My Fourth Place in London (a retrospective)

First of all, I'd like to wish a happy new year to my legions of readers. Hopefully by this time next year, I'll be writing from a civilized country.

I left off with being evicted from a place in North London by some deeply religious Jews. So after we were illegally evicted, I stayed in a bed and breakfast for a few days while looking for another place to live. It was ok, but expensive.

I decided that I wanted to get out of London. But I didn't have enough money to properly leave this shit city. So the furthest I got was Wembley. It's a borrough in a western suburb of London.

But this was no white picket fence, good schools, and low estate tax suburb as one sees in so many Hollywood depictions of America. This place was as shit as anything I saw in London, but instead of Muslims or Jews, the place was full of South Asians. Indians, basically but after living here for a while I realized that there's actually a big Sri Lankan population as well.

And indeed, the horrible place I found was full of guys from Sri Lanka. Five of them. Packed in a little run down apartment over a Wilkinson's (a shitty retail store).

There's just so much I can say, it's difficult to think where to begin. Well, the place was infested. Both cockroaches and mice had a home here. Also, the shower didn't work for the first three months or so that I was there. Had to bathe using a little bucket that was in the bathroom. Also, the hot water didn't really work.

Perhaps it's best to just leave it at that. I can't possibly do this place justice (nor any of the other shit London places I've lived in). Let's just say it was truly awful.

As for my roommate, he was reasonably ok. Guy from Sri Lanka, of course. Then he went to Bermuda for some reason. But he had a curious habit.

About a month before going to Bermuda, he bought a laptop. Previously, he was using some ancient desktop computer. I didn't have a computer so I used his maybe three times to check my email. Three times in the 3 months or so that I was there. And I always asked him first.

But when he bought this laptop, he always placed sheets of paper over the keyboard. It was an attempt to get me not to use it. If he was that worried about it, all he had to do was say "if you need to use the computer, please use the desktop computer" and that would have been clear enough. But instead he put sheets of paper over this laptop's keyboard. What an insane security measure. And obviously quite rude.

So yeah, then he went to Bermuda. And I had the room to myself for about a month. Well, I still shared with the mice I guess. Oh, and the bedbugs. I didnt mention that. I would wake up with bug bites. Always nice.

There was also a really obnoxious gay Indian guy who moved in about a month after I did. He would come on to me and he was really aggressive and just bizarre. I think this is another thing that I'll just leave. I can't possibly describe it.

I suppose I'll leave it at that. My next post will be dedicated entirely to the roommate I got after this guy from Sri Lanka left. A real asshole who deserves his own entry.

So yeah, I paid £50/week to live in this dive. Inclusive of bills and vermin.