On renting

I've lived in my wee apartment for nearly two years now. In the last year I've really come to love it, even though when I renewed my contract I didn't have any intention of staying here past the current annual lease.

A lot has been said about the rental situation in Tel Aviv and its vicinity, and it can be summed up as: "HOLY SHIT, ALL ISRAELI LANDLORDS ARE BIG FAT SLUMLORD ASSHOLES!" I've been hearing horror stories and avoided even the idea of looking for a new place (I wanted to move into Tel Aviv proper) and assumed my rent would go up, which it did. I talked with my landlady a couple of weeks ago and she said she wants to increase it by $50. Doesn't sound like much, but it works out to 25% of my current rent.

I knew I was lucky that it was so little, as my sister told me today that her friends had rents increased by hundreds of dollars with no ability to move out, since the market is so horribly bad, but I was SUPER miffed when the BIG FAT SLUMLORD ASSHOLE left me a message yesterday saying that the increase is going to be $75 dollars, and hey, deal with it. Stupid cow. Did I mention she was a cow? Have I mentioned that any time I've needed something fixed in the apartment (a sum total of TWO things in two years - an unfunctioning hot water heater and a toilet that became dislodged from the floor), she ran me around in fucking circles for weeks until she finally replaced them with the cheapest, ugliest available options? And that in the same conversation where she informed me of the $50 increase, for which I simply turned the other cheek, I asked her to fix the bathtub fixture which has given me THREE second degree burns and is ruining my washing machine and all my clothes because some BIG FAT SLUMLORD ASSHOLE decided to attach the machine pipe to the hot water tap, she said "it isn't my responsibility"? COW.

And now excuse me while I go write out post-dated cheques for the privilege of taking it up the ass...