHILE COOKING.
I've struggled with SH and depression my whole life. I'm medicated for this sort of thing. I've been put on a 10-13 once. And sometimes I fantasize about going back just to get away from feeling so gross. I see everything and shut down. Messes start to pile up... laundry, dishes- so the bugs LOVE the sink. I'm ALWAYS SPRAYING THE FUCKING SINK!!!! It's all too much for me. I get tired. I sleep through the day after work. I've been tip toe-ing around it all. Occasional bursts of mania keeping the house afloat. But i'm at a breaking point.
I'm barely functional anymore. All I can do is work and sleep. My appetite is failing me. I day dream about dying to escape this hell. I feel so trapped in this lease. And I was okay with the hardships of a shitty house as a first time renter. But these bugs... I have to discard my book shelf. They live inside the wood. Our nightstand... They've entirely taken it over. We don't keep things in there. My boyfriend sees me struggling and helps me through it all. He takes such good care of me and I try my hardest for him. But I cannot live like this anymore. This place is going to kill me. I'm going to relapse. I'm going to freak out on someone. I'm so NOT OKAY and I hate my neighbors so much. It's one thing my landlord abused my naivety but for my neighbors to destroy my things, break down my resilience, defile my safe space after escaping my household.... I hate them. I hate them. I hate them!!!!